Corporate Blogs and their Potential for
Communications in Relationship Marketing
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Faculty of Business and Management
Master of Science “International Business & Management”
Supervisor: Drs. H.C. Stek Co-Supervisor: Drs. H.A. Ritsema
23. August 2007
Master Thesis by:
PREFACE
The concept of blogs has received a lot of attention lately among Internet users and general publics. According to various kinds of statistics, the number of people writing their own blog is steadily rising, as is the number of those people reading blogs. Some companies, especially those located in the United States of America, have discovered the potential of blogs as a corporate device. This incident gave birth to the concept of corporate blogs.
Already some months before the task of writing a master thesis was on our agenda and on our minds, we started reading blogs and developed an interest in this new application of the so-called Web 2.0. When it came about thinking of a topic for the master thesis, both of us had the idea of analyzing blogs in an academic and organizational setting. This way the idea was born to deal with corporate blogs as a tool in the Relationship Marketing process in the context of our master thesis.
At this spot we also would like to thank our supervisor Huib Stek who supported us with our idea and who gave helpful comments. Eventually, we would like to thank our parents and families for enabling us to study here at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and for always supporting us.
Ann Katrin Deterding & Constantin Meissner
3
Executive Summary
Marketing theory in the last decade has undergone some tremendous changes. One of the most prominent changes is the paradigm shift from Transactional Marketing to Relationship Marketing. The main reasons for this paradigm shift are external in their nature and relate to such aspects as the globalisation and internationalisation of markets, going along with increased worldwide competition and new developments in technology. The Internet and the opportunities it provides probably mark the most important and influential change in technology in the last decade. Considering the importance of communication for Relationship Marketing, the Internet - with its potential for dialogue and interactivity - has enabled completely new forms of communications conducted via technology. One of the newest technological facets of the Internet are the so-called weblogs. Weblogs are a type of web page equipped with some additional features especially suited for communication purposes. They stem from a private background, but lately weblogs have been employed by organizations. In this context, weblogs are referred to as corporate weblogs.
The research question resulting from this brief introduction is the following:
“What is the potential of corporate weblogs being utilized as a communication tool for Relationship Marketing?”
This question was answered by conducting a four-step analysis. The first step in this analysis showed that weblogs have a potential as communications tool in general. This potential was examined with regard to certain aspects such as interactivity, dialogue and feedback. The fit between the communicative prerequisites of Relationship Marketing and the communicative potential of blogs represents step two in the analysis. The third step of the analysis proved that weblogs are also able to create the antecedents (commitment, satisfaction and trust) of Relationship Marketing. Without having created these antecedents on the side of the customers, the process of Relationship Marketing does not work efficiently and effectively in the first place. The fourth and last step in the analysis matched the different kind of corporate weblogs that exist with the different phases in the Relationship Marketing process.
4 product/ brand blogs, relationship blogs, crisis blogs and CEO blogs. The different phases in the Relationship Marketing process are awareness, exploration, attraction, expansion, commitment and dissolution. According to this paper, the best fit between type of blog and phase in the relationship process is shown by these hypotheses:
H1. Campaigning blogs will be best suited for the Relationship Marketing phase awareness.
H2. Service blogs will be best suited for the Relationship Marketing phases of exploration and expansion.
H3: Issues blogs will be best suited for the Relationship Marketing phase of expansion.
H4: Product/brand blogs will be best suited for the Relationship Marketing phase of expansion and commitment.
H5: Customer relationship blogs will be best suited for the Relationship Marketing phase of expansion and commitment.
H6: Crisis blogs will be best suited for the Relationship Marketing phase of dissolution.
H7: CEO blogs will be best suited for all phases of Relationship Marketing.
5
Table of Content
1 Research Framework ________________________________________________ 9
1.1 Introduction ____________________________________________________ 9 1.2 Research Question and Objective _________________________________ 10 1.3 Research Methodology __________________________________________ 11
2 Relationship Marketing and the Effect of Information Technology __________ 12
2.1 Definition and Characteristics of Relationship Marketing ______________ 12 2.2 From Transaction Marketing to Relationship Marketing: A Paradigm Shift 14 2.3 Technologicalship Marketing _____________________________________ 15 2.4 The Role of Communication in Relationship Marketing _______________ 18 2.4.1 Communicative Requirements of Relationship Marketing _______________ 19 2.4.1.1 Dialogue, Interactivity and Feedback ___________________________ 20 2.4.2 The Effect of IT on the Communication Features______________________ 22 2.5 Antecedents of Effective Relationship Marketing ____________________ 24 2.5.1 Involvement, Commitment, Satisfaction and Trust_____________________ 25
3 Corporate Blogs and Their Communicative Capabilities __________________ 29
3.1 Definition and Characteristics of Weblogs __________________________ 29 3.1.1 Corporate Blogs as a Specialized Form of Blogs______________________ 33 3.2 The Potential of a Blog as a Communication Tool for Relationship
Marketing ___________________________________________________________ 36
4 Corporate Blogs for Relationship Marketing ____________________________ 40
4.1 The Fit Between Communicative Requirements for Relationship Marketing and the Communicative Capabilities of Blogs _______________________ 41 4.2 How Blogs can Support the Development of the Antecedents of
6 4.3.1.1 The Role of E-WOM and e-Mavens ____________________________ 49
5 Practical Implication of the Utilization of Blogs in the Relationship Marketing Process ______________________________________________________________ 50
5.1 Different Types of Corporate Weblogs _____________________________ 51 5.2 Different Phases in the Relationship Marketing Process ______________ 55 5.3 Analysis of Best Fit between Type of Blog and Phase in Relationship
Marketing ___________________________________________________________ 60
7
List of Figures
U
Figure 1: Virtuous cycleU...17
U
Figure 2: Model of mass media communication applied to traditional advertisingU...23
U
Figure 3: The chain of reactionU...29
U
Figure 4: The linear correlation between WOM and dissatisfaction/satisfactionU...46
U
Figure 5: The relationship development processU...60
U
Figure 6: The linkage between different phases of the Relationship Marketing process and different types of corporate blogsU...64
List of Tables
8
List of Abbreviations
AG - Aktiengesellschaft
CEO - Chief Executive Office
CRM - Customer Relationship Management e - electronic
e.g. - exempli grantia (for example)
Ed. - Editor
Eds. - Editors
et al. - et alli (and others)
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions HTML - Hypertext Markup Language
IMC - Integrated Marketing Communications
Inc. - Incorporated
IT - Information Technology
k - kilobyte p. - page
PR - Public Relations
9
1
0BResearch Framework
1.1
7BIntroduction
Marketing theory in the last decade has undergone some tremendous changes. One of the most prominent changes is the paradigm shift from Transactional Marketing to Relationship Marketing. Academics as well as practitioners became aware of the fact that the relationship building with a satisfied customer base is an important determinant not only for the marketing success of the company, but rather signifies a source of success for the entire business (Arnott & Bridgewater, 2002). The main reasons for this paradigm shift are external in their nature and relate to such aspects as the globalisation and internationalisation of markets, going along with increased worldwide competition and new developments in technology. The Internet and the opportunities it provides probably mark the most important and influential change in technology in the last decade. Yet, not only the Internet but other technological developments as well have led to a fragmentation of the media causing a dispersion of the audience. Traditional mass communication does not seem efficient anymore in its abilities to reach the audience. These developments taken together have lead to a more customer-centred marketing perspective (Jelínková, Loštáková & Munzarová, 2001; Bauer, Grether & Leach, 2001), namely the approach of Relationship Marketing. This new perspective also implies a change from looking at and focusing on the market share of a company to a focus on its share of customers. In this context, one has to mention the several studies that have been conducted about the costs of attracting new customers. The results revealed that the costs for acquiring new customers are five times as high as maintaining exiting ones (Harrison-Walker & Neely, 2004, Bauer et al., 2001). Thus, from the perspective of profitability this provides another reason for companies to shift their marketing efforts into the field of Relationship Marketing.
