Relationship Marketing is a strategy to build and spread the brand, retaining customers and creating authority in the market. Find out how you can put it into practice in this post!
Have you ever stopped to think about what is essential to maintain a good relationship? Being listened to and having someone who really cares about what you need are some of the factors that we can mention. And the brands that propose to do this work with their customers are applying the principles of relationship marketing.
In the midst of the large amount of information we receive every day, have you ever had a very positive experience with a brand? So positive that you not only became a loyal customer of the product, but also purchased other solutions from the same company and became a true promoter of the brand?
If you had that experience personally, or already witnessed it in some form, you certainly remember it. In the end, who doesn’t like to be well treated and feel special?
And, if you have already experienced that situation, you may have wondered: Why do some companies bother to create these experiences? Is it just to retain customers? Are those shares worth it financially?
The answer to all these questions has a name: Relationship Marketing .
And it is much more than an action to obtain clients. It is a strategy that involves brand building, customer loyalty, brand diffusion and creation of authority in the market.
Next, we are going to talk about what Relationship Marketing is, what it is for, how to apply it and if, after all, it is worth it.
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What is Relationship Marketing
When we think of relationship marketing, we can say that it encompasses strategies such as:
- Brand construction and diffusion;
- Loyalty and creation of market authority;
- Contact with the public in different channels of Digital Marketing and communication;
- Close communication of each person with the Ideal Client Profile (ICP);
- Marketing automation with your contacts.
The main objective of establishing this relationship is to win over and retain customers, in addition to converting them into brand advocates .
Another objective is to become a reference in the market, mainly due to the good experiences offered to users. To achieve all this, the company basically creates a relationship in which it offers advantages to its customers and prospects through well-structured communication actions.
What is Relationship Marketing used for?
As we have said, Relationship Marketing has as its objective much more than helping sales. It’s not just to get customers, but to get fans. But that’s a two-way street: you need to offer something that your customer can’t get elsewhere. In the end, giving is how you receive.
Relationship Marketing is not a strategy that occurs only in the short term: on the contrary, its goal is to create an ongoing and preferably ongoing relationship, either by making a customer become a fan or by making a customer of a product or service basic evolve to more complex alternatives of your solution.
And, in addition to generating new income and recurring billing, Relationship Marketing brings the client closer to the company, which benefits not only the client – who gains faster and more personalized answers to their doubts and problems – but also the company, which receives feedback. more consistent and you have the ability to learn with your audience and continually improve your solution.
Think, for example, that, with Relationship Marketing, the public can get closer to your company and learn more about what you do and the solutions you offer. In this way, the probability that he perceives the value of your solution is greater, and, therefore, the probability that he will buy is also greater.
In addition, if the public has a good experience with your company, it is likely that they will want to spread that positive experience to other people, generating a multiplier effect that impacts the acquisition of new customers.
Why is it important to maintain the relationship?
When understanding what relationship marketing is for, it is common to wonder if it is really important for a company. After all, is this the right way to do marketing? What is the problem with the traditional model?
The truth is that Relationship Marketing is a complementary strategy to several others that you can use . However, it’s essential to know that this is in contrast to the more traditional marketing approach, which focuses on promoting something without worrying too much about your prospect’s timing.
In the model that does not value the relationship, the customer cannot return to buy something from the brand in the future or may even forego a purchase . Meanwhile, organizations that combine elements of traditional and relationship marketing can place the customer in the most important role in the success of the company.
Good value can be the missing factor when deciding on a purchase
Making the customer think of your company when it comes time to buy should be the central objective of the entire Marketing team.
However, there are other advantages to investing in this initiative. The first is that maintaining the relationship with your client, even with the one who has already closed a purchase, can be very economical. The relationship cost of keeping your old customers is much less than the cost of acquiring new customers.
This may be the factor that was missing at the time of each customer’s purchase decision, being able to generate not only more purchases by the same customer, but also new indications.
Another important point is that, by maintaining a relationship with the public, your company can educate them and help them identify a need that was not so clear before. In this sense, content production plays an essential role in leveraging the results of your relationship and digital marketing.
What are the benefits of using relationship marketing?
Now that it has become clearer what is the impact that Relationship Marketing can generate in your operation, we are going to know 3 more benefits that this strategy can provide to any company.
Increase LTV
Those who work with solutions in the subscription model know that LTV ( Lifetime Value ) is the metric that helps to understand the importance of keeping the customer as long as possible. Only then is it possible to deliver an amount greater than what was spent on its acquisition.
Therefore, relationship strategy helps to increase customer lifetime value. You will be able to win loyal customers, which leads to new purchases and a higher LTV.
