how to leverage relationship marketing for your brand
If you want to build loyalty for your brand, incorporate relationship marketing tactics into your everyday operations.
what is relationship marketing?
Relationship marketing is a strategy that enhances relationships with customers and, therefore, improves retention. It’s not about getting a quick sale or recruiting as many customers as possible, it’s a long-term tactic to delight customers and create lifetime customer loyalty.
how does social media relate to relationship marketing?
Social media is one channel where you can interact and strengthen relationships with your customers. It’s also a discovery platform where you will have a first-touchpoint with new customers, so leveraging relationship marketing is crucial.
3 ways businesses can adopt a relationship marketing mindset
1. Offer a perk to try new products or services
When you roll out a new product or service, give your customers a perk to try it out! This could be an early reveal event, a free sample with a purchase, or a discount code to try it out. They will feel honored that you wanted to share this experience with them first.
2. Ask for feedback
Few things make customers feel more seen and appreciated than being asked their opinion. You can do this by posting a link on your social media accounts, directly messaging a link to loyal customers, sending it out via email, or even asking for it in-store.
3. Personalize your customer service
When someone sends you a message on social media or via email, it’s easy to copy and paste a pre-written response. It’s certainly more efficient for your business! However customers can tell based on the language you use, the greeting you give, etc. You can use the pre-written response, but change a few things so the customer feels like you wrote the response just for them.
In addition, an exchange with customers doesn’t have to only happen when they reach out. If you see a customer create a post about you, tag you in a story, or even follow your page after seeing them in your storefront, send them a message! A simple ‘thank you’ will go a long way to create customer loyalty and retention.
how does relationship marketing relate to local marketing?
Real, local people are effective promoters because they have trusting relationships with their followers. For example, they could post about a new coffee shop that her neighbor then sees and tries. Another could create a reel about their new skincare routine that their friend’s friend sees and then orders.
Having the first touch between your brand and a new customer be a person that they already trust automatically creates trust for your brand. It will then be much easier for you to transform that trust into a meaningful relationship for both of you.
ready to incorporate relationship marketing into your strategy?
Buzz words aside, relationship marketing is centered around customer satisfaction and, therefore, customer retention. There are many ways to do this, but we hope the three we outlined will help get you started!
If you’re interested in activating real people to help strengthen your relationship marketing, check out our free local influencer marketing guide to help get you started. However, if you want to skip the heavy lifting, book a call with our sales team to learn how Hummingbirds can help you drive growth with people-powered marketing.
