3 Essential Elements in Relationship Marketing

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Relationship marketing is a key to success for every type of business and marketing endeavor. To succeed you must make meaningful connections with your target audience – you must create, build, and deepen relationships.

Relationship marketing is about winning the confidence of your clients. You have to know how to talk to them and give them a positive impression that makes them feel more connected to you than the competition.

There are three important components to relationship marketing.

Focus Beyond One Sale

Relationship marketing looks beyond one-and-done sales. The goal is to create a connection that leads to ongoing give and take with customers. “Customer value” is defined in a way that is more faceted than sales volume. Focus is placed on the long-term relationship with each client.

Responsiveness

Relationship marketing is responsive. Questions are invited and are answered. Person-to-person connections are made as brand representatives both reach out and respond to customers. Calls are answered, emails get a personal response, comments are acknowledged.

People choose to do business with people, not companies. So, building rapport with them is essential for creating long-term business relationships and better brand trust.

Honest, Plain Language

Relationship marketing does not involve coming up with dense language that tricks people into doing what you want. It is about straightforward, authentic messaging. Be honest with your customers and tell them like it is. As in our personal relationships, people connect when they feel that they are being treated with integrity.

In order to build loyal customers, you must establish relationships based on trust and confidence. This takes intentional effort. Make the investment and reap benefits far beyond a one-time sale.

Assess Your Approach

Does your marketing approach include these three components – focus on long-term connection, responsiveness and honesty? Now is a great time to reset your marketing approach to capitalize on the benefits of relationship marketing.

If you need help assessing your efforts and developing the right strategic marketing plan, contact me today!

3 Keys to Collect the Cash and Keep Your Business Profitable

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Guest Post by Dee Bowden, Business Revenue Specialist

Charging into the last Quarter for 2022, what plan is your business taking to collect those outstanding accounts receivables?  Here are my 3 Keys to Collect the Cash.

1st Impact/Key is to teach that business to business collections involves three components: problem solving, extending customer service, and expressing gratitude.

This busts the myth of how collections in the B2B business space are seen and done. Another concept is bringing faith and gratitude to the workplace. It is a different approach but one that has worked successfully for me.

2nd Impact/Key is to convey to business owners that they can fall prey to thinking that all their customers will pay in a timely manner and what they promised to pay.

The fortune is in the follow-up. They do not want to rock the boat with the customer by asking for the payment. However, I believe that if the product/service was provided in good faith and the work was done as agreed upon, then payment should be processed when the invoice is submitted. Tracking invoices from 0-30, 31-60, 61-90, and 91 days and over is necessary because that invoice may age without ever being paid. If an invoice slips from 30 to, say, 60 days out, then it really is time to get on the phone and follow up on your money.

3rd Impact/Key is to make sure business owners know that the faster they can convert inventory of products to sales to cash in your bank account, the better off your small business will be.

Cash flow refers to the movement of funds in and out of your business. That’s why when I consult with small businesses, I focus on the importance of good cash flow management. If it is managed poorly, you can lose your profits and run the risk of having to shut your doors. Having had that experience personally, I know it to be true.

These Impacts/Keys come from my personal experience working with small and medium size companies. I share a short snippet of my story below:

I worked for a small IT firm outside of Boston where I am from. I was a part-time collections specialist tasked with recovering $8 million in outstanding invoices for sales that were on the books but not in the bank! No one at the company followed up on collecting any of the payments for these sales.

I learned how important it is to follow up on outstanding accounts receivables and to maintain good tracking systems for payments. As a business owner going into the last quarter of 2022, now is the perfect opportunity to review all your accounts and make sure there isn’t money left uncollected.

Remember Collect the Cash! The sale is not complete until the money is in the bank! To learn more, visit www.collectthecash.biz/book.

Start Your Website Project with a Competitor Analysis

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Before you get to the fun stuff like colors and images, your website project should start with a competitor analysis. You need to understand the market and your place in it.

Researching what competitors are doing is an essential step in your business strategy. When you conduct a competitive analysis, you evaluate your competitors to understand their strengths and weaknesses and use that to inform your online strategy.

By looking at your competitors, analyzing how they sell, and monitoring what’s said about them, you’ll also be able to anticipate the market. It will help you to build a web presence that engages your audience.

Fundamental Elements of a Competitive Analysis

Competitive analysis research could easily grow into a full-time job, so it’s important to set parameters while making sure the basics are covered.

Benchmarking SEO

Start by typing your company’s name or industry into Google. The results page will show you what else people search for under those terms, which could include other companies. It’s these companies that you should look into if they’re not already on your list of competitors.

When you conduct this search, you’ll also see  terms related to your business. These could be good keywords to include in your website’s content. These terms – keywords – are words that people use when searching for your products or services.

Tone and brand voice

Look at how your competitors present themselves. The way content is presented sets the tone and voice. Customers use this to judge who to buy from.

Content strategy

Building an audience involves more than just publishing a website. Understanding where competitors are sharing information online will show you what your audience expects.

Conducting a successful competitor analysis

These are just some elements of a successful competitor analysis. You should dig in, go as far as you think you need to in order to inform your business strategy.

Through competitive analysis, you’ll be able to get the measure of the market, and use that information to help your site stand out and get noticed.