Contemporary marketing practices approaches in the professional services industry in Brazil

Lenoir Hoeckesfeld,Eric David Cohen,André Torres Urdan,Aléssio Bessa Sarquis

doi:10.12712/rpca.v14i1.38890

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate the Contemporary Marketing Practices (CMP) of professional services firms from the State of Santa Catarina in Brazil, according to the models proposed by Coviello, Brodie & Munro (1997) and Coviello, Milley & Marcolin (2001). The research methodology has a quantitative and descriptive approach and uses a survey; the sample encompasses 146 companies from the accounting, engineering, consulting, advertising, information technology and hospital industries. Our findings also reveal the existence of seven main business segment typologies: “Advanced Relational”; “Interactive Relational/Network”; “Relational Database/Digital”; “Moderately Relational”; “Conservative I”; “Conservative II” and “Refractory”.

Highlights

The Contemporary Marketing Practices (CMP) concept encompasses multiple marketing methods and tactics that go beyond the traditional marketing mix approach
More than half of the sample companies invest in the following database marketing activities: personalized customer service (71.5%), direct and personalized communication (58.8%), obtaining customer data in day-to-day negotiations (55.7%) and communication directed at specific segments or customers (50.4%)
The database marketing practices that are less deployed by the firms are: marketing planning focused on customer segments (46.2%), specialized professional marketing (46%), marketing activities focused on customer retention (44.7%) and investment in technology to communicate with clients (44.5%)

Summary

Introduction

The Contemporary Marketing Practices (CMP) concept encompasses multiple marketing methods and tactics that go beyond the traditional marketing mix approach. These include database marketing, digital marketing, interaction marketing, and network marketing (O’ Dwyer, Gilmore & Carson, 2009, Sacramento & Teixeira, 2014). The interaction is characterized by close contacts that combine customer proximity, long-term continuity and an individualized business relationship (hereafter defined: relationship orientation) (Coviello, Brodie & Munro, 1997). The body of research that stands out from the CMP literature hinges on the practitioners concern towards the construction of long-term bonds, which seek to leverage customer satisfaction (Rocha & Luce, 2006). The literature acknowledges, the need to maintain some transactional marketing tactics (which still hold)

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Conclusion