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Well they say you can’t reinvent the wheel and its true – with everything in life, while you can be different in many ways what really sets you apart from your competitors is your relationships and perception of you and your brand by said client. So why do so many of us as business owners or managers neglect the thing that drives our profits??
I’m talking about client relationships.
In my 20 years in marketing I’ve experienced some real shockers, from customer databases being taken from an external database as the internal one was so poorly updated and its left me wondering why we put such little emphasis on the customer database – to people not even keeping records of who purchased and key info. And I’m not just talking about small businesses here!
Now if you were a multinational you may have a customer relationship manager who ensures each aspect of customer cycle is covered, but that’s a luxury many of us cant afford. So what can we as mid-sized businesses do to help plug the holes in our leaking bucket of customers and prospects?
The answer – same for my whole marketing career is…….
Build and nourish customer relationships
And how do we do that?
- Get opt ins
Make people want to read your content and get them to opt in to receive – you can always offer an incentive… - Maintain contact
How often are you speaking to your customers – now im not saying email people daily, but if you have relevant content that is key to their industry or relevant to their life, people don’t mind receiving. - Recent content
How many times do you research a product or service only to find their information is out of date, links are broken, social media neglected, or worse still you sign up for news which never arrives?
The truth is there is no shortcut for this – its about putting in the hard work to build and develop those relationships. That’s the magic ingredient to turn contacts into contracts!