Additionally, loyal customers are likely to become brand ambassadors, recommending products and services to friends and family, helping to lower your CAC .
Reduced spending on marketing and advertising.
Spending on marketing and advertising to win new clients can decrease with relationship-focused work. As customers tell each other about a brand’s products and services, it’s common to have an organic boost in sales.
Brands that focus on this marketing model spend little to no money on paid marketing and ads .
Greater alignment of communication with the client.
Organizations that emphasize relationship marketing have a stronger organizational alignment around providing an exceptional customer experience. In this case, all the company’s teams must work together to attract satisfied and happy customers in the long term.
How to apply Relationship Marketing
OK, now we know what Relationship Marketing is and what it is for. But how can we apply it in practice?
There are many ways to do it, and fortunately the internet has made things easier for companies, because it allows them to get even closer to their audience.
For example, you can count on Digital Marketing , Inbound Marketing and Content Marketing methodologies for this. As these are tools, you can use a blog, social networks and Email Marketing, as well as offline actions, such as sending gifts, for example.
Next, we will talk a little more about the ways to apply Relationship Marketing.
Step 1: It all starts from the data
Businesses must first analyze their customer demographics and history to understand who they are, what they buy, and how to engage with them for the long term.
It is also important to understand why a consumer returns and makes a new purchase. Without looking at the data, we may think that customers return because the company has had a good relationship, but perhaps they will return to consumption because the company delivers a product quickly or because of the below-market price.
Analyzing this information and the nature of customer loyalty is the best method for developing an effective Relationship Marketing plan from the start.
Step 2: Know your audience and create the ideal profiles of your customers
With this various customer data, the company can begin to segment its potential customers and develop unique marketing strategies for each group. A customer who appreciates the value of a product, for example, has different characteristics than those who have had a remarkable service experience.
That means that there is no point in doing Relationship Marketing if you don’t know your audience . Otherwise, how are you going to offer the benefits that it wants to generate a truly differentiated user experience?
Therefore, it is essential that you create the personas of your company , that is, the representations of the best clients of your company. In this way, you will focus your relationship with that audience, with the objective of attracting them to become a client.
By attracting that audience and obtaining some strategic information about it, you will generate a contact base, with which you will establish a relationship to generate and retain customers.
It is important that this base is always updated so that you can be efficient in your relationship. The data obtained is particularly important, because with it you will create actions to retain your customers.
Among those who are already your customers, the ideal is to identify which are the ones that buy most frequently and that generate more income for your company. You should focus the most relevant Relationship Marketing actions on these clients: create a personalized accompaniment and think of ways to bring your contact closer to them.
From there, you can start to think about the tools and formats that you will use to strengthen the Relationship Marketing strategies with them. Check out some of those tools:
Step 3 Start Relationship Marketing with Email Marketing
One of the most powerful tools in Relationship Marketing are Email Marketing campaigns . This is because it is highly customizable and you can use it for various Relationship Marketing actions, such as:
- Create a close relationship;
- Congratulate the client on important dates in his life, such as birthdays, marriage, etc.;
- Offer relevant content that really generates value for your client;
- Send campaigns to build and consolidate the brand, showing how your company has a relevant role in the life of your client;
- Offer special promotions, discounts, bonuses, gifts and other advantages, highlighting the benefit of being a customer of your company;
- Post-sales actions: carry out satisfaction surveys to find out the opinion and suggestions of customers for your company;
- Offer new products, stimulating cross-selling and upselling .
Step 4: Relationship Marketing with Social Networks
Social networks have become a powerful tool to bring customers and companies closer together. Therefore, it is important that they know how to use this medium well to interact with customers.
The presence in the main networks – such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter etc. – It is no longer a corporate differential, but a basic Relationship Marketing strategy.
On the one hand, these are a huge opportunity for companies to spread their messages to a growing audience and, with that, conquer new audiences.
In addition, since communication occurs almost immediately, your actions on social networks often have repercussions in a very short time.
Well-structured strategies can take a company to a whole new level in relation to its customers. Unplanned actions, on the other hand, can completely damage a company’s image in the eyes of customers and prospects.
Should the focus on social media be content?
In the same way as Email Marketing, social networks are a very useful tool for the dissemination and production of content. But it cannot be any content: it must be quality and personalized content so that your customers feel unique. Don’t forget your people!
On social networks, you can also address different types of content:
- Product offers;
- Services and promotions and bonuses;
- Materials that educate and generate value,
- brand consolidation,
- Satisfaction surveys, among others.
But it is important that you be aware of the type of social network you are on.
