Promotional activities and customer satisfaction: Long-term influence or a temporary marketing 'mirage'?

Brand loyalty plays a crucial role in consumer behavior (Nam, Ekinci, & Whyatt, 2011). Similarly, Keller (2009) discussed that in a changing, and complex marketing environment, companies must build, and nurture brand loyalty in order to achieve business liquidity. (Heerde, Gijsenberg, Dekimpe, and Steenkamp (2013), Kotler and Armstrong (2017), and Lin (2010) published a considerable amount of studies on brand loyalty, and consumer behavior. In addition, Kassim and Asiah Abdullah, (2010) analyzed perceived quality and suggested that is acts as a major influential factor on consumer behavior. There is a growing body of literature that addresses the importance of customer satisfaction. It is a great challenge for researchers to keep up with the changes that occur in a marketing environment. Therefore, the aim of this present paper is to thoroughly analyze the influence of promotional activities on customer satisfaction. Furthermore, Kotler and Keller (2016) noted in their research that advertising positively affects brand loyalty. Rust, Inman, Jia, and Zahorik (1999) argued that customer satisfaction, and perceived quality provide only 50% of the predictions regarding future customer purchases. Complementary to their research, Sovinsky (2008) suggested that consumers are not fully aware of all the present brands on the market. Powers, Choi, and Jack (2017) noted that customer satisfaction affects customer loyalty and it is the cornerstone of a competitive market position. Therefore, in this paper it is further speculated that in order to adequately analyze the influence of promotional activities on customer satisfaction, brand loyalty has to be considered, and included as a mediating factor in the research process. Tellis (1988) argued that there is a lot of uncertainty when it comes to advertising. A newer study conducted by Akaka and Alden (2015), suggests that repeated advertising on a global scale is a necessity when positioning global brands. In addition, Harms, Bijmolt, and Hoekstra (2017) noted that advertising on digital platforms can positively influence consumer behavior. Taking into consideration all the above mentioned findings, this present study starts by further reviewing significant literature in the domain of promotional activities, and customer behavior. In the second section, Abstract: In this paper the influence of promotional activities on customer satisfaction is examined. In addition, key marketing constructs were measured in accordance with the goals of the research. These constructs are perceived quality, brand loyalty, and customer experience. The goal of this study is to determine the effectiveness of promotional activities regarding customer satisfaction in a modern marketing environment. Data was collected through an online survey from 466 subjects (customers, consumers, and users of various products). The structured survey was distributed in Serbia. The findings imply that promotional activities have a major influence on customers’ post-purchase experience. Further, the results show how promotional activities affect consumers’ and customers’ subjective views on products. As promotional activities and customer satisfaction play important roles in a marketing environment, it can be argued that this paper lends support and contributes to the existing body of literature in this domain.