Let’s face it. All marketing is relationship marketing.
In fact, the term relationship marketing is a bit redundant. It’s like saying cleansing shampoo. Or lubricating motor oil.
Companies big and small must create relationships with customers to generate purchase activity and ensure a positive brand experience. All marketing must focus on developing and nurturing a relationship. All marketing is therefore relationship marketing.
So here are 7 ways to get the most out of your relationship marketing—er, I mean—marketing.
1) Think Long Term: it generally takes 12 customer touchpoints to close a sale. Focus on the long term and you will acquire more customers and you will hold onto customers longer.
2) Refer, Refer, Refer: the fastest way to build a customer base is to help other businesses build their customer base. Join a networking group and make it a point to find customers for other businesses. Return on this investment will exceed your wildest expectations and continually fill your sales funnel.
3) Give to Give: don’t give to get. Give to give. The Law of Attraction is powerful. Offer your services generously—dare I say, free?—and it will come back to you tenfold.
4) Build Your List: if you can develop a list of contacts that welcome your marketing messages, the hardest part of the battle is over. Once you have a captive audience, selling your products and services is surprisingly easy.
5) Leverage Different Communication Mediums: don’t rely on only one marketing channel. Relationships are built across a number of methods and people respond uniquely to different communications. At a minimum, incorporate a direct mail program, an e-mail program, events or personal appearances and personal phone calls. But explore channels beyond these like social media, sponsorships, article marketing and more. Think of it this way: one may as well be none but four or more is sure to score.
6) Outsource Everything Except Relationship Building: you can always hire people to perform the necessary activities to build and run a business. But don’t hire someone to build and run your relationships. Only you can do that best.
7) Don’t Worry About Scale: too many clients tell me that one-to-one relationship marketing takes too much time and growth is slow. My response to that: one-to-one becomes one-to-many when word spreads. Scale will come. Your network will build scale. Focus on each individual relationship and let your network do the rest.
Remember, the core of all marketing is the relationship your product, service or brand creates and nurtures with customers and prospects. All shampoo is cleansing, all motor oil is lubricating and all marketing is relationship building.
Showing posts with label relationship marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationship marketing. Show all posts
Millions of Dollars for an Obvious Conclusion
It’s called “branded entertainment” and it’s the new wave in marketing for major brands. Well-known brands--like Suave, Adobe, Corona and Verizon--are allocating massive marketing dollars to entice consumers to experience the brand.
Branded entertainment is more than just advertising. It involves providing various communication outlets for consumers to interact and follow a brand. It’s a website with puzzles, games and webisodes. There are multiple touchpoints like emails, text messages or postings on social media sites.
The objective is understandable: marketers want to create relationships with their consumers. Experts remind us that people don’t necessarily buy products or services, they buy relationships. Create a lasting bond with a brand, and the user will consume more content and more products.
A perfect example of branded entertainment was the web-scavenger hunt launched before the release of Batman: The Dark Knight. There were a series of on-line clues that led consumers from city to city. The campaign also offered free copies of a fictional Gotham Times to those people that sent in a picture of themselves as the Joker.
What baffles me about this whole thing is what the experts are claiming!
These experts get paid outrageous sums of money and their enlightened conclusion is that you need to build relationships to sell more? Isn’t this something we already know!
Small businesses have long understood that marketing is mostly about relationships. For a small business, every marketing touchpoint is an interaction with the consumer. More important, each touchpoint is real. No virtual reality with small businesses!
Relationship marketing is the foundation of any marketing plan. It should be the first component of the marketing plan for your business. It encompasses customer service, community outreach and the creation of a positive and lasting image of your brand.
In fact, it’s such a crucial subject that I intend to dedicate many more posts about relationship marketing.
For now, I simply smile when I realize that major corporations are investing tremendous marketing dollars with the same objective that I both pursue and recommend.
Sure, they may have million dollar budgets. Their agencies boast some of the most creative, artistic and intelligent people around. They employ data tracking software, customer segmentation models and statistical analysis.
But in the end, all those resources are dedicated to the same thing small businesses seek everyday: a platform to interact with a customer to ensure a positive experience and repeat purchases.
Maybe small businesses need to teach big businesses how to market.
Branded entertainment is more than just advertising. It involves providing various communication outlets for consumers to interact and follow a brand. It’s a website with puzzles, games and webisodes. There are multiple touchpoints like emails, text messages or postings on social media sites.
The objective is understandable: marketers want to create relationships with their consumers. Experts remind us that people don’t necessarily buy products or services, they buy relationships. Create a lasting bond with a brand, and the user will consume more content and more products.
A perfect example of branded entertainment was the web-scavenger hunt launched before the release of Batman: The Dark Knight. There were a series of on-line clues that led consumers from city to city. The campaign also offered free copies of a fictional Gotham Times to those people that sent in a picture of themselves as the Joker.
What baffles me about this whole thing is what the experts are claiming!
These experts get paid outrageous sums of money and their enlightened conclusion is that you need to build relationships to sell more? Isn’t this something we already know!
Small businesses have long understood that marketing is mostly about relationships. For a small business, every marketing touchpoint is an interaction with the consumer. More important, each touchpoint is real. No virtual reality with small businesses!
Relationship marketing is the foundation of any marketing plan. It should be the first component of the marketing plan for your business. It encompasses customer service, community outreach and the creation of a positive and lasting image of your brand.
In fact, it’s such a crucial subject that I intend to dedicate many more posts about relationship marketing.
For now, I simply smile when I realize that major corporations are investing tremendous marketing dollars with the same objective that I both pursue and recommend.
Sure, they may have million dollar budgets. Their agencies boast some of the most creative, artistic and intelligent people around. They employ data tracking software, customer segmentation models and statistical analysis.
But in the end, all those resources are dedicated to the same thing small businesses seek everyday: a platform to interact with a customer to ensure a positive experience and repeat purchases.
Maybe small businesses need to teach big businesses how to market.
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