How to Create a Relationship Marketing Strategy

You may think that you are already doing some kind of relationship marketing in your company, offering discounts, loyalty programs, personalized services and upsells.

To really develop the relationship, it is necessary to establish a bond with your clients, create friendships and feelings. With this, no price change, marketing campaign or discount can compete.

Relationship marketing allows you to enter the mind and heart of the customer through 3 ways: An emotional connection, a connection driven by purpose and by taking advantage of the brand community.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these areas.

1. Create an emotional connection with your customers
   There are companies that have created such a deep bond with their customers that if they spoke negatively or criticized them, their customers would gladly defend them.

Remember that people have feelings. And it is these feelings that must be harnessed to create an emotional connection. Why?

Because the more emotionally connected a customer is with your brand, the more they will spend with you or your company.

So how do you create a more emotional connection in your marketing campaigns?

You have to inspire trust and deliver a great customer experience.

2. Establish a meaningful reason to be in business
   Providing value, whether in the form of content, software features, or customer service, will always help strengthen the relationship you have with your customers.

Keep in mind that today there is a new way to reach the hearts of your customers and it is by having a purpose. A purpose that goes beyond income, profits and dividend distribution. Having a purpose means that the things we do have real value to others.

Customers are deemed to prioritize attributes based on purpose as something. Customers are more willing to part with their budgets when companies support a good cause.

In other words, having a purpose is a growth engine for your business.

3. Take advantage of your community
   When you have deep connections with your customers, and your brand is purpose-driven, communities will naturally form. Another of the relationship marketing strategies is to build a brand community, with a group of clients who support and promote your brand whenever they can.

But these relationships also need to be nurtured.

Here’s how:

Listen to your community. Your customers will read your content, use your product and participate in your social networks more than potential customers. When they give you their opinion on campaigns and marketing material, you should act accordingly and acknowledge your customers when they do.
Let your community promote you. Your community is passionate about your brand, wants to spread the word and bring their friends, family and colleagues on board. Help them spread the word by creating marketing campaigns and stories that reach their hearts, not just their minds.
Make the community focus on them, remember that it is not always about you. You can invite them to speak at an event, feature them on your blog, or create a video series highlighting their work and accomplishments.
Successful companies understand that long-term customers are the key to growth.

Technology has transformed the way we do business, but it is our responsibility to build, nurture and grow customer relationships over time and create relationship marketing strategies that work.

Relationships are important. Work on taking care of the relationship with the client and creating a strong bond with them