Credibility Of Relationship Marketing In The Digital Age

We are living in an age where everyone is so busy. Our minds have restricted us to short term goals. We do not have time to plan for longer goals and tremendous achievements. We are happy with small achievements; we don’t even think of achieving big. We don’t think out of the box.

The same approach is being followed by marketers and businessmen. They have a greater focus on increasing their revenue quickly, neglecting the fact that it is their loyal customers who will bring them the sales they are looking for. Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company (the inventor of NPS) found the same and concluded that, if we can increase customer retention rate by 5%, it will increase our sales by 25%.

Relationship Marketing. When every business person has more concerns about sales and invoices, some believe in a customer-centric approach. They give their best shot to satisfy their clients and gain their trust, and not the sales. By no means, I’m saying that brands are not focusing on building good customer-company relationships. However, they are not focusing as much as they should.

Those who have long term goals and are working on developing relations have their own benefits. According to Gallup News, a fully engaged customer benefits you 51% more sales than an unengaged customer. Now, you may have a better idea of relationship marketing. In short, it is a kind of approach that is designed to foster long-term relationships, keeping in mind customer loyalty, trust, interaction, and engagement. Even, if we look at modern marketing trends, I’m still convinced that relationship marketing has its own credibility.

Modern World and Marketing Trends. Without a doubt, modern trends in the marketing world have created a considerable impact. Alongside social media, email campaigns, artificial intelligence and personalisation are helping marketers generate new leads and having a higher conversion rate.

I agree that, to survive in this competitive era, you need to think about new leads and getting more customers. However, we cannot neglect the fact that old customers have their value, and they provide multiple benefits to the brand and increase its credibility. The Gartner group statistics found that 80% of your future revenue will come from 20% of your current customers. Isn’t it amazing?

With this, previous customers are always there for you in tough times. They will review you when you need and can pass your message in their community as well. They are counted as the most credible assets you have.

Where Does The Relationship Marketing Lie? How does it feel when you walk on the streets and see people wearing Nike? When we plan fast food, our friends suggest KFC and McDonalds. Brands have been all around us in our lives. How have they built such a significant impact on the market? No doubt, they produce high-quality products, but also they have developed great relations with their customers.

Maintaining Trust in Trust-Less World. How many of us offer to try before purchasing a model for our customers? Almost none of us; then, how are our customers going to believe that we are producing high-quality products? Even though you have a quality product and best service, how will your customer know it? For this purpose, they will search for reviews from previous customers. This is where you can build the trust of the new customer. 61% of customers seek reviews before making a purchase.

Having feedback from your previous customers is the most important aspect to build a relationship of trust and credibility with your new consumers.

• Power of Trust. Having reviews and feedback is not just enough. You should leverage your customers’ feedback and opinions. Try to respond to the negative reviews. It will impact new customers. They will feel like, okay, unfortunately, if the service is not okay, the brand is standing with us. This sense of trust is what creates a powerful relationship.
• Long-Lasting Relationship. Once you have created a relationship, and your consumers started believing in you, now, try to build an everlasting relationship. Show them how you work and what your procedure is. 

What You Can Achieve With Customer-Company Relationships. Once you have developed good relations with your customers, it will reward you in many ways.

• For a customer, you are now a priceless brand. Since they have trust in you. Price doesn’t matter for them.
• Your customers will tell others about you, and they are going to market for you.
• Now you need to retain and nurture your existing customers. No need to spend money on it. Cross-selling and upselling will become much more manageable. 

These benefits have their own worth, but the most important thing that a relationship provides you is customer loyalty, and it is worth a thousand times.

More Tips to Relationship Marketing. Implementing some simple practices and using the tips below, you can create trust and a better relationship with your customers.

• Effective Customer Service. Communication is the essential part of any relationship. It defines how strong your bond is. While pursuing a stronger relationship with your customers, you need to provide them with extra care, help and support.

Be there for them whenever they need it. Be friendly and help nature. Once you have built good relations with some clients, your customer support department should personally know such customers with their names and provide services to them on a priority basis.

In this digital world, we have chatbots providing customer services with canned responses. This is proper utilisation for the time being. However, your team needs to understand when to handle the customer personally. 

For example, consider a customer inquiring for his order when the deadline is close, and being responded with a standard reply could hurt. Dealing with them personally in such a situation creates good bonding and builds trust.

• Loyalty Programs. Customers usually have so many things on their plate that they don’t think about the brands. However, if you offer some discounts to returning customers and give them offers and giveaways, they will remember you. Being a designer, if a customer works with me for a design, and comes back to me for the next one, I offer them discounts. Apart from that, I also provide them similar discounts, if they bring in their colleagues and friends to me. It does not cost me much; I get a high return on engagement (ROE) with the returning client. Also, I get a good return on investment (ROI), securing a new customer. 
• Personalised Content. This is a content-centric era. 86% of B2C marketers think that content marketing is the key to success. Consumers, first see your content and then your products. As a businessman, you need to satisfy, impress your client with your content. Personalisation in content has its own importance. If you can create a sense of personalisation in the content, there is double the chance of turning a lead to conversion. Businesses use essay writing services and other writing tools to come up with high-quality personalised content.
• Utilise Social Media. To increase the credibility of your relationship marketing, you need to utilise modern trends in your favour. Do not try to be on every social media network. Research your market and analyse where your customers are most engaged. Focus on such platforms and utilise it to the most. Videos are among the most viewed content on the internet today. Engage your customers with videos, backstage scenes, etc.
• Email Marketing. It might not be the newest fashion. However, with some new trends and technology like automated emails, product recommendation, and content curation, personalised emails are doing the best for business.
• Surveys & Questionnaire. Letting your customers share their thoughts about your brand is one of the major relationship factors. It not only builds healthy relationships but also allows you to look into your weaknesses. Take consistent feedback from your customers, and they are more than happy to tell you how you can improve.

Although we are living in the busy world of the digital age, relations are still important. Relationship marketing still has its own worth and credibility. Customers always want to trust their brands and relationship marketing is the best way to do so.