The Mutual Marketing Glossary

1. Customer Relationship Management

(CRM) is the business strategy whose goal is to deliver perceived value to customers, in order to derive value back from a satisfied, engaged and ultimately loyal customer base. Building mutual value is a key component of the discipline. If companies try and use CRM techniques (such as gathering personal customer data) to simply boost their own profits, without delivering value, they will fail to build the relationships that are an important intangible asset to 21st century organizations.

2. Marketing

Is the business discipline that anticipates and provides for consumer and customer needs, profitable. Like finance, it is a discipline everyone in business should have some knowledge of. It is not just promotion to the market - that is as simplistic as saying finance is about counting income. Promotion is just one of the tools in the marketing toolbox.

3. Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a concept whereby organizations consider the interests of society (customers, employees, shareholders, communities and the environment) in their operations. This extends beyond compliance with legislation and sees organizations voluntarily taking steps to improve the quality of life. This may include helping individuals achieve personal social responsibility eg cutting down on waste going into landfill. In the longer term business cycle the purpose of firms oscillates between two extremes of welfare economics. 1. the business of businesses business, with focus on shareholders/business owners 2. the business of business is social, with the focus on society as a whole Companies in the 19th century such as Cadbury, Leaver Brothers, Rowntree and Salts Mill are classic examples of organizations who saw that their future (and thus sustainability) lay with a greater sense of CSR.

4. Web 2.0

Used in a business sense this means a new way of marketing that involves reciprocal information sharing for mutual gain through networks. In a pure IT sense it is the online software that allows social networks. Web 2.0 contrasts to web 1.0, which was all about one way communication directly from company to customers, without interaction. In this context web 1.0 can be seen as traditional mass market communication.