Introduction: When the American investment bank Morgan Stanley suddenly decide to increase their target stock price of the Ericsson stock by 100 percent, it became the point of origin for our interest in investor relations. In this particular case the increase of target stock price was announced right after new Morgan Stanley analysts started covering the stock. Why this tremendous increase in target stock price, we will probably never know. Perhaps the new analysts perceived the information disclosed from Ericsson’s investor re-lations function different from the prior analyst, and ended up in adjusting the target stock price. Problem: Stock prices today are very dependent on the market expectations of future company growth. Market actors estimate the potential growth by analysing information disclosed by the company. It has therefore become increasingly important for companies to manage their investor relations with a strategic marketing perspective to be able to meet the internal and external needs. Companies must also present themselves to investors in a way that appeals both on a rational and an emotional level. Once new investors are attracted and old ones are kept, companies must constantly communicate about their performance to uphold investors trust and there by creating or maintain long-term relationships. Purpose: The purpose is to explore if and how a marketing perspective is applicable when managing investor relations in traded companies. Method: This study has been conducted with qualitative research method. Collection of empirical data has been done through six semi-structured interviews with directors and managers whom all work with investor relations for their respective company. The six par-ticipating companies are all traded on the Stockholm stock exchange. The collected data were first analysed with the Kotler, Kartajaya & Young (2004) model and secondly ana-lyzed from a relationship marketing point of view. Analysis: The analysis shows that our sample of companies subconsciously work in align-ment with the Kotler et al. (2004) model and that they also work with different types of re-lationship marketing. Together this provides a holistic image of how traded companies work with a marketing perspective in their investor relations. Conclusion: After having analysed our empirical findings it is our belief that a marketing perspective is applicable when managing investor relations.

Nowadays, the European airline market is characterized by two major different airline business models; the full service airlines and the low cost airlines. Secondary, appeared for the first time in 1985 in form of the Irish low cost carrier Ryanair. In recent days, the European low cost market stands out through its growth potential and high competitiveness. Therefore, startup companies aiming to join the wave of success as well as insolvency of newly established airlines are part of the daily occurrence. The challenge, that established low cost airlines are faced with, is to create competitive advantages against new entrants and direct competitors under the circumstances of environmental changes. In addition to the described problem a model was developed in order to picture the situation. This paper aims to provide an answer to the specific question: How do low cost airlines use relationship marketing in order to enhance, maintain and attract new customers? The second step is to figure out how those tools affect the airlines generic strategy. The purpose of this study is to find out how low cost airlines in Europe deal with tools of relationship marketing and what are the effects those tools have on generic strategies. This thesis is based on a case study within the European low cost airlines market, with a special focus on three airlines: Ryanair, EasyJet and Air Berlin. These questions are addressed using information obtained in interviews with respondents from the airlines that were recently conducted in Brussels and Bremen by personal interviews and additionally by telephone interviews and email contact. The results show that relationship marketing tools are used in a different extent by the airlines. The authors could not find evidence that using relationship marketing tools is the single solution to compete more successfully than without. It is further argued by the authors that RM is just one aspect strengthening the generic strategy in order to gain sustainable competitive advantage.

Traditionally, marketers have assumed that investing in the quality of relationships with customers would generate superior profitability to the selling firm. The assumption is that coordination and collaboration between buyer and seller create value for both firms by reducing costs and expanding revenue opportunities. However, such value creation mechanism does not work every time. Closer relationships require customer specific investments and a higher level of service that may create more cost to the seller than the potential gain in revenue, negatively impacting profitability of the selling firm. This research explores the effect of buyer-seller relationship quality on value creation for the selling firm, emphasizing the understanding of costs associated with serving the relationship. Two studies were conducted: Study 1 qualitatively examines the cost associated with serving customers and estimates actual cost-to-serve for individual customers. Study 2 measures the quality of customer relationships, past customer profitability and customer lifetime value for each customer relationship in the proposed sample. Finally, the effect of RQ on customer lifetime value is evaluated. Results suggest that investing in customer relationships have an effect on the drivers of customer cost and profitability. However, the net effect on customer value is not as clear as it depends on the trade offs of the different drivers of cost and profit.