10 technology and especially the Internet, this became possible. Thanks to the interactive nature and potential of the Internet, companies now are able to replicate the one-to-one personal relationships by engaging the customers in a communication dialogue (Arnott & Bridgewater, 2002).
One of the newest technological facets of the Internet are the so-called weblogs. They represent another type of a web page on which the writer of the blog can enter different posts with various topics. Weblogs signify a new tool for communication, as shown all across relevant literature (e.g. Zerfass & Boelter, 2005). In fact, weblogs originate from the background of being employed by individuals only. Due to their potential as a communication tool, bit by bit organizations adapt weblogs to their organizational setting. Due to their nature, they provide opportunities for interaction, dialogue and feedback that have just been introduced as vital elements for communicating with customers. In the following, the terms weblog and blogs will be used synonymously.
1.2
8BResearch Question and Objective
Combining the fact of the current importance of Relationship Marketing with its underlying principle of company-customer interaction and the communicative features weblogs possess, the following research question arises:
“What is the potential of corporate weblogs being utilized as a communication tool for Relationship Marketing?”
11 technological achievements (weblogs being on of these) supporting the Relationship Marketing process.
1.3
9BResearch Methodology
12 technology, here especially via blogs. Chapter 6 consists of the conclusion and limitation of the present study.
At this moment, it already has to be made clear that this study takes the character of focusing on the Relationship Marketing process and the underlying technology as a strategic endeavour only. This principle also can be traced back in the main research question. A deeper and more thorough analysis of the technology involved is considered as taking place on a tactical level and thus will be neglected. Rather, this technological side is concentrated on in debates about Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and thus not context of the present study. Relationship Marketing and CRM are related to each other, of course, but this aspect does not play an important role for the approach taken here either. Only in the last chapter CRM will be briefly mentioned for the sake of completeness. One could also say that Relationship Marketing is only a small, yet important element of CRM in analogy to the marketing function as one element in the entire business process.
2
1BRelationship Marketing and the Effect of Information
Technology
The role of this chapter is to introduce the concept of Relationship Marketing. Definitions and characteristics of Relationship Marketing will be provided, and its relation to IT will be emphasized. Furthermore, the predominant role of communication, focusing on a certain set of communicative features necessary in relationships, will be highlighted. Also, the effect of IT on these communicative features is a topic. At the end of the chapter the most important antecedents for creating and maintaining relationships between customers and companies will be introduced.
2.1
10BDefinition and Characteristics of Relationship Marketing
13 definitions of Relationship Marketing. Examples of definitions given in this paper are listed in the following. In the first definition, it is said that Relationship Marketing is about “attracting, maintaining and – in multiservice organisations – enhancing customer relationships” (Berry, 1983). Another definition states that “Relationship Marketing emphasises a long-term interactive relationship between the provider and the customer and long-term profitability” (Gummesson, 1994). Yet another way to explain the meaning of Relationship Marketing is to say that “Relationship Marketing is to establish, nurture and enhance […] relationships with customers and other partners, at a profit, so that the objectives of the partners involved are met. This is achieved by mutual exchange and fulfilment of promises” (Grönroos, 1996). In the end and by having dealt with all these different definitions, Harker (1999) makes an attempt to come up with a new definition himself and states: “An organisation engaged in proactively creating, developing and maintaining committed, interactive and profitable exchanges with selected customers [partners] overtime is engaged in Relationship Marketing”.
14 information about how to install, use, maintain and repair a purchased product or service. Besides, this is expected in a timely and trustworthy manner avoiding dissatisfaction on the side of the customer (Harker, 1999). In fact, in much more cases it is not the service or the product that causes customer dissatisfaction, but instead this is the consequence of the elements like after-sales service and guarantee items surrounding the product/service (Egan, 2001).
Going back to Gönroos’ (1996) definition once again, another fact becomes obvious as Parvatiyar and Sheth (2000) make clear. Here, it is said that the definition provided by Grönroos (1996) has the implication that “customer relationships are the raison d’être of the firm and marketing should be devoted to building and enhancing relationships”. Webster (1992) agrees on the fact of the centrality of Relationship Marketing and concludes with his view about Relationship Marketing and especially the role of ongoing customer relationships by saying that they build a “company’s most important business asset”.
2.2
11BFrom Transaction Marketing to Relationship Marketing: A Paradigm
Shift
15 The move towards a greater customer focus is according to Swift (2001) exemplified by the fact that the traditional 4P’s (product, price, place, promotion) of the marketing mix should be replaced by the 4C’s, as indicated in the following:
Product Æ Customer needs and wants
Price Æ Cost to the customer
Place Æ Convenience
Promotion Æ Communication
The emphasis on Relationship Marketing nowadays is based on the key assumption of the lifetime value concept, as Dann and Dann (2004) state. The lifetime value concept is based on the premise that it is more profitable to keep existing customers than to attract new ones, as already briefly mentioned in the introduction. The reason for this is that in the course of a relationship the costs to market and sell to these customers declines so that profit margins for companies increase (Anderson & Jacobsen, 2000). Of course, at the beginning of a relationship, or the customer acquisition phase, the costs for the company greatly exceed the potential of profits made with this new customer. For the company, the return on this investment depends to a large extent on the duration of this new relationship. Over time, profits will exceed costs, yet the profit margin depends on the length and the mutual benefit of the relationship. A positive side effect of maintaining these relations is the fact that also the acquisition of new customers becomes less expensive since the established customer base acts as advocates and creates a positive word-of-mouth (Anderson & Jacobsen, 2000). This aspect will be dealt with in chapter 4 more in depth.
