How you communicate with and engage your customers is the most important aspect of your business and your brand. After all, it is in building long-lasting connections that you build long-lasting businesses.
Just like your overall marketing strategy, your relationship marketing style does not come in a one-size-fits-all package.
Relationship marketing focuses on customer retention and the quality of engagement of the customer with your brand. Following is an overview of the two main relationship marketing styles.
Which one is right for your business?
Relationship Marketing: A focus on quality
While every customer should be treated with respect and attended to with care, a relationship marketing style focused on quality targets the individual customer on a personal level.
This approach is best for service-based businesses such as smaller marketing firms, brick and mortar small businesses, and solopreneurs like coaches and consultants.
By focusing your marketing on making deeper connections with a fewer number of clients, you’ll cultivate security and generate more referral business.
This style of relationship marketing is based on:
- One-on-one phone calls
- Skype sessions
- Emails that may be automated but are always personalized
- Private Facebook groups
- Participating in or creating a tribe on Triberr
These are all great, effective ways to engage your customers with quality-based relationship marketing.
Relationship Marketing: A focus on quantity
When selling physical or digital products, your goal is to sell as many products as possible. But focusing on increased sales does not have to mean throwing relationship marketing out the window.
Instead of focusing on individual relationships, quantity-based relationship marketing works to connect with the largest portion of your target market possible.
You can do this by:
- Automating all of your email marketing including opt-in forms and autoresponders. When you have hundreds or thousands of customers, trying to answer every email individually leaves you frazzled, and leaves neglected customers frustrated. Automate your email marketing to ensure relationships stay intact.
- Focusing on social media. Where the quality-based relationship marketer focuses on private Facebook groups and exclusive tribes, the quantity-based marketer focuses on growing their Facebook fan page and Twitter following.
- Creating a product that encapsulates the customer relationship. When you’re marketing to millions, it’s impossible to build a personal relationship with each and every customer. That’s why it’s imperative to create a product that represents you and your brand.
It is the product – not you – that will build loyalty and engage the customer long-term. Creating a product that solves your customers’ pain points is the most powerful form of relationship marketing out there.
Be sure to use both quality and quantity-based relationship marketing styles as your business grows and changes.
When offering an exclusive VIP training course, you might focus on quality leads and a smaller customer base. Then, when offering an eBook or free webinar, your relationship marketing may shift to focus on quantity.
Which relationship marketing style is right for your company?
Which style seems to work the best for your products and services?
