Two major aspects of marketing are the recruitment of new customers
(acquisition) and the retention and expansion of relationships
with existing customers (base management).
An emerging area of study and practice concerns internal marketing,
or how employees are trained and managed to deliver the brand
in a way that positively impacts the acquisition and retention
of customers.
Once a marketer has converted the prospective buyer, base management
marketing takes over. The process for base management shifts
the marketer to building a relationship, nurturing the links,
enhancing the benefits that sold the buyer in the first place,
and improving the product/service continuously to protect her
business from competitive encroachments.
Marketing methods are informed by many of the
social sciences, particularly psychology, sociology, and economics.
Anthropology is also a small, but growing, influence. Market
research underpins these activities. Through advertising, it
is also related to many of the creative arts.
