If we said that thanks to the marketing segmentation, Haier had tightly hold on the small refrigerator and wine cellar market in USA and made its products on shelf of every Wal-Mart all over the America, then Midea's relationship marketing of being a customerfocused enterprise and building strategic alliances with its suppliers and distributors had directly contributed to the company's success. .
According to the text, relationship marketing is "the development, growth, and maintenance of long-term, cost-effective relationships with individual customers, suppliers, employees, and other partners for mutual benefits". Two points are emphasized in this definition. Firstly, building and managing long-term relationships between the buyers and sellers is the characteristic of relationship marketing and strategic alliances play and important role in relationship marketing programs. Secondly, these kinds of relationships and alliances should be mutual benefit; otherwise they would not be sustained long. Now let's see how Midea illustrate the relationship marketing through its success in US market. .
Being Customer-Focused Enterprise.
Over the past several decades, consumer's needs and demands have undergone significant change and so has the transaction-based marketing, which focused on individual sales or transactions. The relationship marketing that had much broader view took its place. Long-term relationships replaced short-term ones. The organizations turned their goals from making the sale to emphasizing on retaining customers. Customer service priority became the key component. Companies cherished the frequent customer contacts and high degree of customer commitment. Cooperation and trust turned to be the basis for seller-customer interaction. And the source of quality extended from production to companywide commitment. .
In this case, Midea's customer-oriented strategy was very obvious.