Yet, a main enabler of this paradigm shift has been the technological advances. This aspect will be dealt with below. Without these advances, the shift probably would not have occurred.
2.3
12BTechnologicalship Marketing
16 role of IT in Relationship Marketing is examined by several authors.
One example for these authors are Sheth and Parvatiyar (2000). These two academics contrast Transaction Marketing with Relationship Marketing. In Transaction Marketing, information about consumers is generally gathered on a sampling basis and averaged into marketing messages that meet the needs of the broad market. In contrast to Transaction Marketing, Relationship Marketing requires complex information systems because the intimacy between providers, clients and consumers is much higher. In Relationship Marketing, information is gathered on an individual basis to tailor products to individual needs and to adjust product distribution and marketing messages. The ongoing revolution in IT leads to another effect that has its immediate impact on the way how marketers deal with customers. The previous push marketing is now contrasted with pull marketing. In Transaction Marketing, suppliers of marketing channels push distributors and retailers into buying their products, leaving the needs of individual consumers aside. In Relationship Marketing, collaboration between suppliers and distributors develops in order to tailor products and their distribution. Basis of this collaboration are information systems between both parties. In this sense, the power is shifted from producers towards consumers. This also implies a shift from mass marketing towards one-to-one marketing and from monologue towards dialogue. In essence, we observe a parallel development between technology change and a new thinking in the area of marketing. However, this development has been rather accidentally: The new technologies have developed just in time to allow marketers to implement the central aspects of Relationship Marketing.
17
Figure 1: Virtuous cycle
Source: Sheth and Pravatiyar (2000).
18 on all kinds of markets.
2.4
13BThe Role of Communication in Relationship Marketing
Relationships are impossible without communication, as Duncan and Moriarty (1998) state. Yet, Relationship Marketing literature often neglects to include the aspect of communication as a critical dimension in relationship building. Rather, it focuses on such elements as commitment and trust, failing to recognize that these elements are the outcome of communication processes (Duncan & Moriarty, 1998). Dann and Dann (2004) agree on the centrality of communication and state that whereas Relationship Marketing was used to fulfil promises, it now means two-way communication with your customers. It is this recognition about the importance of communication that differentiates this Relationship Marketing approach from traditional ones. Of course, in traditional advertising there also exists communication in various forms (e.g. print advertising in magazines), but unlike in Relationship Marketing, there is nothing like two-way communication. Rather, in traditional communication and mass marketing, the three goals of communications were information, persuasion and argumentation. All three aspects can be found back in traditional advertising, for example, a TV commercial informs a consumer about a new product and its advantages in order to persuade this consumer to purchase the product. This persuasion is achieved by delivering a sound argumentation of the features of the product, and why and how it is better than comparable ones (Janoschka, 2004).
Two-way communication is characterized by better listening to the company’s customers, interactivity and the notion that communication before, during and after a transaction can build up relationships. This only seems to be logical when considering the fact that communication is the human activity that links people together and establishes relationships. This is not only the case in marketing, but in general is communication seen at the heart of meaning-making activities and has the function to develop and spread knowledge (Duncan & Moriarty, 1998). Listening to others, in this case the company to its customers, always entails an aspect of giving up some control; a facet that organizations usually are not used to and therefore unsure how to deal with. The aspect of control will be addressed again in the chapter 4.
19 though direct marketing has been getting more important lately. This is reflected by the fact that a new trend towards integrating all communication elements in marketing (e.g. advertising, direct marketing and pubic relations) has appeared. This new trend has to a large extent been influenced by the perspective of Relationship Marketing; or as Schultz (1996) says: “As we are committed to two-way communication, we intend to get some response from those persons to whom the integrated marketing communications program has been directed [...].We adapt the customer’s or prospect’s communication wants or needs and begin the cycle all over again. This is truly relationship marketing at its best” (Schultz, Tannenbaum & Lauterborn, 1992: 59). Yet, one has to be aware not to regard integrated communication and Relationship Marketing as the same thing. Rather, integrated communication is an important element for the Relationship Marketing-process. This is also agreed-upon by Duncan (1994) by explaining: “If relationship marketing is to be successful, an integration of all marketing communication messages is needed to support the establishment, maintenance and enhancement of relationships with customers”. Duncan (1994) goes on by providing a definition for integrated market communications and says that this is “the process of strategically controlling or influencing all messages and encouraging purposeful dialogue to create and nourish profitable relationships with customers and stakeholders”. The link between Integrated Marketing Communications and Relationship Marketing is highlighted by this definition and the importance of IMC is proven as well.
Communication patterns between customers and organizations have undergone quite some change due to technological advances in recent years. This aspect plays a role in the next chapter dealing with the necessary features of an effective communication process. As it will be seen, these features in analogy to communications in general also have undergone tremendous changes and new opportunities for companies in their communicating with customers have emerged from this development.
2.4.1
23BCommunicative Requirements of Relationship Marketing
20 already, the effect of IT on these features will be dealt with as well.
2.4.1.1 28BDialogue, Interactivity and Feedback
Kent and Taylor (1998) describe dialogue as “any negotiated exchange of ideas and opinions. [Dialogue] denotes a communicative give and take” (p. 325). In order to manage the Relationship Marketing process successfully, the parties involved have to share information and listen to each other. Therefore, a dialogue is necessary. This implies a two-way communication, so that both parties truly communicate with each other, without one party just being the sender of a message and the other party being the receiver. Put differently, one could say that there do not exist (Grönroos, 2000) senders or receivers anymore, but there are only participants in this process.
Of course, this view implies that there does not only exist agreement between the parties involved, but discussion is a natural and essential part of communication as well (Seltzer & Mitrook, 2007). What counts for a dialogue is not necessarily the agreement reached, but the willingness to achieve mutually satisfying outcomes (Kent & Taylor, 1998). However, this way a connection between the firm and the customer is made, and in the process of this connection a feeling of trust towards the other party involved in this dialogue emerges (Grönroos, 2000). The concept of trust will be dealt with later. The intent of this process of having a dialogue together and the resulting consequences of developing a feeling of trust, is to build so-called ‘shared meanings’ and to get insights about the fact what the two parties can do together and achieve for each other through access to a shared field of knowledge or common meaning, as Schein (1994) explains.
21 In the simplest manner, human communication serves as the basic example of interactive communication. Blattberg and Deighton (1991) define interactivity “as the facility for persons and organizations to communicate directly with one another regardless of distance or time“. Also, interactivity denotes “related activities of several parties”. The information a party gets always depends on the information that have been communicated before, as Bauer et al. (2001) highlight. Interactivity is a hallmark of the paradigm shift in both marketing and communication. Companies that have the objective to create relationships with their customers have to supplement impersonal mass communication and traditional advertising by personal and customized communication that by definition is interactive (Duncan & Moriarty, 1998). Grönroos (2004) agrees on this importance of interactivity and regards the interaction process as the core element of Relationship Marketing. In contrast to Grönroos (2004), Zineldin (2000) considers personal relationships and social exchanges as the most important core elements of Relationship Marketing together with interactivity. It seems as if the concept of interactivity builds some kind of an intersection all authors agree upon.
Liu and Shrum (2002) add another perspective to the concept and implement the dimension of the communication medium as central element. The idea is that each medium is characterized in a different way concerning the abilities that arise for the messages this medium brings forth. The resulting definition of interactivity is the following: “The extent to which two or more communication parties can act on each other, on the communication medium, and on the messages and the degree to which such influences are synchronized” (Liu & Shrum, 2002). This synchronization leads to the next dimension which is the concept of feedback.
Feedback has to be understood as response from the receiver of a message to the sender of this message (Duncan & Moriarty, 1998). Like the other concepts of interactivity and dialogue, this concept has undergone tremendous changes thanks to the modern media. In traditional advertising feedback had to be understood as the results of market analyses that monitored the success of a product, for instance. Nowadays, one can say that the feedback opportunities have become much more extended by the ability of an instantaneous and more far reaching mechanism (Duncan & Moriarty, 1998).
two-22 way communication since there is no dialogue possible without it (Duncan & Moriarty, 1998). This process of responding to each other that has been mentioned above, more or less represents an emerging dialogue. Yet, organizations have to be aware of the fact that merely receiving feedback is not enough and does not provide any help or valuable information. In order to turn feedback into valuable information, it needs to be interpreted, distributed within the organization and stored for future usage (Duncan & Moriarty, 1998).
This short introduction of the three concepts dialogue, interactivity and feedback has made clear how closely the concepts are interlinked and dependent on each other. Due to the interactivity and the dialogic communication between company and customer direct feedback mechanisms are provided. Feedback thus could be regarded as the result of interactive and dialogic communication. Another possibility is to regard the process of providing feedback to each other in the end as nothing more than a dialogue. The next chapter adds the effect IT has on the communicative features.
2.4.2
24BThe Effect of IT on the Communication Features
23
Figure 2: Model of mass media communication applied to traditional advertising
Source: Janoschka (2004).
In order to understand the prospects of online communication (e.g. via blogs), a second form of communication next to mass communication has to be mentioned. This form of communication is the interpersonal communication that usually is applied to spoken language taking place in face-to-face settings. Unlike mass communication, here a reciprocal exchange is taking place with the partners being sender and receiver of a message at the same time. Thus, feedback mechanisms exist. Also, a carrier medium like the print media in mass communication is not needed in this context. The most important aspects of both forms of communication are summarized in the table (Table1) below:
Characteristics Mass Communication Interpersonal Communication
Number of addressees mass individuals
Sequence of transfer asynchronous synchronous Relation sender to
receiver
one-to-many one-to-one Communicative feedback generally no (immediately) mutual
Flow of communication uni-directional two-directional exchange
Message transfer indirect (carrier medium) direct
Table 1: Different characteristics of mass and interpersonal communication
Source: Janoschka (2004).
24 online communication is not different from traditional mass communication. There is a message being transferred via a carrier medium to a group of people often unknown to the sender. Yet, internet communication also possesses some of the characteristics of interpersonal communication. Probably the most important one is the reciprocal exchange of information, which means that both sender and receiver engage in an interactive dialogue. This dialogue in most cases takes place between two parties in a synchronous manner. Compared to that, communication via e-mail is slightly different since it takes usually place in an asynchronous manner, yet again between individual users (Janoschka, 2004).
In order to show the change the concept of feedback has undergone due to technological achievements, Duncan and Moriarty (1998) say that feedback will be more far reaching, more instantaneous and in larger quantities. The authors go on by saying that the quality, quantity and speed of feedback are just other reasons or enablers for the shift from transaction to Relationship Marketing. One can state that the same is also true for dialogue and interactivity. Not only did these concepts gain new attributes like the just mentioned speed that is true here as well, but they are as much enablers of Relationship Marketing as feedback is. In so far, those authors mentioned above that speak from inseparability of Relationship Marketing and technology, are right with their conclusions.
Altogether, one can say that the three features dialogue, interactivity and feedback would not be possible to realize without IT. In fact, these features are the very inherent nature of IT and represent the communicative capabilities modern technologies provide.
2.5
14BAntecedents of Effective Relationship Marketing
25 trust.
2.5.1
25BInvolvement, Commitment, Satisfaction and Trust
Following Dann and Dann (2004) who state that trust, commitment and reciprocity are the three most important core principles or most important antecedents of Relationship Marketing, this study takes this view but adds the concept of satisfaction. This seems justified by the fact that a lot of literature (e.g. Selnes, 1998; Bruhn, 2001; Egan, 2001; Dann & Dann, 2004) gives consideration to this concept in context of Relationship Marketing. Another important concept, at least according to common marketing sense, is involvement. Yet, as it will be shown in a next step, this proves to be a misguided assumption and after having briefly dealt with it below, involvement will not be given any consideration anymore.
Involvement is in most cases conceptualized as perceived personal relevance (Zaichkowsky, 1985). It can be directed towards purchase decisions, products, brands or marketing communications (Gordon, McKeage & Fox 1998). It is a very complex and sophisticated concept that does not seem to be as predominant in the context of Relationship Marketing as the concepts of commitment, trust and satisfaction. Due to the fact, that involvement gets almost completely neglected in relevant literature, this study takes the same position and focuses on the other concepts instead. This seems justified by the fact that this paper does not want to test whether involvement plays a role in Relationship Marketing or not, but this part of the paper only represents a literature review. The impression emerges as if involvement plays a major role in traditional advertising and mass communication strategies.
26 underpin this by saying that in contrast to trust that is necessary for the formation and continuity of a relation, commitment is more towards the operationalisation of the contractual obligations. Once the relationship has been formed, commitment is a consequence of the service and product quality and satisfaction (Dann & Dann, 2004). Contrary to this, other authors say that commitment influences customer satisfaction. This is also the result of the study by Selnes (1998) who concludes that commitment and communications (including conflict handling) have a strong influence on satisfaction.
Yet, no clear definition of commitment can be provided and most authors consider the concept as ranging somewhere in the middle between the affective event based on emotions and feelings as Morgan and Hunt (1994) understand the concept and the calculative approach taken from economics. The idea behind this is that as long as the positive effects outweigh the negative effects of a relation, commitment will be maintained (Dann & Dann, 2004). Also, this means that the relationship will be retained, investments in the relationship will be made and opportunistic behaviour is reduced.
Another approach towards commitment is the distinction in behavioural commitment and psychological commitment. The former is exhibited by the following (Dann & Dann, 2004):
- buying from only one supplier in a repeated manner even though alternatives exist - increasing the amount of transaction with the company (either by more purchases
that are made or by, for example, visiting the company’s website more often) - suggestions and constructive feedback is provided by the customer
On the contrary, psychological commitment exists, when:
- the consumer would not consider to terminate the relationship - the consumers engage in positive word-of-mouth
- the consumers have a positive attitude towards the company and the relationship
27 other.
Satisfaction is the result of a process of evaluating the service, product or benefit of the relationship obtained with the expectations about the product, service or benefit one had before. Thus, the closer the result obtained compared with the expectations, the higher the level of satisfaction. Logically, dissatisfaction arises when the expectations are not met (Bauer et al., 2001). Concerning the drivers of satisfaction, a study found out that next to such aspects as the core product or service, elements of customer interaction play a critical role for satisfaction. This refers to either the channel or medium used for interaction as well as to such aspects as the courtesy with which customers are addressed (Cumby & Barnes, 1996).
Here again the role of dialogue and interaction is highlighted. One could even go further and claim that the ability to “listen to the customer” is at the heart of any successful relationship strategy (Jones & Sasser, 1995). One of the approaches these authors mention in the context of “listening to the customer” is the already introduced concept of feedback. Again, it has to be understood as comments, complaints and suggestions and plays a major role for establishing satisfaction (Egan, 2001). In literature, customer satisfaction is almost always seen as most important factor to increase customer loyalty and long-term financial performance of a company (Egan, 2001). Another factor that plays a huge role in the context of satisfaction is the positive word-of-mouth behaviour that results. This aspect will be addressed in chapter 4.
Trust is not itself a behaviour nor a choice, rather it is an underlying condition that results from a certain behaviour or choice (Egan, 2001). Trust is an important indicator for relationships since it reduces the perception of risk more effectively than anything else. Merely, it is the willingness to rely on the partner in whom one has confidence. This includes the aspect of trustworthiness of the partner as well as the reliance on the partner to perform the expected and requested action (Grönroos, 1996). Closely related to the concept of trust, is the concept of reciprocity (Dann & Dann, 2004). This is basically about the fulfilment of promises and thus very close to trust. In the following there will not be made a distinction between them.
28 comprises three components. First, it represents the conviction about the partner’s anticipated action which secondly also implies that one is willing to take a certain risk concerning whether the partner will behave opportunistically or not. Third, the own performance depends on the actions taken by the partner, which in fact is seen as reciprocity by Whitener et al. (1998). What all discussions about trust in marketing literature have in common is that trust is considered as a key component for Relationship Marketing. Above all, one can say that trust is an important experience-related factor that is essential for establishing relationships on the side of the customer as well as on the side of the company. The experience mentioned again shows that trust probably is more important in the course of a relationship than at its initial stage and that such feelings as satisfaction are already distinctive (Frazier, Speckman, & O’Neal, 1988).
Not only satisfaction, but also communication is a major source of trust, as Anderson and Narus (1990) found out. It seems as if the effect takes place indirectly and that communication influences satisfaction in the first place, whereas in a next step this satisfaction influences trust. The argument for the link between communication and satisfaction again has to be seen in the light of satisfaction as an evaluation process in which the communication of problems can lead to some sort of a shared understanding. The company then can act accordingly to the customers’ wishes and thus satisfaction is created. Also, it has been argued in literature that trust plays a less important role at the beginning of a relationship and then steadily grows in importance with the relationship becoming closer (Dwyer, Schurr & Oh, 1987). A factor not very often mentioned in the context of Relationship Marketing, and yet inherent to this debate is the concept of loyalty, that is closely connected to the concept of satisfaction. The argument simply goes that way that satisfied customers are loyal customers. Levine, Locke, Searls and Weinberger (1999) consider loyalty to be based on respect, and this respect in turn is the result of the participant conversations the company has conducted with the market and thus its (potential) customers.
29 Summarizing this whole discussion up, the following chain of reaction emerges (Figure 3):
Figure 3: The chain of reaction
Source: Own design and research.
3
2BCorporate Blogs and Their Communicative Capabilities
This chapter starts by introducing the concept of corporate blogs in general before shifting the focus on corporate blogs specifically. The chapter goes on by analyzing the potential of corporate blogs as an online communications tool in the context of Relationship Marketing. This will be achieved by making use of certain principles introduced by the authors Taylor and Kent (1998) in the context of a similar analysis.
3.1
15BDefinition and Characteristics of Weblogs
30 here is the fact that weblogs are just one type of a website. What becomes obvious from the previous three definitions is the common elements the authors see in a weblog. They differ in their description only in small details. Therefore, when referring in the following to the term weblog, the reader should keep these three definitions in mind. Furthermore, Deutsche Bank Research (2005) explains where the word weblog comes from. It is a combination of web and logbook. Going back to the definition and referring to the following short history of weblogs, this is a straightforward explanation.
