Relationship Marketing 101
People use “We Go Together Like” to show how strong their relationship is and as a business you need to have strong relationships with your customers. Relationship marketing is a strategy that focuses on customer retention and satisfaction rather than on sales transactions.
It provides them with information directly suited to their needs and interests to encourage customer loyalty, interaction and long-term engagement. It strives to create an emotion or personal connection for the customer to your brand. They are customers, but they are people first. Customers want to buy from someone they know, like or trust. Customers want to know that there are real people behind your logo.
The main factor in relationship marketing is being interested in your customer. Here are some ways you can implement relationship marketing:
- One-to-one marketing offers like sending personalized birthday cards
- Being readily available for customer concerns
- Social Media interaction
- Loyalty Programs
- Welcome feedback
The more points of contact you have between your business and your customer the stronger the bond between the customer and your business will be. Relationship marketing is different than other forms of marketing because it recognizes the long term potential of a customer. Having a strong bond with your customers opens you up to numerous benefits:
- Repeated sales
- Turning the customer into an advocate and getting free word of mouth promotion and referrals
- Long term customers are less price sensitive
- Brand loyalty
- Better customer feedback
Relationship marketing is easy when you recognize that customers are people. Just because you’re a business doesn’t mean that they’re going to behave in a different way. They still have the same needs and respond in the same way to a business as they would a friend. Taking the time to build relationships with your customers is essential to your business’ long term success.
One of our favorite sessions from Salesforce Connections 2016 was by Cliff Seal. He talked about how marketers need to remember that they are people marketing to other people. Even in B2B, people are your customers. Here are a few of our favorite quotes from him:
“We have forgotten our authenticity. Forgotten that we are people.” Tweet it!
“Your customers want you to be people.” Tweet it!
“Loyal customers sell products.” Tweet it!
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