Keys to relationship marketing

Camping Magazine, Nov-Dec, 1994 by David A. Hilliard

How do we make camp a vital rather than a discretionary component of children's education and development? How do we open access to the massive and largely untapped middle market that exists between private camps' predominantly affluent consumer and the religious and non-profit camps' largely subsidized consumer?

Who are our potential partners in strategic alliances... the schools, day care, alternative experience providers, one another? How do we forestall or guide regulation so its impact is benign?

Who shall be the local, regional, and national suppliers to the industry to provide unparalleled quality, fair and competitive pricing, and consistent delivery to the industry's leading strategic alliances?

The answers to these questions will be found by those who:

* are willing to enter into strategic alliances,

* embrace marketing activities directed toward win-win relationships, and

* respond effectively to consumer needs or demands.

Strategic alliances/Relationship marketing

William Finnie, a St. Louis business consultant, says there have been three waves of marketing in the United States. The first two, mass marketing, and market segmentation and positioning, focused on achieving individual sales.

Finnie and others identify the third wave as relationship marketing, which they consider a basic restructuring of the practice and process of marketing. Rather than creating one sale or even brand loyalty, its focus is to establish a customer for life.

John Muir said, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." Muir was talking about nature, but he could have been talking about relationship marketing.

Successful relationship marketing involves more than the ultimate producer or consumer of a product or service. It includes select suppliers, staff, regulators, and many others. At the heart of relationship marketing is the desire to establish long-term, win-win relationships.

Win-Win Relationships: A Case Study

When the educational reform movement began to sweep the nation, Wyman Center got on board. Prominent educators were asked to join our board and program task forces to build awareness among a network of educators and funders. Wyman staff were invited to participate in curriculum design teams and to serve on advisory committees.

Armed with new networks and self-confidence, Wyman staff wrote a project prospectus that was intended to revolutionize how science education would be taught in one district of some 7,000 predominantly disadvantaged students. We proposed to provide experiential curriculum, K-12, for all sciences and to train all faculty in its implementation. The model would cost $2 million over five years. Wyman was to serve as a key provider for certain components to the tune of about $500,000. We would broker other services throughout the educational community.

We asked our educational contacts to critique the model. And we asked corporations to fund the project. Yes, we were bold! And naive. "A great idea!" "Innovative and creative!" "Responsive and desperately needed!" rang the accolades. The project went unfunded.

Lessons learned: Frankly, while the idea was exciting, our process was quite opportunistic and controlling. Our prospective partners were being asked to confirm our ideas, not to participate in finding solutions to market needs. Our arbitrary decisions about what to do ourselves and what to broker were based on our desires rather than on objective determinants of ability and cost effectiveness. Morgan and Hunt found that power and opportunistic behavior contribute to relationship marketing failures. They're right!

Friendly and candid educators offered constructive criticism and wise counsel. We continued and gradually expanded our programming with the university and the school district. Three years later, when that same school district decided to compete for a National Science Foundation Grant to improve the science and math performance of their students, they called to the planning table most of the players from our earlier prospectus. But this time, the process was right. After months of discussion, debate, decisions, and compromise, the Normandy School District's "Environments for Excellence" proposal won one of only five NSF grants and Wyman Center plays a leading, but not the lead, role. Our fee, while not $500,000, is $300,000, a number that allows us to meet our responsibility to the program with comfort. And it's a hefty addition to our annual income that will allow for growth in this and other areas.

Subsequently, involving many of the same partners and using the win-win principles of relationship marketing, Wyman has won a highly competitive Toyota Foundation national grant to improve experiential science education in four city elementary schools.

The key to success for any camp or conference/retreat center is to look beyond its own needs and include the needs of its partners.

Building trust

Morgan and Hunt posit that: "To be an effective competitor... requires one to be a trusted cooperator." They found that relationship commitment and trust develop when partners: