Relationship marketing is about forming long-term relationships with customers. Rather than trying to encourage a one-time sale, relationship marketing tries to foster customer loyalty by providing exemplary products and services. This is different than most normal advertising practices that focus on a single transaction; watch ad A and buy product B. Relationship marketing, by contrast, is usually not linked to a single product or offer. It involves a company refining the way they do business in order to maximize the value of that relationship for the customer.
Relationship marketing mainly involves the improvement of internal operations. Many customers leave a company not because they didn't like the product, but because they were frustrated with the customer service. If a business streamlines its internal operations to satisfy all service needs of their customers, customers will be happier even in the face of product problems. Technology also plays an important role in relationship marketing. The Internet has made it easier for companies to track, store, analyse and then utilize vast amounts of information about customers. Customers are offered personalized ads, special deals, and expedited service as a token of appreciation for their loyalty. Social media sites allow a business to engage their customers in an informal and ongoing way. In the past, it would have been impossible to keep useful records about every single client, but technology makes it easy for companies to automate their marketing efforts. Branding is the final component of relationship marketing. A company can form a long-term relationship with a client if that client feels like the brand they purchase reflects who they are or who they want to be. Customers are less inclined to switch to a different brand if they think that switch makes a statement about their identity. Many types of companies have something to gain from developing long-term relationships with their customers. Smaller businesses often serve a steady stream of regulars and make little effort to draw in new customers. Imagine a small restaurant that sees a steady stream of business from the morning commute. Their daily presence is a large part of the business that restaurant does every day. Larger companies typically invest the most in carrying out sophisticated relationship marketing campaigns. In some major companies, relationship marketing is a strategy that affects every department with a client-facing purpose (sales, customer service, shipping etc). Industry leaders constantly face competition from new companies who claim to provide similar goods with a higher-quality level of service. Holding onto their existing customers is the only way they can maintain their position at the top of their industry. This is true for businesses in all industries, from cell phones to baby food. Relationship marketing can involve revising major aspects of the way a company conducts business. This can be expensive, time-consuming, and have serious consequences for both customers and employees. The only way to carry out a relationship marketing strategy in a thoughtful and effective way is to follow a comprehensive marketing plan. Companies must first look at demographic and historical data about their customers to understand who they are, what they buy, and how to provide for them over the long term. The company must understand why a consumer returns for repeat business. There is the tendency to think that customers return because the company has served them well, but maybe they return to a store because it is the closest to their house or the only one in the area that stocks the product they want to buy. Analysing the nature of customer loyalty is the best method to develop a working relationship marketing plan. With a wealth of customer data in place, the company can begin to segment these customers and develop unique marketing strategies for each segment. A customer who appreciates a product's value has different qualities than one who has had a helpful customer service experience. These customers are loyal for different reasons and require tailored relationship marketing strategies. Once the marketing strategy has been implemented, it requires constant evaluation to determine its success. There are several hard metrics that companies can use to measure whether they are holding onto their customers. The most obvious is repeat sales, but they can also look at whether customers are spending more, opening email newsletters, referring the company to friends, or following them on social networks. All of these are indicators of various types of customer loyalty. Here at Anchor Digital, we’re an agency renowned for our holistic approach to marketing and offer high-quality SEO services to businesses across Australia. If you want to find out about the best online SEO tools to optimise the viewership of your business, contact us for a consultation. We’d love to hear from you.
