Are you struggling to build and grow your audience online? In this five-part blog series, I want to discuss the basics of online marketing and how we can implement the principles within our own businesses. If you missed part one of the series, check it out here: Online Marketing 101 [Beginner’s Guide].
In this post, I want to outline 10 practical things you can do to enhance your relationship marketing efforts online!
Relationship Marketing Matters…
Relationship marketing is often defined as:
The set of strategies and functions a business uses to optimize customer retention, customer satisfaction, and lifetime customer value. In other words, your focus is on the customers you already have rather than techniques that go out and find new customers (though, relational marketing helps with this as well). [Paraphrased]
by Helpscout
In this section, we will explore the theory and principles around BUILDING and GROWING our audiences by cultivating community within our online businesses.
Investment in existing customers is valuable.
Many studies have shown and it can be quite intuitive that the cost of acquiring a NEW customer is significantly more expensive than retaining EXISTING ones. This is quite true financially when you consider the financial impact associated with advertising, content marketing, and social media.
But, the principle is true on a deeper level as well. An existing customer that was pleased with your product or service, brings something unique that an unfamiliar customer can’t – simply the experience of doing business with you in the past. This reduces the inherent risk around “first-time business” and creates a foundation for future business.
Investing time, effort, and money in maintaining your loyal customer base and enhancing the overall experience for your audience is pivotal to long-term business success. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways which we will explore a bit later.
Foundation for building a word-of-mouth network.
Satisfied existing customers and the people who then hear about your business with make up your ENTIRE word-of-mouth network. People only refer products and services to others when they personally believe it would be helpful – their reputation gets put on the line.
This is what relationship marketing is all about; investing resources in serving your audience with such overwhelming value that they tell others about your business. We will dig into 10 practices you can utilize to lift up your readers and provide them with an experience worth sharing.
The impact of your business will be deeper if the focus is on relationships.
Transactional marketing is focused on the numbers, analytics, and economics of growing your online business. Though these functions are extremely important, they provide little to no LASTING IMPACT in the lives of your customers. They simply hear about your business, purchase your product or service, and it performs, as described.
That’s great – that’s how it should work.
But, companies that differentiate themselves from others go the next step of creating, cultivating, and offering additional value within the function of a relationship. By investing in your customers, you extend the overall impact you make as a business.
Let’s get Practical…
Now that we’ve talked through the ideas and principles behind relationship marketing, I want to present 10 effective ways to implement this concept in your online business.
#1 – Build a Community
One of the best ways you can begin relationship marketing is to think about how to develop and foster the community around your online business.
The way I attempt this at Build Your Stampin’ Site is through Facebook Groups. Here I can create a community around the content I offer and allow the relationship within the group to bring value to its members.
Within the community, the members can share their stories, ask questions, and offer unique insights into the struggles and successes they experience. Building effective and supportive community offers derivate value (the value which you don’t directly provide, but are given some credit for as the facilitator).
Join the BYSS Community Facebook Group
# 2 – Utilize Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most common tools that online businesses use and rely on to communicate with their audience. That being said, not all email marketing is relationship marketing. If the goal of your email campaigns is primarily transactional in nature you will lose out on a major tool to build and grow your relationship with your audience.
When your focus with email marketing becomes your readers and clients (what you can do to serve them), email begins to play a key role in relating with your customers.
On the same topic, A Case for Email Marketing is a brief overview of the relational benefits of including email marketing in your online business.
For my email marketing needs, I use ConvertKit. It allows me to EASILY segment and tag subscribers so that they receive content custom tailored for their specific needs.
Check out ConvertKit here.
#3 – Tell your Story
One thing that makes you unique is your story. Humans throughout history have connected through the practice of storytelling and today’s world is no different. Your story is powerful. No matter how “boring” you think your life may have been, there are unique details that compose who you are today.
By telling your story and weaving it into the very fabric of your online brand, you begin connecting with your audience on a deeper level.
The story you tell isn’t ONLY about the past, but should bring your audience into the present (what projects you work on, the struggles and successes you make – day in and day out) and even the future (what are your hopes, dreams, and goals associated with your brand). Answering the question: “how does my audience play a part in MY story?” is HUGE.
You can do this through the occasional blog post, live broadcast, Youtube video, etc. No matter how you tell your story – be genuine and be YOU.
#4 – Connect on Social Media
Social media is a great way to connect with your audience. By providing an environment where clients and readers can communicate with you and your brand, you instantly enhance your ability to build and grow a relationship.