To understand the concept weblog, one has to look back a little bit and see how weblogs developed. In the early 90's, the web was still at its beginning of the development. Surfers liked looking at any page, regardless of the connection they were surfing. Most often the connection was a slow 56k modem. In that time, any web page was something special in the young cyberspace. Then, companies and advertisers began to discover the Internet. What followed were more and more web pages, filled with advertisements and information about products and services. Consequently, the web was clogged with a lot of information: It became increasingly difficult to find the “good stuff“. But then something very surprisingly happened: People, in this case heavy users of the Internet, decided to put interesting links onto their personal homepages. For these people it was normal to have own web pages filled with records of their travels, experiences and other things. From this moment on these web pages represented a mixture of personal information and of links with descriptive text to tell their readers which other websites they should consult. At this time, a new type of web page was born: The blog. According to Blood (2002), this new type of web page was born between 1993 and 1996. The strange thing was that the authors of these web pages did not call them blogs. Some chose the term “news site“, others named them “filters“. For those people, who on purpose or accidentally visited these sites, this list of links was a welcome guide through the complex and confusing World Wide Web. In this sense, blogs are a point of reference in a flood of information (Deutsche Bank Research, 2005).
31 and the older posts follow in reverse chronological order below the first post. Authors of a blog should pay attention to frequent and regular updates of their blogs to keep readers over a longer time. At the end of the page almost every blog offers the opportunity to read older posts in the “archive“. When people want to point to a specific post, they refer to the archived version, the permanent one, using a so-called permalink. This link tells readers how to point to this specific post by always showing a URL linking to this post. The commentary function is probably the most important element of blogs in the context of the current paper. This includes that readers of a blog can read the comments of other readers and it is also possible for them to leave a comment as a reaction to a specific post. On either the right or left side of the blog different categories can be found. In these categories or departments all the posts of the blog are listed in, always by individual choice of the authors and never automatically. The syndication is another central element of a blog. This means that any blog has a RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed, which means that people can use so-called news aggregators like BloglinesF
1
F to read the feed. The trackback function enables the author of a blog to be noticed when another blog has referred to this blog using the so-called ping. This function is like an information for blog services such as weblogs.com and informs this service that the blog has been updated. The previous elements described the blog and the way it is designed concerning the technology and infrastructure.
Next, there will follow a short description which content types a blog can have and what the outlines are. Generally, blogs are characterized by their high degree of multimedial content. This can include stories (longer articles), pictures (in combination with a story), media objects (movies, flash films, downloadable applications) and shortcuts (a simple and quick way to link to external web pages). The last point refers to the blogroll, a selection of links the author has made. The author thinks that the links to other blogs might be useful or informative. By looking at the blogroll, readers can often see the relationships between the writers of a blog (blogger) and how they relate to each other. All the blogger and their blogs taken together form the blogosphere (a combination of blog and
atmosphere). The just mentioned most important characteristics are summarized in Table
2.
1
32
Table 2: Characteristics of weblogs
Source: Winer (2003); Herring et al. (2004); Namics (2005).
In order to be able to differentiate between a website and a blog, one should have a look at the differentiation done by Trammell (2004). This author lists some characteristics of web pages in order to point out in how far they and blogs differ. First, traditional web pages have a restrictive hyperlinking strategy that blogs do not have. Second, hyperlinks on weblogs are used to facilitate an ongoing conversation. Third, weblogs are updated frequently, showing the newest entry at the top of the page. Fourth, blogs archive all content whereas web pages do not do that. Fifth and most important, weblogs are part of a larger interconnected online community characterized by members who identify themselves as bloggers.
Besides the differentiation realized by Trammell (2004), there exists a further important aspect blogs in general possess. Weblogs can be considered more like private Internet diaries. Therefore, blogs represent the opinion of a single person and are thus very subjective (Namics, 2005). This private and subjective manner is also mentioned by Herring et al. (2004) who consider blogs as a personalized form of media that enhance interpersonal communication. Grossmann (2004) considers this aspect of subjectivity in a philosophical way. Several authors insist that blogs must have a unique, human voice in order to communicate a distinct point of view via blogs. Winer (2003) thinks that “the personalities of the writers must come through. That is the essential element of weblog writing“. The content often varies and has most of the time no real relevance for the public at large. At the same time, blogs experienced a rapid growth in numbers and popularity. There exist a lot of expert and specialised blogs, whereas technological and political topics
Characteristics of Weblogs
- Posts in chronologically reverse order, archive-oriented - Posts are easy to cite via permanent links (=Permalinks) - Commentary function
- Frequent and regular updates - Categories
- Syndication (RSS feed)
- Posts can be traced back (=Trackback) - Various content types
33 predominate (Deutsche Bank Research, 2005). Especially in the USA, blogs constitute a counterpart to the traditional media. The presidential campaign in the US accelerated the rise of blogs and made this new facet of the Internet known to the public at large. This in turn leads to one important aspect of blogs: News can spread very quickly due to the high degree of networking in the blogosphere. Another aspect in this context is the search engine friendliness of blogs. This ensures that blogs appear at the top of search engines such as Google or Yahoo when searching for a specific word or expression and blogs deal with this in a certain post.
3.1.1
26BCorporate Blogs as a Specialized Form of Blogs
Due to its characteristics and unique features blogs have captured the interest of several companies around the world as an alternative to the existing formal communication channel (Lee, Hwang & Lee, 2006). Practitioners have posited the question if it is not possible to use blogs as a communication tool (Cho, 2006). Existing communication channels are web pages, by which companies were expected to become more transparent and open in their communication with customers. In contrast to blogs, traditional organizational web pages had and still have the purpose to publish corporate information and to push advertising messages (Young & Benamati, 2000). According to France and Carney (2000), it has become increasingly difficult for companies to handle thousands of customers. Moreover, message boards on companies homepages is still a rare opportunity for customers to post their thoughts, complaints and issues (Robbins & Stylianou, 2003). Due to these and other reasons blogs are now in the focus of organizations.
34 corporate blogger, as a person “who blogs in an official or semi-official capacity at a company, or are so affiliated with the company where they work that even though they are not officially spokespeople for the company, they are clearly affiliated“. To sum up, organizational or corporate blogs are blogs that meet three criteria. First, they are maintained by people who post in an official or semi-official-capacity at an organization. Second, blogsF
2
F are explicitly or implicitly endorsed by the organization. Third, blogs are posted by a person perceived by publics to be clearly affiliated with the organization (Sifry, 2004).
