7 Key Principles of Relationship Marketing to Attract Customers and Get Them to Stay on Your Life
Most of business owners fail to effectively attract and retain lifetime customers. What they fail to realize is the key principles of relationship marketing, that converts potential customers into repeat clients.
To succeed in your business, your main goal should be to build a responsive email list of lifetime customers from your targeted market who trust you, feel grateful to you and value your recommendation.
A good relationship with loyal customers is worth a fortune. That’s the most valuable thing any business can have. The key here is to build your large list of lifetime customers who trust you. Achieve this and you’re set for life.
For that reason you need to learn the key principles of relationship marketing to be able to apply relationship marketing concepts to your web site.
What’s Relationship Marketing?
Relationship marketing is the method of gradually turning website visitors into subscribers and leads them from position to position along a planned program to convert them into life time customers.
Think of relationship building as the foundation to your business. It establishes you as a professional, trust worthy and a consistent source.
7 Key Principles of Relationship Marketing.
Building relationship online is more difficult when compared to offline relationship building. The techniques used are almost the same. But, turning a potential customer into lifetime customer offline is easier due to the nature of the process. In online marketing you can’t meet your clients in person like in offline marketing. But, you can deliver what you want if you think of your potential clients in each step you make when building your business. Relationship marketing is a process, not just a one-time commitment. It starts the moment you think about building a business and continue as long as you stay in.
1 – Know your potential customers.
Before you start building your business; you need to determine your targeted market and know your potential customers. Learn how to know your customers to develop effective tactics for delivering your message to them.
You can start getting to know your customers by taking some very simple steps.
- Determine in advance where your potential customers congregate. – What newsletter they read? – What forums they visit and post to? – What else might do while surfing the net?
The best places where you find your prospects are forums, discussion groups and discussion boards. Visit forums of your targeted market and figure out:
- What’s your potential customers’ problem? – What they are looking for? – What kind of business they are involved in? – How they want their problem to be solved? – What words they use?
Only by knowing your customers’ wants and needs you can successfully grow your business and be totally customer-oriented. In order to tailor your marketing and advertising strategies to appeal to the tastes and interests of your market, you must first identify your customer.
Relationship is not only based on knowing who your visitors are, but on knowing your customers’ and prospects’ specific needs.
Note: To attract more subscribers and build a strong relationship marketing the easy way use your prospects words. If you feel their pain and use their words when posting to forums, sending message, etc… they’ll be related to you. You will be one of them; you are not a stranger then they will be likely to trust you and consider your recommendation.
2 – Show your expertise.
The majority of business people, never completely and clearly display their knowledge to potential customers. Show to your targeted market you are the leader in your industry and they will follow you.
People like to learn about your experience. They like to follow the expert’s steps to avoid mistakes and reach success the easy way with less investment in time and money.
3 – Start a dialog to establish trust.
Set up a continuing dialog to establish trust. Trust is a vital step to building long-time relationship. This dialog should starts as soon as your visitors submit information along with their email addresses. This explains their interest in your business. In return, you give them what promised when they subscribed and keep contacts at periodic intervals by sending quality information to your subscribers.
Your goal is to create long term relationships marketing with your subscribers. To do that you must invest time to gather available sources and high quality information and put it at your prospects’ disposal to help them succeed. Remember, maintaining customer enthusiasm and creating customer loyalty is your key to success.
4 – Follow up
Dialog leads to follow-up. Hook your subscribers with your follow up messages series. Set up a series of follow up messages to send quality information to every new subscriber. Professionalism is the key to successful relationship.
The main purpose of follow up is to remain visible to your subscribers so, when the need arise and your prospect wants to make a purchase, your product will be the first one the subscriber thinks of.
If you want to make good money your mission will not cease at selling your product. Going after one sale is worthless. Following up with your customer after the sale is made is a great tactic. This important step will help you strength your relationship, decrease the refund proclamations and keep your customer baying from you again and a gain.
