Investigate the role of sensory, internal and relationship marketing in customer loyalty of the public and private sports clubs

Background &Purpose: Marketing is the key business unit of the sports industry and it is clear that its customers are one of the most important assets.

Methodology: this research is Applied and correlational. The statistical population consisted of all private and public sports clubs in Tabriz city, with 398 customers selected randomly and clustered. The research tools were four standard internal marketing, Sensory Marketing, Fontaine Relationship Marketing and Customer Loyalty Inventory Questionnaire. Content validity was confirmed by experts and reliability through Cronbach's alpha coefficient is estimated. The analytical results of the test KS, Pearson and multiple regression and structural equation modeling and the demographics of frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation with the help of software Excel, SPSS and Amos were used.

Results: The results showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between internal marketing, relationship and sensory and their components with customer loyalty (p = 0.01). The results also showed that 38 percent of the variance in total loyalty changes of sports club clients is related to relationship marketing, sensory and internal communication. Finally, the results showed that the model of relationships between sensory marketing, relationships, internal and customer loyalty has a desirable fit.

Conclusion: Managers of sports centers must improve the knowledge and skills of their employees and coaches in response to customer needs and customer relationships in order to improve the quality based on the highest expectations of the customers.

Keywords: Sports marketing, sports industry, customer orientation, sports clubs, loyalty.

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