Make Customers Truly Loyal with Relationship Marketing

Are your customers leaving your business for your competitors? It’s time to shift your focus to relationship marketing. Find out how.

If you own a business, you know the former transactional marketing tactics are neither going to improve your brand’s perception nor the customer lifetime value. Today, customers expect instant gratification as much as a deep personal bond with any brand they transact with. This is why you must consider relationship marketing. 

Let’s find out how relationship marketing benefits your business by going through its meaning, importance, and examples. 

What is Relationship Marketing?

Relationship marketing focuses on developing and maintaining mutual, long-term relationships with customers. It is a beneficial strategy for continual business growth, as it does not view the customer as a one-time transaction. 

Tactics such as customer loyalty programs, regular customer service, hyper-personalised social media and email interaction, etc., help maintain strong customer relationships for much longer. By building a deeper bond and trust with your customers, KPIs such as Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) increase. 

Difference between Relationship and Transactional Marketing 

Relationship marketing is more favourable than transactional marketing today. Consumers today look for an emotional connection with the brand they purchase from. More than 70% of customers feel frustrated when their shopping experience is impersonal (Forbes). 

Transactional marketing does not focus on building relationships with customers. Its short-term goal is created to increase sales and acquire new customers. Festive discounts, year-of-end sales, etc., are some of the common strategies in this type of marketing. 

Learn more on What is Sales?

On the other hand, relationship marketing focuses entirely on existing customers and on nurturing relationships to improve customer loyalty. The purpose is not to close a sale, but to ensure they buy in the future. Relationship marketing ensures that the customer identifies themselves with the brand when they buy its products. 

Importance of Relationship Marketing

Increases Customer Lifetime Value

One of the most important benefits of relationship marketing is that the customer will purchase more of your products or services. This is used as a metric known as CLV, or customer lifetime value. It refers to the estimation of the sum of all the money the customer is willing to spend with your business. 

More Customer Retention

Customer retention is tougher than acquisition. But relationship marketing makes that possible. It can help the customers feel more connected to your brand than others. As a result, they end up spending more time with your brand and buy more. 

Improved Brand Awareness

One of the highlights of retaining loyal customers is that they are going to popularise your business among their peers and family. This is free word-of-mouth marketing. 

Also, your customers are going to create user-generated content on social media and their posts will be out there for their followers to see. 

In short, relationship marketing creates a cycle and brand reach increases exponentially.

Best Examples of Relationship Marketing

You may not consciously realise how the brands you know leverage relationship marketing. 

Coca-Cola 

You instantly identify this beverage brand with sharing happiness. The best example is the Share A Coke Campaign, which went viral across the globe. The brand also focuses on sustainability, which is a major concern for customers from the Gen-Z and millennial brackets.  

Amazon 

One of the reasons why this eCommerce giant is successful is the use of your browsing and purchasing behaviour on the app. You get personalised recommendations when you search for anything or buy a specific product. 

Apple 

The retail experience you get while visiting any Apple store is unbeatable. If you have noticed, the store employees do not directly sell the iPhone or iPad to you. They focus on your pain points and encourage you to browse the products first. Also, it is not just the in-store experience, their relationship marketing strategy extends to amazing technical support post-purchase, concern for climate change, removing the carbon footprint, etc. 

Check out our blog on Retail Management

How to Implement Relationship Marketing for Your Business

Find out how, through these simple steps. 

• Start with identifying your target audience first. You can utilise the STP marketing framework for this. Also read on customer segmentation. 
• Map all the touchpoints using a customer journey map
• Start building communication with your customers using CRM, marketing automation, and email marketing tools. These are required for personalising your communication.
• Keep asking your customers for feedback through email newsletters and surveys, and be accessible on your social media channels. 
• Be prompt at solving customer queries and feedback.

Parting Thoughts

With relationship marketing, the entire business operations align towards improving customer experience. As part of your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy, it is best used for achieving the long-term goals of having the most loyal customers who keep purchasing, and it complements your marketing process.