Keep following up; don’t stop and be creative. Don’t send your customers only sales messages. From time to time send free useful product they don’t find elsewhere that can help them make money and/or save time. Send special offers with discount for loyal customers only. Keep them up to date and to the point with latest news, etc…
5 – Offer good customer service.
Some people will start an online business and only focus on what services or products they can sell to make good money. They are not worried about establishing good relationship with their customers and potential clients.
- Answer your prospects’ requests as soon as you receive them. – Replay to every email within 24 hours with the needed response whether it is a question, concern or simply someone looking for more information. – Treat your customers right. Even if you offer the best products or services, most customers will evaluate your business by how they were treated while doing business with you. For that reason, it’s important to take care of your customers and give them the best product or service they want.
By providing great customer service to the people you do business with, you will get customers coming back to you again and again to buy your products or services.
Note: If you want to stay in your customers’ minds serve them better. You can do this by collecting information from your customers’ feedback. Having a contacts page on your website with a comments or feedback form will keep you informed about your customers’ wants and problems. If you publish a newsletter, you can also accomplish this by asking for feedback from your subscribers.
This is a great way of making your audience know you care about what they have to say and how important they are to you. When you show interest in your customers you will build credibility and loyalty.
6 – Educate your subscribers.
Put at your customers disposal manuals, frequently asked question (FAQ) web page, articles, etc… to help them learn how to use your product or service perfectly. Educate your subscribers to help them build interest and loyalty for your business.
Lifetime clients want you to be their trusted advisor. The more you educate your customers by offering them a variety of options, the greater your chance to earn their lifetime business. Education strengthens relationship marketing with clients.
7 – Sell or recommend only quality products.
Sell quality products that have value, plus offer a guarantee and stand behind it. One of the quickest ways to destroy a business relationship is selling poor quality products and not standing behind what you promise.
If you want to promote other marketers’ affiliate programs from your website, take the time to investigate the companies you advocate. Promote only products from legitimate companies with solid Internet presence. Remember the companies you suggest will have an impact on your business reputation.
Relationship marketing is the corner stone of every business. If you follow these key principles of relationship marketing, you’ll be on your way to building a responsive opt in email list which will lead to more and better sales.
How To Get The Most From Your Free eBook Marketing Campaign
First, your ebook needs to have an attractive title.The title should grab the attention of your intended target audience. The more appealing the title, the more your ebook will be downloaded.
Your ebook needs to have quality content. You can write your own content or ask permission to use another author’s content. Your ebook will be read more if the content is original.
You will want to put your ad on the title page or on the table of contents. This will give the most exposure for your web site or the products you’re selling.
It’s important to put your ebook in as many formats as possible. Most ebook software only allows the ebook to be read by certain browers and software. People may not take the time to download a new software program in order to read your ebook. Other versions of your ebook could be in HTML, auto responder and downloadable text format.
You can contact other business owners and ask them if they would like to include their ad in your ebook. Just ask them in return to advertise your free ebook on their web site or in their e-zine for a set period of time. This method will get your free ebook marketing campaign off to a fast start.
Allow the people who download your ebook to give it away to their visitors. This will multiply your free ebook’s exposure. Submit your ebook to the growing number of free ebook directories on the internet.
These web sites also offer more information about ebook marketing. Some of them also have ebook discussion forums where you can ask questions and learn more about ebook marketing.
For more tips & tricks on iFree eBook Marketing Campaign visit tp://www.easilywealthy.com
6 Secret Keys To Dominating Viral Marketing
Viral marketing is a vital part to any business on or offline. Without it, there is little hope of a business to survive. Here are six ideas to help you start your viral marketing campaign:
1) Purchase the branding rights to a viral e-book.
Allow people to give away your free e-book to their visitors. Then, their visitors will also give it away. This will just continue to spread your ad all over the Internet.
2) Create free website tools.