It is widely acknowledged (e.g. Lee et al., 2006) that a strict line between different types of corporate blogs cannot be easily drawn. Nevertheless, several authors (e.g. Dearstyne, 2005; Zerfass, 2005) approached such a categorization. Dearstyne (2005) set up five categories of corporate blogs. These are employee blogs, group blogs, executive blogs,
promotional blogs, and newsletter blogs. However, this categorization is only one attempt
to make a distinction easier. Another categorization that enjoys an established reputation is undertaken by Zerfass (2005). This author first of all distinguishes between three major differences of blogs. The first distinction is about the aspect whether a blog is internal or external (directed at the employees or the public). Secondly, a blog can be directed towards market communications or thirdly, having the purpose to serve Public Relation (PR) needs. The first category of internal blogs is made up by knowledge blogs and
collaboration blogs. The following blogs can be grouped into the category of external
market communication blogs: Service blogs, campaigning blogs, CEO blogs, product
blogs and customer relationship blogs. A crisis blog can be grouped into the third
category, serving PR needs. Once again: Any blog can be clearly grouped into one category, so they serve various communication needs. The description of the different types of blogs will stop here since this differentiation is not necessary for the third and fourth chapter. In chapter 5 a closer look at the different types and their different purposes will be undertaken.
Personal or non-organizational weblogs as well as corporate blogs have to follow certain rules and guidelines in order to be successful, meaning that they are read by users and are linked and mentioned by other blogs. If an individual blogger writes something negative in his weblog, the reputation of the individual blogger may suffer. Of course,
2
35 lawsuits against individual persons are no exception today anymore. Another side of the coin are negative comments by users on a personal weblog. Companies realized that any negative word or sentence about them may harm their image. In consequence, the company (in this case it was the British company CallActive, a producer of call-in-shows in German television like MTV Germany) sued the publisher of the blog (it was the German journalist Stefan Niggemeier, who reported about the business practices of CallActive in his blogF
3
F and received some negative comments by users affecting the company). The publisher has the responsibility for any comment in his blog which also means that he is in charge of deleting any negative comment about this specific company. This was not the only case and in several other issues German courts declared similar actions. Moreover, companies and organizations increasingly realize that negative words of bloggers spread like a virus throughout the web, and it is difficult to counteract this development. But for corporate blogs these general guidelines are much more extended and stricter. Corporate blogs are published by a person affiliated with the company and thus this corporate blog can be clearly associated with that specific company. This is the reason why guidelines for the writers of a corporate blog are much stricter and more rigid: If a person, somehow affiliated with the company, is not faced with such guidelines and does not know how to write a blog (concerning the style and the addressing of critical issues or when the opinion deviates too much from the company's ethical code), the reputation of the company may quickly suffer due to an imprudent expression or sentence by this person. Therefore, several companies such as IBM (Deutsche Bank, 2005) introduced a corporate blogging policy including guidelines what and how to write in a blog.
Corporate weblogs in general follow, so far, non-written, sometimes imaginary rules. Especially the fact that blog entries resemble most often a very personal and subjective style, reinforces the need for general guidelines which are valid for all bloggers (Namics, 2005). However, in the blogosphere there is an ongoing and everlasting fight about these guidelines. Robert Scoble, a famous blogger and employee of Microsoft, has written down 20 points in his “Corporate Weblog Manifesto”F
4 F
which summarizes these guidelines. Among others, the most important things are:
− Tell the truth
3
Available under: http://www.stefan-niggemeier.de/blog
4
36
− Post fast on good news or bad
− Use a human voice
− Have a thick skin
− If you don't have the answers, say so
− Never lie
− Never hide information
− Link to your competitors and say nice things about them
3.2
16BThe Potential of a Blog as a Communication Tool for Relationship
Marketing
Blogs can be considered as the latest and newest facet of online communications (Smudde, 2005). As already mentioned, blogs have been widely known to the public (professionals and non-professionals) since 2004. Blogs have attracted the interest of companies to be used as a communication tool with its customers, shareholders, suppliers or whoever the recipient might be. Hence, this section of the third chapter will focus on the communicative capabilities of blogs, and especially their dialogic potential. Although this paper has corporate blogs as topic, the following will deal with blogs in general because both types possess the same characteristics. Corporate blogs only differ with respect to the issuer, namely the company, in contrast to non-professionals and individuals.
37 between organizations and both types of recipients will not differ that much. Another potential drawback of the study could be the reference medium World Wide Web in contrast to blogs in the current paper. As will be made clearer throughout the following discussion and already mentioned above, blogs represent only another facet in the Internet and are very similar to the nature of web pages. Therefore, the study by Kent and Taylor (1998) can serve as a basis for the analysis of the dialogic potential of blogs in the present paper.
The first principle is the dialogic loop. Kent and Taylor (1998) consider a feedback loop as an appropriate starting point for dialogic communication between an organization and its audience. Via this dialogic loop it is possible for both sides, the organization and the public, to post questions and to respond on problems and concerns the other party brings forward. The format of e-mail is quite important here. For the audience writing an e-mail to an address which is published on the company's homepage is a possibility, but often the organization does not respond and thus “are not committed to or capable of negotiating relationships with publics“ (Kent & Taylor, 1998: 326). Blogs possess by definition the above mentioned commentary function. This means that any individual visiting the public blog published by the company can read the posts in this blog and can respond to it by leaving a comment. Via this comment the writer of this blog can screen what the audience thinks and what their concern is with regard to any issue mentioned in this blog. The writer of this organizational blog can then answer to this entry by leaving a counterargument, starting a discussion or just giving an explanation - whatever the appropriate reaction to this comment will be. However, two further issues are prominent in the discussion by Kent and Taylor (1998) and in the discussion about organizational or corporate blogs, as will be shown in the following.
38 several authors (e.g. Deutsche Bank Research, 2005) underline the importance for organizations of ongoing monitoring of their own corporate blogs and even of other, foreign blogs. This argument is supported by the danger of emerging reputational risks if companies do not react on rapidly changing opinions in the blogosphere, of which they form a part of. Thus, monitoring gives companies the opportunity to quickly respond to any change in the opinion-making process. Concerning the first point, one should highlight the importance of so-called blogging policies. These policies comprise issues such as sticking to general, organizational guidelines, the responsibility of any blog writer for hisF
5
F posts and respecting any legal or financial disclosure laws. To conclude the first principle one could say, that blogs offer a great opportunity for organizations to have a dialogue with its audience while respecting some rules and guideline which make the dialogue effective and efficient.
