Every successful relationship is founded on two things - how well you know your partner and how much you understand their needs. In a romantic partnership, knowing (or not knowing) this information can make or break your relationship. In the relationship between a business and customer, the same rules apply and the stakes are even higher.
We know you and your marketing teams spend a lot of time and money developing ways to communicate your message, generate leads and drive conversions but we thought the run up to Valentine’s Day posed the perfect opportunity to talk about how you can deepen those existing relationships, build new ones and create marketing that shows your customers how much you value them.
It’s Not You, It’s Them
Traditional marketing relied on outbound methods with broadcast and print ads and paid search as the cornerstone of campaigns. This worked too. It got results. But marketing is changing. Why? Because customer behavior is changing.
The proliferation of new consumer technologies and social media is creating a new type of customer – the connected customer. The connected customer has more sophisticated technology in their hands than ever before with the rise of smartphones and tablets.
Consequently, customers are becoming increasingly adept at sidestepping marketing messages. They can record programmes on digital recorders and speed through the adverts, avoid banner advertising on websites and talk to brands directly on social media.
Your connected customer expects an engaged and reciprocal relationship with their chosen brands and businesses, making the building and strengthening of customer relationships a new challenge for the modern marketer. So what’s the solution?
The Law of Attraction
We believe the next evolutionary stage of marketing is inbound marketing, or ‘inbound’.
At the core of inbound marketing is the principle that creating and sharing quality content will attract the right people to your website. Remember that sharing is caring – giving your customers helpful and relevant content shows you understand their needs and can help.
Even better, creating content that appeals to your ideal customers naturally attracts pre-qualified leads to your business, helping you find people who are looking for your product or service at just the right time.
One of inbound’s most attractive features is that it is underpinned by a compelling methodology that encourages accountability and measurement at all stages.
(For a more detailed look at the inbound methodology, click here).
Great. But How Can Inbound Deepen My Customer Relationships?
• How Well Do You Know Me?
We’ve mentioned the creation and sharing of quality content, but to create content that is truly valuable you must get to know your prospects, leads and customers. The starting point for your inbound activity should be the creation of a buyer persona.
A buyer persona is a fictional profile of your ideal customer that includes demographics, personal and job histories, motivations, needs and concerns. Your buyer personas are crucial to your activity, helping you create content that addresses real needs, rather than guesswork. Use interviews, surveys and research of customers and leads for a balanced view.
Once you know who you are talking to, you are in a much better place to understand your customers’ concerns and offer them solutions.
• Do You Understand My Needs?
So you’ve attracted a pre-qualified lead to your site with some genuinely useful content, now what? You’ve now got the opportunity to show your potential customer the content they need to see, at the time and place they want to see it. The key here is analytics. Who are your site visitors? What pages are they clicking on? Where do they spend the most time? What are they downloading?
A powerful inbound marketing software package can really help you here, by identifying the lifecycle stage of each lead and allowing you to target them with timely emails and pieces of content to encourage conversions.
Keep the Love Alive
Here’s one of the most powerful attributes of inbound marketing – the relationship is nurtured and maintained even after the all-important conversion. Inbound marketing helps you to engage with and delight your current customer base into happy promoters of your company. Go a step further with social media conversation and emails to continue helping them achieve their goals.
Remember, it’s about deepening those relationships and your most valuable customers are your current ones.
Want to Go Inbound?
We think inbound is a great option for marketing teams who want to evolve their activities and develop even better relationships with their potential and existing customer base. We’ve seen inbound deliver great results for our clients and we think it could really work for you too.
If you’d like some guidance on what inbound can do for your marketing, then get in touch with us today.
