The Art of Gaining and Retaining Customers

As classical mass advertising is losing effectiveness to generate revenues marketingmanagers attach importance to alternative methods to gain and retaincustomers. In particular sales promotion activities are popular to give prospectcustomers an incentive to buy whereas the relationship approach aimsat establishing a long-lasting bond between provider and customer. In orderto find out whether these tendencies provoke the desired actions a surveyamong German consumers was conducted investigating their attitude towardsdetermined marketing tools and each tool's impact on the purchasedecision-making process. The existing deal-proneness towards the promotiontools samples coupons premiums loyalty cards and sweepstakes and theirability to provoke purchase and re-purchase was examined. Further this researchstates possibilities to connect short-term activities with the long-rangingrelationship approach and is therefore of high value for marketing managerand consultants company management lectures and students of businessand media & communication studies; as well as for everyone who is curiousto know which promotion tool is the German's favourite one.