Problem: På dagens marknad finns det flera olika bankaktörer som konkurrerar om kunderna, vilket även gör att det blir större konkurrens mellan bankerna. Vad är det som tilltalar en kund att stanna kvar hos en bank och bli lojal mot den? SEB bör öka sin kundlojalitet, men själva innebörden av ordet kundlojalitet kan betyda olika saker för olika individer, vilket kan bli problematiskt i SEB:s kommunikation till kunderna. Syfte: Syftet är att undersöka hur SEB omvandlar kundlojalitet till att skapa och utveckla långsiktiga relationer i sitt dagliga arbete. Metod: Den metod som användes till denna studie var av kvalitativ karaktär, då författarna använde sig av intervjuer på anställda inom organisationen. Genom dessa intervjuer insamlades information till studiens empiri, som sedan analyserades tillsammans med den teori som presenterats i studien. Slutsats: Det kan vara lätt att få den uppfattningen att Relationsmarknadsföring (RM) är svart eller vit. Att antingen har ett företag lojala kunder eller så har dem de inte. Istället visar det sig att det finns ett brett spektrum av olika nyanser eller nivåer när det gäller kontakt och kommunikation med kunder. Att kunna anpassa sig utefter kundens individuella behov och situation och leva upp till olika förväntningar, kan vara en god väg till att en kund stannar kvar hos företaget. En lojal kund. / Problem: In today’s market, there are several different bank operators competing for customers, including making it more and more competition between banks. What is it that appeals to a customer to stay with a bank and be loyal to it? SEB should increase its customer loyalty, but the very meaning of the word loyalty can mean different things to different individuals, who can be problematic in SEB: s communications with the customers.   Purpose: The purpose is to examine how SEB converts customer loyalty to create and develop long term relationships in their daily work. Method: The methodology used for this study was qualitative in nature; the authors used interviews with employees within the organization. These interviews collected information to the study’s empirical work, and then analyzed with the theory presented in the study. Conclusions: It can be easy to get the idea that Relationship marketing (RM) is black or white. That either have a company loyal customers or not. Instead, it appears that there is a wide spectrum of different shades or levels of contact and communication with customers. Being able to adapt to the customer´s individual needs and situation and respond to different expectations might be a good way for the customer to stay with the company. A loyal customer.

No description available.

Sensory marketing An effective instrument for libraries?   We are living in a world of constant communication and information and because of that, marketing in general seem to have no distinctive effect. Consumers become overwhelmed by all the advertising messages. Due to this, it is clear that organizations like libraries must create a deeper and more personal connection to increase user satisfaction and foster the use of services, among both users and potential users. One way to achieve this is to make use of all the emotional elements of a product or a service. This make the user perceive the service more as an experience instead of just its functioning. By putting the five senses in focus it´s possible to create an experience and with integration of all five senses more value can be added. Previous studies on this subject are rather thin and therefore the authors found it interesting to investigate whether this phenomenon could be an effective approach for libraries.The purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate how a number of selected libraries are working with stimulation through the five human senses in their marketing. The study consists of a qualitative approach. Four personal interviews with informants from four libraries have been conducted. The conclusion of this study is that the library does not work with sensory marketing, but for some of the library's activity, sensory marketing could further develop the activities and create a greater value for both the visitors and the libraries. There are some difficulties though, when sensory experience is somewhat subjective and the library is a place for everyone.

Purpose: The purpose of this article was to see how NPO’s can use relationship marketing in their activities to secure donors and funding for their causes and projects. Methodology: Unstructured interviews were held with representatives from different hospices as well as with representatives from the umbrella organisation, the HPCA. Findings: The findings showed that the concerned hospices all had similar issues and suffered with the same problems, both economical and communicative. Successful relations were built on personal contacts and projects where donors took an active part The higher the grade of involvement the higher commitment and loyalty towards the hospice/organisation. The factors that were salient in the successful cases are also factors that are salient in the theory of successful relationship marketing (e.g. loyalty, commitment, interaction). Value: The article highlights the complexity of the market of NPO’s in South Africa and some of the issues they are faced with.

Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCO), state owned monopoly that generates, transmits, and distributes and sales electric power nationwide, has been undergoing various continued utility management practices. One of the major improvements, as part of the transformation, was the introduction of Prepayment (Metering) System, over that of the conventional metering service, which had been forcing the Corporation to follow lengthy service processes, in order to support the realization of its long term strategic vision of providing quality electric service and being competitive in an energy export. However, despite the introduction of this new type of service-prepayment customer service, the Corporation has not been able to attract more than only about five percent out of the two million total customers. Therefore, this study tried to assess and analyze the existing practice (quality) of prepayment customer service both from the employee and the Corporation’s perspectives, and thereby propose possible marketing strategies that are capable of improving the customer service quality for the subsequent adoption of prepayment service. SERVQUAL, as a methodological approach to service quality measures, was employed to measure the prepayment service quality by comparing customers’ perception of the received service against their expectations. Accordingly, the study revealed, despite its limitations, that there has been a substantial gap between customers’ expectations and perception of the service rendered, for which different possible marketing strategies were suggested for improvement.

The economic situation and the improved technology weaken the bond be-tween banks and their customers. To adapt to the changing behavior of customers banks engage in Social Media with the aim to strengthen their relationship. However, Social Media may not have the expected effect on the banks’ customers. The purpose of this thesis is to answer whether interaction through Facebook can improve the relationship between Handelsbanken and its customers and whether the employees’ and the customers’ perceived value of interacting through Facebook is equal.  The theoretical framework focus on how to build relationships with customers, how to add customer value and what encourages consumers to engage in word-of-mouth. The concept of Social Media is explained and a description of Facebook is provided. The last section in the theoretical framework discusses the implementation of Facebook into the organization of Handelsbanken. A qualitative study was conducted through interviews with employees and customers of Handelsbanken. During the study it was revealed that both the customers and the employees had low awareness of Handelsbanken’s presence on Facebook. The content on the Facebook page does not encourage interaction or add value to the customers. The main problems for succeeding with the Facebook page are absence of marketing and no customer need for interacting on Facebook with their bank. In addition, it was revealed that implementing a centrally moderated communication tool to a decentralized organization is not successful.

Thousands of Alumni are in all walks of life in domestic and foreign after graduated. They are not only the important economic supports but also the connections between school and business. However, relationship needs long-term maintenance, and virtual community becomes the brand¡¦s communitive and interactive distributions. In Taiwan, many universities are awared of the trend of community media and established their own virtual alumni associations on Facebook fan page, in order to enhance alumni serving and relationship connecting. This study is a partnership with National Sun yat-sen University¡¦s alumni service center as a case study, analyzing from relationship marketing view point to realize the influence of virtual alumni association management on alumni loyalty. By academic and empirical exploring to observe the excutive status of NSYSU alumni service on Facebook fan page and provide suggestions as a model to those organizations which willing to manage virtual communities to increase loyalty. This study is cooperated with NSYSU¡¦s alumni service center, and collected questionaires by the ¡§filled questionnaire, join lottery¡¨ activity on NSYSU¡¦s alumni service Facebook fan page. Furthermore, researcher also sent email invitations with the link of online questionarie from alumni database, to investigate alumni¡¦s understandings and recommendations of NSYSU¡¦s alumni service Facebook fan page. The study outcomes are as following, relationship marketing has positive influence on relationship quality; relationship quality has positive influence on loyalty; relationship marketing has positive influence on loyalty. Which means virtual community does help maintaining relationship between alumni and school, raising the loyalty. It is an efficiency way to manage the customers¡¦ relationship and loyalty. However, the influence of social bond of relationship marketing strategy on loyalty is not significant. This study conjecture that users can not be awared of the specialties of interactive communications on Facebook fan page since Facebook originally based on the social network. When users feel limited relationship marketing intention and qualities, they can not increase their loyalties.