To be effective, promotional activities need to be part of a broader marketing strategy.

Until recently the objective of many marketing strategies has been to build customer loyalty to a brand (or an organisation's products and/or services).

This has taken the form of:

• creating customer satisfaction - delivering superior products and services
• building the brand - that is, name awareness, perceived quality, brand loyalty, the association consumers (eg employers and job seekers) make with the brand
• creating and maintaining relationships.

There has been an evolution of marketing thought and activity over the last decade. Initially, the focus was placed on customer satisfaction as the ultimate goal of marketing programs. However, as satisfied customers were shown to defect to other brands and/or service providers at high rates, strategists looked at creating a greater commitment with the customer. For that reason, promotional strategies that include enhancing business relationships will result in high levels of repeat business, insulation from competitor services and improved responsiveness by potential prospects to an organisation's promotional activities.