The second principle deals with the usefulness of information. This principle means that websites should include information of value to all publics. The keyword here is ‘content’, meaning that a website should be effective and should not concentrate on fancy graphics that distract the reader from the relevant content. Related to this is the idea of hierarchy and structure. Furthermore, websites should have an ‘ongoing value’ (Kent & Taylor, 1998) to site visitors. This value often forms the basis for the above described dialogic relationship. Concerning the structure and hierarchy of a website, the content should be organized specific to the audience so that any person can easily find the topic he is interested in. If the second principle is transformed into the world of (corporate) blogs, the story becomes even clearer. Despite the fact that corporate blogs do not contain content that is relevant to any kind of public, they fulfil some other aspects mentioned above. Although blogs often post images and video streams, they do not distract the reader from the content. Sometimes these multimedial issues form the content. For some blogs videos are a form to communicate with its audience. Quite often these videos are first shown on the corporate blog platform to test the reaction of the audience and to discuss the content with it. Moreover, blogs are a type of a website that strictly follows the idea of structure and hierarchy. As the characteristics of blogs above show, they are chronologically structured, showing the latest entry first. Via the categories (or topics) on either the right or left side of the blog, readers can easily choose a topic of the blog they have a specific interest in.
5
39 The third principle deals with the generation of return visits. According to Kent and Taylor (1998) websites should be designed in such a way that they are attractive for repeat visits. This could be due to updated information, changing topics, special forums, new commentaries and question and answer sessions. Especially, this format of question and answer showing up in the commentaries of blogs represents an interactive way of communication. Moreover, blogs are updated at a very regular and frequent basis. The area of ‘topics’ or ‘interests’ contains, of course, different topics and thus deals with different issues. So blogs can generate repeat visits by being updated frequently, offering different topics and giving the opportunity for a question-answer dialogue via the commentary function.
The fourth principle is about the intuitiveness and ease of the interface. Kent and Taylor (1998) think that websites should be easily to navigate and quickly to understand. Again, they highlight the importance of a structure and hierarchy, including something like a table of content. Another issue is the idea of ‘text overrules graphics’, meaning that text is easier and quicker to read and to click. Websites that intend to provide the audience with information should provide these in texts and not in any annoying graphics, like they express it. Consequently, graphics and sounds are not the “most useful tools for providing publics with information“. Although graphics are more aesthetic, text should be the main form to provide information on a website.
To apply the fourth principle to the concept of blogs is a little bit trickier than the previous ones. Of course, blogs have generally a structure that is easy to understand and they do not have elements, which a normal web user could not use. Furthermore, the blogroll is something like a table of content: The reader can see which topics the blog deals with and can then choose which one to read. But as mentioned above, graphics and videos including sound are one ingredient that makes blogs a unique element in the World Wide Web. When a large company produces a new advertising spot, they might first publish it on their blog to test the audience's reaction. In this case, this video is not really information like a press text. Nevertheless, the video can be the topic of an entry in this blog and can be the starting point for a discussion. So in this case the rule mentioned by Kent and Taylor (1998) is not really valid for blogs and cannot easily be transferred to this concept.
40 follow this rule to not lead visitors away to other sites of competitors. The visitors should only come to your site and enjoy their ‘stay’ here without looking for other sites. However, the blogroll, which lists links to other websites (also of competitors), is a central element in the blogosphere and is one element which makes a blog a blog: Generally a high degree of networking exists in the blogoshpere. The blogroll is one way to highlight this networking. However, no blog writer or publisher would leave the blogroll away because of its central importance for a blog. In this way, blog readers are valued and value the blog they actually read, but the way to another blog is very short.
Having applied the five principles of dialogic relations on the World Wide Web to the concept of blogs, the analysis shows that blogs are able to create a dialogic relationship. Seltzer and Mitrook (2007) also followed this question and undertook a study with the title “The dialogic potential of weblogs in relationship building“. They took the five principles by Kent and Taylor (1998) as a basis for an empirical study. This study examined the potential of weblogs for relationship building. These two authors acknowledge that in contrast to websites, blogs incorporate dialogic principles. Blogs facilitate an interactive way of communication and enable ongoing discussions between writers and readers of a blog. Seltzer and Mitrook (2007) undertook an empirical analysis and formulated five hypotheses to test their assumptions. From their analysis one can conclude that blogs score higher on measures of dialogic communication and that weblogs are more responsive than websites. The dialogic principles appeared more frequently in blogs than in normal websites. The conclusion is that blogs possess the “potential for effective, ethical, two-way relationship building“ (Seltzer & Mitrook, 2007). Consequently, their empirical analysis comes to the same conclusion as this present analysis above does. So the study by Seltzer and Mitrook (2007) supports our findings. Thus, corporate blogs can be used as a communication tool to build, develop and retain relationships via their communicative features such as the dialogic loop, content, structure and hierarchy and the ease of the interface.
4
3BCorporate Blogs for Relationship Marketing
41 analysis. In the first part, the fit between the communicative requirements of Relationship Marketing and the communicative capabilities of blogs will be examined. This will be realized by a comparison of the findings in chapter 2 that deals with dialogue, interactivity and feedback and chapter 3, in which features and characteristics of blogs concerning their potential for communications are evaluated. Following the line of reasoning of the present study, communication is not considered as sufficient for effective relations between companies and customers. Thus, the second part of this analysis will scrutinize to which extent blogs can build up necessary antecedents of Relationship Marketing. These antecedents, like commitment, trust and satisfaction, have already been mentioned in chapter 2. In case blogs can fulfil the communicative requirements and establish the antecedents, positive word-of-mouth will result. This aspect will be dealt with in the third part of this chapter.
4.1
17BThe Fit Between Communicative Requirements for Relationship
Marketing and the Communicative Capabilities of Blogs
42 the stage of relationship building like Kent and Taylor (1998) do.
Yet, it only seems justified to go one step further in the analysis by observing that the concepts interactivity, feedback and dialogue are of relevance in the context of blogs as well as in the context of Relationship Marketing. This has been shown in previous parts of this study. Since these three concepts play a major role in Relationship Marketing and as a feature of blogs, it seems logical to consider blogs as an effective communication tool in the Relationship Marketing process.
The just mentioned conclusion of merging blogs and Relationship Marketing is supported by the findings of Seltzer and Mitrook (2007), whose study is based on the findings by Kent and Taylor (1998). Seltzer and Mitrook (2007) conclude from their study that blogs could be used effectively in online efforts of relationship building, as said before. This shows that these two authors deal with the communicative potential of blogs and also try to link this potential to relationship building, yet again only focus on a general audience as a part of PR.
Summing this discussion up, the previous part more or less summarizes and links the findings of chapter 2 and 3. The result is that one can say that there is a fit between the communicative requirements of Relationship Marketing and the communicative potential of blogs. These communicative requirements that are fulfilled by blogs are interactivity, feedback and interaction.