Create some templates, graphics, etc. and upload them to your site. Then, allow people to give away your free web design graphics, fonts, templates, etc. Just include your ad on them or require people to link directly to your web site. Make sure that you include a link back to your site in the copyright notice and require them to keep your copyright notice in tact.
3) Create a forum or chat room.
If you have the ability to set up a forum or other bulletin board, you really have a great tool. Allow people to use your online discussion board for their own website. Some people do not have one. Just include your banner ad at the top of the board.
If you have created a chat room, you may learn some free web-advertising secrets on how to market your products and service in them. Chat rooms are usually broken into small categories. You will need to find the right chat room where your targeted audience would gather. If one does not exist, then you should create it.
It will be of no use to create one that is obviously for the sole purpose of selling your product or service. It just needs to attract people who would be interested in your product or service.
4) Write an e-book.
Allow people to place an advertisement in your free E-book if, in exchange, they give away the e-book to their web visitors or e-zine subscribers.
An e-book that includes your marketing message and a link to your website is a proven technique in viral marketing. This method uses the multiplication effect to erupt the distribution of your message by willing participants.
E-books are fairly easy to create. It is possible to produce your own E-books by combining articles that you have written or have gotten from public domain sources, such as article submission directories.
5) Write articles that pertain to your product or service.
Allow people to reprint your articles on their website, in their E-zine, newsletter, or magazine. Remember to include your resource box and the option for article reprints at the bottom of each article. This will provide the visitor with quick access to your site. This person could even be a potential customer.
6) Get branding rights to a product.
You can easily find products on the Internet that will sell you a license allowing you to distribute the product free of charge to other people. Look for products that provide branding rights. That is where you can include your own name, website, and contact information for customers.
Copyright 2007 Donald Mckenzie Jr
How to Create a Dynamic Marketing Plan Part I
Copyright 2006 Sandra P. Martini
We all recognize the importance of having a business plan (even if we haven’t yet done one), but do you recognize the value of a good marketing plan? While most marketing plans take up a few pages of the standard business plan, I recommend you take the time to create a dynamic marketing plan if you really want to kick your business into high gear. A good dynamic marketing plan is one that you review weekly, monthly and quarterly.
A truly dynamic marketing plan contains goals, objectives, action items and it both changes and grows with your business. The next few issues of “Effective Entrepreneur” will be dedicated to marketing plans and the steps necessary for creating a realistic and valuable tool.
Let’s start with the basics: Determine your goals.
Good goals are SMART:
Specific Measurable Action-oriented Realistic Time-oriented
They also have a “reason”, are consistent with each other and have some type of price tag as outlined below.
Identify what you want to accomplish: Do you want to create a website? Increase your website traffic? Get more clients? Sell more widgets? What is it that you want to do or get from completion of your goals?
What?
Your goals must be Specific, Measurable and in writing. Define as specifically as possible, what it is that you want to have, get or accomplish then write it down so you can refer to it throughout the process…it’s okay that your goal(s) may change as you complete the task, just write it down to imprint on your brain what you are working toward.
Simply stating a “goal” such as “I need a website” or “I want more clients” is too vague and gives you nothing to measure your success (or failure) against. The following are better: I will create a one page website. I will increase my website traffic by 50%. I will get five new clients. The more specific the goal, the better your chances of attaining it and the more Actionable the idea.
Be Realistic.
I am not going to be a ballerina by the end of the year. No amount of preparation between now and December will result in me performing at The Wang Theatre in Boston for New Year’s Eve. This is not a realistic goal for me.
Unrealistic goals set you up for a fall and kill your enthusiasm toward other goals that you can achieve. Be realistic while remembering that worthwhile goals should force you to reach out of your comfort zone in order to attain them.
When?