This can be accomplished in two ways: The first being that you encourage the discussion of your audience. By instigating engagement on your social channels you are able to expand brand awareness and create opportunities to better support your followers.
Another option is to initiate the engagement on social media. By commenting, liking, and following the stories told by your audience, you meet them where they’re at and provide value in ways they don’t necessarily expect. [I’m not talking about SPAM, make sure to be sensitive with each of these methods and continually offer value in each interaction].
#5 – Be Available and Responsive
When asked “what important business function is crucial to customer satisfaction?” many said a mix of these two:
- That the company is available to communicate with the customer when needed.
- The response of the company is both timely and helpful.
The key here is making this option available. You will likely not be immediately overwhelmed by the number of requests made by your audience. Instead, you will open up the availability to ask will offer the value of support and reduce the risk that they get left alone without any help.
By increasing the rate at which you can communicate with your audience, you can more quickly modify your product or service to meet the need better in light of new information. Without avenues of communication between you and your customers, you become isolated to their needs and unable to best serve them.
#6 – Be Grateful
I’m often asked what I believe the best quality for building and growing an online business is and I say without any hesitation – it’s GRATITUDE.
Being grateful for your audience, their attention, their support, is the number one perspective that will build a relationship with your audience and keep the focus of your business on creating long-lasting impact by serving them with consistent value.
Several quick ideas:
- Send thank you notes to customers, long-term supporters, and when other provide opportunities to help you grow your business.
- Write a quick social media post expressing your gratitude for a certain instance.
- Create a piece of content (blog post or video) that gives thanks to an individual or group of people for their impact on your brand.
This is a MUST for effective relationship marketing.
#7 – Include your readers in the process
This point goes along with #3 – Tell Your Story, but brings your audience along for the ride. If you’re working on a project, bringing others along does a few things for your business. First, it makes the project a collective effort. Even if you’re the only one technically working on it, your audience can invest their attention, comments, and support and can help you finish well.
Second, it prevents you from creating the wrong product or service (and then having to go back and redo). An engaged audience helps to guide the ideas that make up your product by ensuring that their needs would be met by using your content or service.
Lastly, it pre-markets your products and services. By validating that there is a need for the project you are working on, you can begin to pre-sell or tag interested audience members.
You can make this happen pretty easily through Instagram Stories or go LIVE on your favorite platform. Showing the “behind-the-scenes” of your business operations builds trust and relationship with your customers.
#8 – Ask your audience for their perspective
Asking your audience questions is a powerful tool for crafting products and services that meet their specific needs. The same is true for content you create, whether you’re writing a blog post, creating videos, or starting a podcast, gearing your content to the unique needs of your audience gives your business added impact.
Questions that are great to ask your audience include:
- What are you struggling with right now?
- If you could put on auto-pilot ANY responsibility you have, what would it be?
- What do you find yourself doing most, that you least enjoy?
Your audience will feel more engaged with the things you create if they cooperate in its inception. This engagement leads to higher customer satisfaction (because the product or service “fits like a glove” and they were co-inspiring the new idea) more comments and shares online, and an overall deeper connection with your overall brand.
#9 – Celebrate the successes of your readers
When investing time and effort in enhancing your relationship marketing strategy, it’s often valuable to put yourself in the shoes of your customer. The empathy employed will give you a new perspective of your brand and likely give you new ideas on how you can best serve your audience.
When spending some time thinking about this, my brain jumped to this point – celebrate the successes of your readers. This does so much for your brand and it is also so simple. Simply ask your audience if you can showcase their story. This brings validation to your product or service but also includes your readers as a member of YOUR story.
This is a strategy that many brands use to grow community and support around the things they create. Some of the biggest brands you can think of all showcase REAL people, and their experience with your brand.
#10 – Give Discounts and Special Offers
Last but not least, you can offer special discounts or promotions to loyal customers of your brand. By rewarding the top contributors, you are able to thank them for their support in a much more tangible way.
You want to make sure that the focus of this remains on fostering the relationship with your clients, rather than simply a transactional kick-back to your highest revenue customers. Many companies do this through loyalty programs that encourage the consistent use of their products and services.
Try implementing this by simply offering your top 3 customers something of value, as a thank you for being such a great member of your brand.
This guide was simply an overview of practical steps to optimize your relationship marketing efforts, online.
I want to hear from you! Comment below describing your experience with these principles: Is there one that has helped you grow your business? Is there one that you struggle implementing into your brand? What tools or content would help you grow in these areas?
More resources on this topic –
Crushing It!: How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence-and How You Can, Too by Gary Vaynerchuk
