Toolbox tip of the week: Relationship marketing – are you doing it?

Areyou going all the way with your clients, or stopping at second base?

Relationship marketing is an important part of your business plan. You should be making every effort to get to know your past, present and potential customers by name, address, income, family background, purchase history, preferences, dispositions and more. Then devise ways to create, maintain and sustain a long-term relationship with them.

Strategy:How many clients do you really have? You may have a client base of 5,000, but how many of these have you contacted in the past few years? How many have received any communication from you? What do you know about them? How much business are they giving you? Why have you lost clients?

Action:Think about what your clients would find of value to them. Research and ask a sample. Think about what you need to know to target them more effectively and build more business with them.

For example, in the initial planning meeting, you would find out if they are paying off a mortgage. What if you plugged into your database when their mortgage should be paid up in full? Then you could prompt for a meeting and allocate those now ‘unused funds’.

Start communicating on a regular basis. If you don’t have the resources, outsource it or put together a group of similar or complementary businesses to yours and do it together.

Tip supplied by Debbie Mayo-Smith of Successful Internet Strategies—www.successis.co.nz