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Do you struggle to retain your customers and keep them coming back? You could be missing one or more critical pieces of an effective customer retention email campaign. In this post, we’ll cover 5 types of emails to send to your customers that will keep them coming back for more. The five emails below are critical to any email marketing campaign for ensuring that your customers keep coming back. These emails can be used as a part of an effective email autoresponder series so that you can put the entire customer retention process on autopilot. Onboarding Emails Onboarding might not be the first thing you think of regarding getting customers coming back for more. However, brand new customers are the warmest: they are the most likely to return because your brand and their purchase are still fresh on their minds. Also, if customers don’t use the product they purchased, then they won’t come back for more later. Getting them to use your product right away is a critical piece of the puzzle that you can’t ignore, or you’ll risk losing these customers. One way to ensure that your new customers complete the onboarding process is by sending an email 48 hours after sign-up, encouraging them to complete their profile or to take the first step in using your product. You should also be using onboarding emails to warm up new leads and encouraging them to make their first purchase. For instance, if you offered a coupon as an incentive for a prospect to join your email list, make a reminder email a part of your onboarding process. Activity Emails Everyone is comfortable with activity emails, and these tend to me the emails that users are the happiest to receive. These contain notifications, updates, or summaries of the user’s activity. Since users are so comfortable with these emails, they are perfect for increasing engagement. In fact, research shows that activity emails are opened eight times more often than promotional emails. In other words, if you aren’t sending out transactional emails, you’re missing out on an opportunity to reach subscribers. Cross Sells & Up Sells Remember how customers who just bought are the most likely to buy again? Use this to your advantage by giving customers who recently purchased the opportunity to buy a related product (a cross sell) or a higher-end product (an up sell). VIP Offers Customers love to feel special. If you encouraged customers to sign up for your email list with the promise that you would offer them special perks and “VIP” content, then following up on that guarantee is a must. One of the best ways to do this is to present them with the occasional “exclusive subscriber offer.” There’s unlimited potential for exclusive content… you just have to get creative! You can offer discounts, secret products, free samples, courses, webinars, podcasts, and more. Whatever you do, be strategic about how you permit users to get access to these offers: you want them to be truly exclusive to your customers and subscribers. Another great way to reward your subscribers and keep them engaged with your brand is by offering an exclusive giveaway. If you do a giveaway, just make sure you don’t fall into the trap of offering something that anyone would want. If your prize is too generic, you will get low-quality leads. Surveys Survey emails are extremely useful for getting customers to come back, and for getting new customers as well, because they help you to improve the product itself. You can send surveys to customers who buy, or leads who didn’t buy your product. You can even send surveys to your general audience to segment them based on their needs, so that you can create and tailor your products specifically to each of your segments. An effective customer retention strategy includes an email marketing campaign that continuously engages customers all along their journey with your brand. If you miss any one of these critical components, you could be losing customers to another brand. However, if you include all these types of emails you could really knock their socks off and obtain loyal customers for life. Here at Anchor Digital, we’re an agency renowned for our holistic approach to marketing and offer high-quality SEO services to businesses across Australia. If you want to find out about the best online SEO tools to optimise the viewership of your business, contact us for a consultation. We’d love to hear from you. One of the biggest challenges businesses face is attracting loyal customers who return frequently. Let's look at some of the benefits of increasing customer loyalty and some ways to accomplish this. Why Loyal Customers Are So Valuable As a business owner, you surely appreciate customers who return to you regularly. There are obvious reasons to hold such customers in high regard. After all, the more often someone returns, the more sales you make. However, not everyone understands just how valuable repeat customers truly are.
Reward Customers with Special Offers Giving coupons to your customers is always an effective way to keep them coming back. In my own SMS marketing business, I encourage my business customers to send out coupon codes via text message. However, you can also do this via email and social media. Make sure you emphasize that these deals are only for customers receiving this special coupon. Keep the offers relevant by keeping track of what your customers most need (see the tip below on segmentation). Create a Unique Customer Loyalty Program Many businesses, from coffee shops to airlines to e-commerce sites, have customer loyalty or rewards programs. These can be powerful tools to entice people to return. If you have such a program or want to start one, try to make it as creative and distinctive as possible. In addition to rewarding customers with your usual products, you might have bigger prizes they can win if they accumulate enough points. Another creative idea is to give people the option of donating their points to charity. In addition to getting points when they buy something, think of other ways to award them points. Some ideas include: referring new customers, special holiday and birthday points and creating games or contests in which players can earn extra points. Ask for Feedback The more you know about your customers, the better you can serve them. That's why it's essential to ask people's opinions as often as possible. If you have a retail store or office, you can simply ask people informally what they think about something. This isn't always completely reliable, as people may be too polite to tell you what they really think in person. But at least it shows you care. For more accurate assessments, create polls, surveys and questionnaires, either online or that you or your employees hand out. Ask about as many details as possible. If you serve food, ask about specific dishes and for suggestions on how to improve. Ask about your decor (or website), which products or services they like best (and least) and for suggestions for new products. Segment Your Marketing Lists Whether you contact people via email, SMS, direct mail or phone, it's important to use some form of segmentation. Customers never appreciate getting pitches for something they already bought. Nor do they want to see offers that don't apply to them. Generic messages are often not relevant, and they also show that you're not making the effort to get to really know them. Learn as much as you can about your customers based on their buying behaviour, demographics and the feedback you're hopefully requesting from them. Then you can separate them into categories and contact them with offers that are relevant and appealing. If you want to make your business more successful, one of the most important areas to focus on is increasing customer loyalty. Repeat customers play a major role in selling more items, reducing marketing costs and spreading the word about your business. The above tips will help you keep the customers you have and motivate them to keep coming back. Here at Anchor Digital, we’re an agency renowned for our holistic approach to marketing and offer high-quality SEO services to businesses across Australia. If you want to find out about the best online SEO tools to optimise the viewership of your business, contact us for a consultation. We’d love to hear from you. |
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June 2023
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