The Workshop and the Art of Relationship Marketing

Most businesses say they care about their customers, but fewer manage to make those customers feel it. In an age where most interactions are reduced to a notification and a discount code, the difference between saying and showing has never been starker. Yet some businesses seem to have cracked it… not through grand gestures or clever campaigns, but through honest, consistent care.

Walk through the doors of The Workshop, a small independent gym tucked into a quiet street in the heart of Dublin, and you’ll see it in action. Before you’ve even broken a sweat, you’re greeted by name. The coach introduces you to a few members, asks about any injuries, explains how the class works, and checks what kind of training you’ve done before. When the session starts, you’re introduced to the whole class, and the group actually applauds. It’s a small thing, but it changes the temperature of the room instantly. The ice is gone. You are no longer “a new client”. You’re part of something.

That, in essence, is relationship marketing: the deliberate act of building connection before transaction. It’s about creating loyalty that doesn’t rely on contracts or points systems but on genuine belonging. In practical terms, relationship marketing focuses on long-term engagement rather than one-off conversions. It’s rooted in the idea that customers are more than buyers; they’re participants in the ongoing story of a business. When done well, it transforms how people talk about a brand… and whether they stay.

Why Relationship Marketing Matters More Than Ever

The idea isn’t new. Academics began writing about relationship marketing in the 1980s as a reaction to overly transactional models that treated customers as data points (Grönroos, 1989). What makes it urgent now is how digital our world has become. Automation, AI, and targeted advertising have made it easier than ever to reach people but harder than ever to connect with them.

Businesses are realising that while algorithms can get attention, only relationships keep it, and while digital tools are useful, they can’t replace eye contact, memory, or warmth. Every company is technically capable of sending a thank-you email. Few manage to make that message feel like it came from a real person.

The Workshop: A Living Example of Relationship Marketing

To understand how this works in practice, The Workshop offers a near-perfect case study. The moment you join, you are invited into a world built around belonging. Trial sessions are free, but the experience is rich: the team remembers your name, checks in throughout the class, and follows up afterwards. Once you sign up, you can join a WhatsApp group where members share everything from training tips to memes.

The gym hosts hikes, sea swims, and social events that have little to do with squats or wallballs but everything to do with community. Every coach learns your name and takes the time to understand your goals. On social media, they celebrate birthdays, congratulate marathon finishers, and post photos that feel more like family albums than marketing collateral.

None of this is accidental. Every gesture (from the first greeting to the branded t-shirt that celebrates your class attendance milestones) is a form of marketing. It signals care, recognition, and consistency, and these are the foundations of loyalty… and, no, they cannot be automated. When people feel known, they stay. And when they stay, they bring others with them.

The Four Pillars of Relationship Marketing

The original foundations of relationship marketing were shaped by academics such as Leonard Berry (1983), Christian Grönroos (1989), and later Morgan and Hunt (1994), whose work identified trust, commitment, and communication as the cornerstones of long-term customer relationships. These concepts explained why people stay loyal to certain brands even when cheaper or faster alternatives exist.

For most businesses, though, those ideas feel abstract. They understand its importance, but it’s equally hard to operationalise. Translating these into everyday action requires a more practical lens, and the Workshop shows how these theories can come to life through four simple but powerful pillars: personalisation, community, consistency, and care.

1. Personalisation: Make the first moment matter.

People remember how you made them feel, not what you sold them. Use names. Ask questions. Learn about goals, challenges, and preferences. In service-based businesses, that could mean noting a client’s past projects or remembering a dietary preference at a restaurant. In digital settings, it could be a short message after purchase asking how the experience went. These moments are small, but they build emotional memory.

2. Community: Create spaces for connection.

The Workshop’s WhatsApp group and social events give members reasons to engage outside of transactions. Product-based businesses can take the same principle and translate it into their own world. A food company could host recipe challenges or spotlight how people use its ingredients in real life. A tech brand might run user forums where customers trade tips and troubleshoot together. These spaces give customers something bigger to belong to. It becomes a shared identity, not just a shared purchase. The goal here is to create an environment where people build relationships not only with you but with each other. Once that happens, the community sustains itself.

3. Consistency: Be predictably thoughtful.

Relationship marketing fails when care feels forced or like a one-off. Consistency doesn’t mean constant communication; it means reliable tone and timing. What The Workshop does well here is that it doesn’t surprise its members with attention one month and disappear the next. Its warmth is steady. In other sectors, this might look like monthly check-ins, regular newsletters with genuine value, or annual thank-you gifts. The point is to make care habitual.

4. Care: Show genuine investment in their success.

This one is the hardest to fake, because it requires true curiosity and follow-through. When a customer mentions a goal or a challenge, make a note. Ask about it next time. If a client’s project wraps up, follow up to see how the results held up. These gestures cost little but create disproportionate goodwill. The Workshop’s coaches embody this principle every time they remember a member’s injury history or cheer them on when they finally achieve that first pull-up they have been working towards for months.

How to Bring Relationship Marketing Into Your Own Business

For small and medium-sized businesses, this approach is both achievable and powerful. You don’t need a vast CRM system or a marketing automation platform to build relationships. You need habits.

Start by mapping the key stages of your customer journey from the first enquiry through to onboarding, delivery, follow-up, and renewal. For each stage, identify one or two ways to make the experience more human. A handwritten thank-you note, a voice message instead of an email, or a customer spotlight in your newsletter can all serve as simple but meaningful touchpoints.

Next, train your team to recognise that every role has a marketing function. The person answering the phone, packing a parcel, or teaching a class has more influence on brand perception than any advert ever could. Equip them with the context and freedom to build real relationships.

And finally, measure what matters. You need to track repeat purchases, referrals, and engagement quality as diligently as you track sales and leads. If people are replying to your emails or sharing your posts without being asked, you’re building trust. And trust is the currency that sustains long-term business growth.

Why Does Relationship Marketing Work So Well

Relationship marketing works because it aligns with basic human psychology. People want to be seen, heard, and valued. Businesses that understand this tend to outperform those that don’t. In this landmark Harvard Business Review article, Reichheld and Sasser (1990) demonstrated that even a modest five-per-cent increase in customer retention could improve profitability by up to 95 per cent, depending on the industry. The research showed that loyal customers tend to buy more, cost less to serve, and refer others… all of which compound over time. 

Loyalty is not a soft metric. Loyalty is a financial strategy.

Yet what sustains loyalty isn’t reward schemes or glossy newsletters or the odd free gift, but authenticity and repetition. The Workshop doesn’t need to reinvent its approach every month. It simply keeps doing the same thoughtful things, honestly and consistently, until they become part of the culture.

What The Workshop demonstrates so clearly is that care and commerce are not in conflict. Their members don’t just buy a service; they join a story. They show up because they’re seen. They stay because they’re known. And when they talk about the gym, they don’t talk about price or facilities. They talk about how it feels to be there.

Relationship marketing reminds us that loyalty cannot be bought, only earned, one interaction at a time, and The Workshop has built a thriving business through nurturing that loyalty by doing something deceptively simple: treating people as people.

References: 

• Grönroos, C. (1989). Defining Marketing: A Market-Oriented Approach. European Journal of Marketing, 23(1), 52–60. 

• Reichheld, F. F., & Sasser, W. E. Jr. (1990). Zero Defections: Quality Comes to Services. Harvard Business Review, 68(5), 105–111.