The Montana Mountain Biking Case Montana Mountain Biking Company has been in business for 16 years providing guided mountain biking trips at four locations in Montana. The success of the company is linked to retaining its customers. Eighty percent of the customers who sign up for the one week guided mountain biking expedition are repeat customers (University Of Phoenix, 2007). An important part of any marketing plan is to understand the customer relationship because ultimately, all profits come from the customers. The challenges facing the Montana Mountain Biking company is not only retaining customers but to attract new customers. The advances in e-marketing have given Montana Mountain Biking some alternatives to traditional marketing
E-Mail Marketing Strategy for MMB Companies are in a constant battle to gain new customers. E-mail marketing is a relative new e-business tool that makes it easy to keep in touch with existing customer and can be used to find new customers. E-mail marketing involves sending e-mails to potential customers. This method can be broken down into two categories; random and permission marketing. E-mails that are unanticipated by the receiver or e-mails that are just randomly sent by the company to an e-mail address. The conversion rate is very low and most of the e-mails are deleted or blocked before they are read. Permission marketing consists of sending e-mails to people who have expressed interest in receiving information about the product or service (UOP, 2007). Permission marketing usually involves purchasing a mail list from a company. This method is less costly then traditional advertising methods.
Montana Mountain Biking Company is trying to find ways to attract new customers. MMB has tried advertising in several outdoor interest and sports magazines in the past without much success. MMB is currently working with a marketing consultant about buying a address list and sending out a promotional mailer. The cost of this type of program is approximately $246,000. The cost includes $0.10 per name and $4 per mailer for the 60,000 names on the list (UOP, 2007). MMB should consider a permission marketing program. The cost per person is much more