Relationship marketing is all about cultivating a mutually beneficial long-term relationship with your customers. A good relationship marketing strategy will create an emotional connection with the audience; one that fosters loyalty to the brand/business to promote long-term engagement.
Relationship marketing differs from sales marketing because it’s less about bringing in new customers and more about retaining and interacting with existing customers. That means your tactics have to be a little different. In this post, I want to delve into how to cultivate existing customer relationships as part of a relationship marketing strategy.
3 Smart Ways To Build Customer Relationships
The foundation of any good business relationship is to provide the customer with something that they want. In the case of marketing, and specifically relationship marketing, what they want is high-value information.
In our previous post, Relationship Marketing 101: Give Your Audience What They Want, we covered techniques that can be used to find out what kind of information your audience is seeking. Building on that, we are going to assume you’ve discovered what your customers want and are starting to provide it. Now it’s time to go a little deeper to make the relationship stronger and build customer loyalty.
Here are a few ways to do that:
- Make sure you’re giving. The foundation of any relationship, business or not, is to give the other party something that they want. Now that you have discovered what they want by doing your research, make sure you actually provide it! Ignoring customer comments, suggestions, and questions is a surefire way to lose their business!
- Who doesn’t love getting more than they expected? In this case, we want to provide valuable information and even provide more information than expected. What does that mean? Maybe instead of a simple Yes/No answer to an FAQ, you provide an explanation as to why the answer is what it is. This not only provides the customer with the information they are seeking, it also gives them a glimpse into the business and how you operate. Sneak peeks like this are a great way to build brand loyalty because they make the customer feel like they are a part of something.
- Be available. Always provide your customers with a way to contact you for more information or to ask specific questions. It’s incredibly frustrating to find a partial answer and then have no way to get in contact with the business to receive clarification – and it’s way too easy to move on to a competitor who is more available. Don’t risk it. Always provide customers a way to follow up with you.
Interested in More Tips? Contact The Marketing Shop For Advice
Do you need help cultivating your customer relationships? Helping our clients build better customer relationships is what we do! Our content marketing services are designed around you and your customers’ needs to drive your business forward.
Start improving your relationship marketing plan today. Contact The Marketing Shop to arrange a free consultation!