Each of your goals must also have a Time element. Time frames make the goals more measurable and more “real” for you. You know when 60 days goes by and you either made your goal, are working towards it or must re-evaluate whether or not the goal needs to be revised or is no longer realistic. Without that time element, it’s too easy to keep pushing the actions until tomorrow or next week and you’ll never be encouraged to act on the goal – consider having a deadline embedded in every goal your kick in the butt to get moving. There is no set time frame for every person or every action. Set a timeframe that is a challenge for you and be determined to make each subsequent timeframe slightly shorter to consistently improve your success.
“I will create a one page website within the next 60 days” or “I will increase my website traffic by 50% in the next 90 days” are both good examples of specific goals with deadlines.
Why?
It is very motivating to list the “why” of each goal. Why do you want to accomplish X? List all of the benefits that you, AND others, will receive from the achievement of your goal.
When tempted to play hooky or skip a conference call, it’s helpful to have a written list of why you are working so hard whether it be to grow your business or get a promotion or whatever your goal is. Seeing the resulting benefits is a great way to stay on track.
Know the cost.
The achievement of every goal comes with a cost. The cost may be financial or it could be that you need to get up an hour earlier each morning or eat more salads. What will it take for you to achieve your goal and are you prepared for it? If there is no cost, the chances are that your goal isn’t worth much. Locking yourself in a room, in a coffee shop corner or under a tree somewhere for a few hours with your laptop or a legal pad to work on your goals may not sound exciting, but it’s critical to the success of your business.
Be consistent.
Your goals need to work together. Conflicting goals are damaging emotionally and the likelihood of you completing any one of them is greatly diminished.
For example, the following two goals are inconsistent and would result in a healthy dose of frustration for both you and those around you:
1. I will spend every weekend playing with my kids during the summer.
2. I will take three college courses during the summer to further advance my career.
The issue is obvious. Three college courses while working a full-time job are going to interfere with spending every weekend playing with the children. It may work for the first week or two, but overall it’s a recipe for failure. When establishing your goals within your marketing plan, all of the goals must lead to the same end, to further your business.
How blogging can help your Search Engine Marketing
It is hardly believable when someone says they have not heard of blogging now-a-days. The continued rise of blogging and its importance in search engine marketing has been further reinforced by Google’s acquisition of a major blog tool. Google being the mother of all search engines, this step certainly proves a point in the direction the blogs are going.
Does it mean that Google is going to offer blog specific searches like Feedster and RSS? These blog search engines accept content by receiving RSS feeds and not by spidering or crawling. Both these searches are powered by RSS engine. RSS feed is a mechanism that helps webmasters to relay information about new articles or content posted.
Bloggers who use blogging tools like Blogger Pro or Moveable Type automatically create RSS feeds for their sites, the reason why RSS search engines have turned out more as blogging search engines. Any website can relay or distribute content through RSS which makes RSS search engines more than blog search engines. Conversely all blogs may not use RSS, so RSS search engines area subset of the blogging community as well as the weblog community.
Search engine marketing can benefit widely by use of RSS for the website under question. Being a part of the weblog makes a site a part of the search engine, but by activating the RSS feeds, it can make use of blog search capabilities, which will help in its rankings. This two pronged approach can make the website a part of the search engine indices as well as RSS indices, making it more specifically targeted to audience or visitors belonging to the niche.
A unmentioned fact remains that Bloggers are a very niche community class of visitors depending upon specific requirements and specific needs, so a website doing RSS feeds has more chances to targeted hits through RSS than through search engines. Of course, the whole process is again effective only when the search engine optimization process has been undertaken with due care and usage of specific niche keywords has been taken care of.
==============================================
Copyright © 2006-2007 Jahn A. All rights reserved.
You may freely distribute this article provided that the copyright and this resource box and all the links in it must be included.
Jahn A. is a Licensed eCommerce Consultant and a an Internet Marketer by profession and he has an MBA Degree in Marketing and Strategic Mgt and also a GDip in I.T.
To view more details on his recent works, you may visit his Business Blog at http://www.noorazan.com to download 77 free software and ebooks.
==============================================