The Benefits of Relationship Marketing in Events

According to Kelley et al (1983) a relationship is having an impact on one another. Sheaves and Barnes (1996) further describe a relationship as an interaction. Building a relationship between the event and attendee is essential in the events industry as this controls the individuals level of interaction at an event.

In order to understand how the impact of relationship marketing within the events industry, I looked at Baron et al (2010) key themes of relationship marketing. He stated that there are six themes of relationship marketing:

1. RM as a new type of marketing


2. Relationships as networks


3. The Benefits of RM


4. The Components of a Successful Relationship


5. Contexts of RM


6. Stages of relationship

Based on Baron et al (2010) findings I have decided to further analyses the benefits that relationship marketing brings to the events industry.

Firstly an obvious benefit that relationship marketing brings is that it is less expensive to retain an existing customer than attracting a new one. This has a major impact of the events company as they are able to have less expenditure for their marketing costs due to having fewer platforms to promote and advertise the event to attract new customers.  Therefore the longer the relationship continues the more profitable the relationship is for the organisation.

A major benefit that relationship marketing brings is that it creates loyal customers.  Loyalty is key in the business environment as loyal customers, are likely to recommend your business to others. Within context of the events industry, customers will be happy to invite colleagues and clients to your event as they trust the company. This feeling of trust between the organiser and client will also lead to the customer being willing to attend other events that you hold. A loyal customer will also give the organiser beneficial feedback as they are willing to you any problems about the events they have attended, and this will enable to the events company to improve.

It can be suggested that loyalty is formed through relationship marketing creating an event brand. This is due to relationship marketing creating a bond between the brand and consumer. An example of effective event brands are: the Olympic Games, Formula 1 and FIFA. These examples show the link between event brand and sporting events.

Overall I believe that relationship marketing brings a range of benefits to the events industry, as it creates brand loyalty from the customers. An events company can have many benefits from compelling relationship marketing within their organisation.