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When you build a relationship with your prospects, clients, and customers, you’ll build a solid business, whether it’s an online business or a completely offline “brick and mortar” business. Today, however, in this article, I want to focus on the online marketer and the strategies that will prove successful for you. There are several steps to relationship marketing:
- Have something to give away for free so people have a chance to meet you
- Keep in touch with people frequently and regularly.
- Be prepared to give excellent and immediate customer service.
- Educate people about what you have to offer and why they should listen to you.
- Keep thinking about the reasons why they should open your emails, read them, and take action.
- Be sure to offer high-value, premium quality products.
Let’s take a closer look at two of these points:
Keep in touch frequently and regularly
Out of sight, out of mind. Have you ever heard that? It is also true in marketing. The easiest way to keep in touch with people online is through email. You can use broadcast emails (such as with Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, Rate Point, or other similar services), or they can be emails set up through your autoresponder service. There’s an art and a science to sending emails that educate, keep people interested, and keep them coming back for more. All of that topic cannot be covered in this article, but I urge you to educate yourself on it.
Offer Excellent and Immediate Customer Service
Have you ever had an experience where you clicked on a link, found something you were interested in, and yet wanted a little more information or wanted a specific question answered? She searched…and searched…but found no contact information and no way to ask a simple question. When I have found this to be the case, I just move on. I imagine if it’s that hard before you buy it, it would be a nightmare after face. The minimum you need to do is provide a customer support email address. But, if you don’t respond to every email promptly and courteously, you’ll lose the sale just as quickly as if you didn’t have a support email.
Sometimes I just hit “Reply” to an email from an autoresponder, especially when they’re written so well they sound like they’re addressed to me personally. If someone does that to one of your autoresponder emails, just go ahead and respond, even if it didn’t come through the “normal” channels of communication. If you respond to people in a personal way, you will get a long-term customer. It will also make you stand out from the crowd.
Marketers these days aren’t that interested in individual customers. But isn’t that the one who’s buying? Think about it. Here we do not have to think in a group, think in individuals. In the long run, it will pay off and you’ll be a relationship marketer.
I invite you to visit Make Email Work and learn about email marketing that could be very useful to you.