Creating the same type of relationship in all of them is the same thing as not considering your person: mass communication, which will probably generate little interest.
For example, Facebook and LinkedIn are companies widely used to work content offers. The most visual networks, such as Instagram and Pinterest, are very efficient for brand building.
And, as soon as you can, invest in paid advertising on those networks. In addition to considerably increasing the reach of your relationship campaigns, you can also create highly segmented audiences, making your communication even more personalized.
Step 5: Relationship Marketing with Marketing Automation
To scale your relationship work, even in a personalized way, you should continue with the Marketing Automation work .
Through this strategy, you create a structure for sending emails and other important elements to the flow of the relationship. They can be done automatically for an entire segment of leads and customers .
The automatic sending of content that is aligned with the needs of each person helps the client to be successful, helping with frequent doubts.
Working with automation means you’ll be talking to the right person, at the right time, and on the best communication channel for them. This is a way of taking a step forward, generating value and proposing to deliver something that solves the problem that each person has at that moment.
Step 6 Relationship Marketing with rewards programs
This is one of the most common forms of Relationship Marketing and is widely used by airlines, credit card companies, banks and even hotels and restaurants. It is basically about offering benefits so that the customer preferably consumes your product or service instead of using those of the competition.
These benefits can be varied, from fees for the service itself or product offered – as in the case of hotels, restaurants and airlines, which offer lodging, meals and miles after the customer uses them a few times or after using the product for a while of the company – to other advantages not directly related to the product or service offered – as in the case of credit card companies and their points programs.
It is interesting that, before offering the benefits, you analyze the data of your clients, so that the advantages are attractive to them. At the same time, you must surprise and please them, so that they continue to see advantages in the relationship with your company, and continue to buy from you.
Still, keep in mind that the benefits offered must generate profit and not financial damage to your company.
Step 7: Relationship marketing in sales using CRM
When your prospects, who are already going through the flow of their relationship, enter the contact sequence with the sales team, CRM and contact automation software can together support a relationship marketing strategy in the background. of the funnel
It will facilitate registration, monitoring and all possible customer information. CRM tools go further, helping to understand what attracts the attention of each person, allowing companies to monitor and deliver solutions according to customer problems.
Step 8 Relationship Marketing with a Customer Success area
Relationship Marketing and Customer Success (CS) are two areas that have enormous potential to help each other. Customer Success (CS) is a segment that needs to be in constant contact with the customer to help them succeed, and marketing can provide the content and formats that will guide them on that journey.
On the other hand, it is the CS experience that will serve as input for the content ideas and the formats that will be used . In this sense, the relationship between CS and Marketing has as its main point the alignment of mutual aid: one delivers data on what customers have consumed the most in terms of content, and the other on post-sale behavior.
Step 9: Constantly evaluate the results
Once the marketing strategy has been implemented , constant evaluation is necessary to determine success. In this case, there are several metrics that companies can use to assess whether they are working well with this strategy.
The most obvious is sales volume, but you can also check to see if customers have a higher average ticket or are generating sales from referrals. All these are indicators that, later, can indicate the relationship with the level of customer loyalty .
Use not only analytics tools , but also surveys and questions in contact channels to find out if your message is in line with what the audience expects.
Is it worth investing in Relationship Marketing?
The answer to that question is, increasingly, yes. Relationship Marketing is, in an increasingly competitive market, the difference. This is because, in addition to offering a product or service, it is going to offer a relationship with the user – and it is because of that relationship that he will decide whether to continue with you or not.
But do not think that Relationship Marketing is just a good service. He also requires competence, creativity and investment, to offer a differential that will transform a client into a fan.
Therefore, the key word here is: know your consumer. Only in this way will you be able to attend to it in a personalized way and go further; You are going to fulfill his wishes and resolve doubts, but you can also extrapolate expectations and go where he himself had not perceived, solving problems that he did not know he had.
Are there examples of companies that have been successful with this strategy?
Companies like Apple have a very good understanding of how to do it, and for that reason, they have lots and lots of fans. And, as you can see, the result is much better than it seems: a satisfied customer is reflected in sales, billing and the survival of your company.
In this way, it is clear that your marketing has to go beyond the offer of products and services. Take advantage of what technological advances have to offer you and use them to carry out an increasingly complete Relationship Marketing and, at the same time, more unique for your client.
Remember that your main objective is to maintain a healthy and positive relationship with the client, to establish a sustainable relationship.
In a market that is increasingly made up of recurring revenue companies and where the cost of a new customer is 7 times higher than retaining an old customer, Relationship Marketing seems the wisest choice to make your business survive and prosper.