Relationship marketing centres around life time value. It’s the principle of building rapport and getting to know your clients and prospective clients, them getting to know you and like you, serving them directly, and building a positive relationship with them.
Basically, it’s the opposite of Maccas drive through.
I get lots of questions around this because so many service based businesses want to create a business that revolves around them earning money in their pjs or while they’re at the beach with their families. And that’s all fine, you can do that. BUT, you can only do that if you actually do some work as well.
An online business is Hard. Work. There is so much noise online that being seen and heard and bought from takes solid strategy, and plain old implementation! There’s no avoiding the work part.
And in the beginning most of us are the be all and end all. We’re the entrepreneur and the investor and the strategist and the writer and the web designer and the technician and the delivery person and the admin assistant and the bookkeeper – I could go on.
In the beginning, most of us do everything ourselves. So if relationship marketing is going to be a part of your strategy, and it SHOULD be in this day in age because THATS how you get seen in a noisy online space, then you’re going to have to take time to do this.
Now truthfully, I struggle with this. Those of you who’ve been following along for a while will probably know that I don’t love social media personally. My personal account is not jam packed with selfies, and it’s actually barely updated at all. Except when the kids are being suuuuper cute and the rellies in USA and Greece should definitely see it.
Anyway, I digress.
My point is, most of relationship marketing these days is done through social media, and email. Social media allows you to connect with your audience in a way we’ve never before been able to. But this takes time. It’s not a quick task to reach out and start conversations with hundreds or thousands of people. Yes you can outsource this, but if you;re doing everything yourself in the beginning, it’s going to be on YOU!
Personally, I have a VA start conversations with followers, and then I take over from there with those who respond. Although I dislike being on social media (because it just feels so unproductive and it’s soooo hard not to get pulled into the scrolling vortex) I do love connecting with people. I love love love connecting with people and getting to know them and mumma.digital is still in the early days, so I get to see how I can really best serve you. On that note – if there is a way I can serve you, please let me know. I’d love to cater content directly to what you need.
OK so we’ve covered what relationship marketing is, and a bit about what it involves. Let’s talk about the WHY.
Why on earth would you connect with people who like you on social media? Why would you email or call your clients and make sure they’re 100% happy with their products/services? Why would you be asking your audience what they need?
Because of lifetime value.
Lifetime value is the amount of revenue you generate from a client over the entire lifecycle of your business. For example, you may only spend $90 at the hairdresser each time you go, but over the course of 20 years, you’ll probably spend over $10000. So it’s in the best interest of your hairdresser to chat with you and build that relationship so you enjoy your experience and you stay.
It’s also less expensive as a marketer to sell again to your existing clients, than it is to get new ones. So it’s definitely worthwhile to spend the time, and make the effort to help your clients and prospective clients get to know you.
OK so what are some practical ways we can do this?
The way that works for us is to have a foundation of content. For us it’s one longer form podcast that sets the tone for the week. We then also do a Facebook Live in our private group (side note: if you’re not in there, jump on over to facebook.com/groups/businessmummas)
We have Instagram content every day, and Facebook page and group content every few days. I’m also getting more active on LinkedIn now that I have expanded my team and have others dealing with all the editing and actual posting of things.
Note here – do what makes sense for you, your schedule, your team and what feels right. But DO be posting some sort of content, or how will people get to know and like and trust you? This is an essential part of the buying process.
Having this basis of content means that people are continuously finding it (through hashtags). I also like, comment and support posts from business mummas I come accross and genuinely like, which helps me be seen by more people as well.
When people connect with me, I make sure to thank them and invite them to our Facebook group. This is where the party’s at! This is where the best content is, the Facebook Live is so you can ask me questions directly, and be actively supported by other mums in business. This is the place to be! So get on there if you’re not already!
OK so that’s reaching out to new people in your audience and prospective clients.
For those who are already your clients, or were previously your clients, the Facebook groups (if that’s relevant for you) and email is going to be your friend here. Also the content you’re putting out there is going to help build on this rapport as well.
Via email you can check in with how they’re going, see how they’ve used and the impact of your product / service in their life (this may be great testimonial content too!) and you cna ask them how you can continue to serve them, what would be helpful or useful or beneficial to the next step in their journey. Obviously this is going to depend so much on your offering, and their history as to how you word this. And if you already know the next best step for them – make sure you’re letting them know about it!
OK so that’s the quick rundown on What is relationship marketing? I hope that was useful and you noted the things you can do this week to push this part of your business forward. Put some time in your calendar every week to move on this because it’s going to be the best thing to differentiate yourself from the noise.
Have a great week mummas!
A.