How To Improve Customer Lifetime Value With Relationship Marketing

Customer lifetime value is how much you get from a customer for life. Many people only care about that one sale and do not care for getting a second, third, fourth, etc. sale from their customers. However, it’s proven that it’s easier to get a returning customer than a new customer. You need to think of increasing the total lifetime value. That said, let’s get into relationship marketing.

What Is Relationship Marketing

Relationship marketing is a plan of action created to improve customer loyalty, communication, bonding, and long-term engagement. It is designed to build connections with customers by providing them with the value that meets their needs, interests, and personality directly.

Relationship marketing is an integral part of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) that focuses on customer loyalty, communication, long-term customer engagement, and retention rather than shorter-term goals like customer acquisition, individual and quick sales.

Why Is Relationship Marketing Important

1. Competitive Advantage

In the last couple of years, smart brands have embraced the need for Relationship Marketing in other to gain competitive advantage.

Products and services are now being sold based on interpersonal relationships. Thereby moving the focus of marketing from appealing the masses (broad, undefined audience) to customer-focused marketing (“large” defined audience).

2. Lower Cost To Acquire Sales

Existing customers are the focus of Relationship Marketing. Now it is about retaining customers and making them frequent buyers. This is more cost-effective and tends to eliminate the cost of acquiring new customers, reduce price-sensitive, and increase the probability of being referred by existing customers.

3. Great For Long-Term Business Growth

You may probably be thinking that as a business, you have more opportunities by reaching out to new customers and driving unique business rather than customer retention. You’re right if you’re looking at the short-term only – so if your business is only to sell for two weeks, go ahead. However, if you’re talking about the future and you’re looking at long-term benefits, Relationship Marketing is the way to go.

4. Great Way To Build Loyalty

Customers avoid lurking around if they have already had a positive experience with a specific brand, but they will likely go back for more if a relationship is built. This, in turn, builds loyalty. Because loyalty has been established, and trust becomes a key factor; a customer is more focused on the value they are getting, rather than the cost of something.

5. Effective Word-Of-Mouth Generator

If you are successful with your relationship marketing and you have a happy repeat customer, they are going to refer your business to their friends, family, and possibly their audience too. Referral marketing big win for you.

5. Provides More Sales

In the long term, relationship marketing helps you sell more. This is because not only do you retain them, but they both buy more and buy more frequently.

How To Build Relationship Marketing

The following activities are likely to get covered in Customer Relationship Management.

• Website as a base for customer development
• Customer Contact Integrity
• Focus Marketing
• Online Customer Service
• Great Customer Purchase Experience

The internet is extensively used for Relationship Marketing by understanding your audience and creating authentic content that meets their needs.

Vital Elements Of Relationship Marketing.

#1. Content Marketing:

A huge part of relationship marketing strategy is creating content that not only connects deeply with your audience but also educates them in the way they want to be educated.

You can get an insight into what your audience wants to be educated on from doing extensive research into “how-to”, “why” and “top tips”. Your audience can also be interested in video-based content, whether this is talking about a webinar or a behind the scene live-stream.

Relationship Marketing isn’t about promoting your business. It’s about giving your audience the value that they want.

Selling today means nothing if you’re not thinking about tomorrow. Ensure you’re building your audience for the future, and not for the “quick win”. Click To Tweet

#2. Social Media Marketing:

Social media has become the number one place that your audience loves to hang out and engage in. It needs to be an essential part of your relationship marketing strategy. You don’t have to be on every single social network to effectively build your Relationship Marketing strategy. Take your time to find out where your audience is most engaged and ONLY use those social networks.

#3. Email Marketing:

Email marketing is one of the powerful ways in which you can nurture, personalise, and engage with your audience. For you to get the most out of any audience with email marketing, spend a lot of time finding out which email marketing tool would give you what would be effective.

We have a blog that examines 11 of the top email marketing tools and what business & customer that they are best for. Do well to check it out and choose the best tool for you.

#4. Surveys & Questionnaires:

To make your strategy work, your customers need to be on-board. The only way to make this truly happen is to ask your customer relevant questions. You want to help your customers and solve their pain, and to do this, you need to know what pain needs solving.

This may be quite hard in the beginning, and you may find that your questionnaires aren’t being answered but give it time. Customers are much more willing to give feedback once they like and trust you as a business. Feedback doesn’t have to be limited to surveys and questionnaires. It could be about running a Twitter poll, a Facebook Poll, or an Instagram Stories Poll. Wherever your audience is most engaged with you is where you should ask for feedback.

Where Are You In Relationship Marketing?

Have you started at all? Are you stuck? Are your strategies not working? Or have you recorded explosive results in relationship marketing? Let us know in the comment section.