⏱ Reading Time: 7 minutes

Customer relationship marketing nowadays is all about building a relationship with customers that will last. And many companies have started to implement this strategy into their business. Mostly by using customer data and feedback. That’s how they create long-term customer relationships.

🚀Read: Customer Service: A Guide for Successful Business Growth 🚀

It’s often said that the ones who put this strategy as a priority, create a strong connection. In other words, it’s a business process in which client relationships and customer loyalty are in the first place. Also, people often mix this term with the term “Customer relationship management“. They only share the same acronym of CRM, but in reality, are totally different.

Customer Relationship Marketing and Business

Nowadays we live in a competitive business environment. Companies are unable to survive with a transactional attitude towards customers. That’s why they use CRM as one of the best contemporary marketing strategies to please their customer needs. One of the most important keys to developing a successful business is practicing good CRM. Without this important element in your marketing, you will not be able to make progress with your business.

When talking about CRM, the biggest emphasis is on customer and customer relationships. They begin with the customer’s first encounter with the brand and continue until a sale is on point. Instead, relationship marketers see the sale as the first step towards a profitable brand relationship. Because it all comes down to long-term engagement and brand loyalty. Which are much more valuable to businesses than single sales.

Picture 1. Strong bond with customers is welcomed!

5 Customer Relationship Marketing Strategies

Nowadays companies focus on building trust with customers. That’s how they inspire brand loyalty. So, the best strategy for building relationships with the customer is to focus on emotion.

The focus of CRM isn’t the number of sales. CRM focus is the customer!

Did you know that most brands who excel in CRM use nostalgia in their campaigns? It’s one of the most powerful connections consumers can have to a brand. That’s why branded merchandising is becoming part of some of the most successful marketing campaigns.

Other strategies that are also very important are:

The good customer service team

Every great strategy starts with a good customer service team and teamwork. Good customer service may differ from company to company so you need to specify your services. A creative touch is needed to build a customer support team that loves working together. Offering some perks is an interesting way of motivating and encouraging your team, such as traveling our outside-the-office activities.

Focusing on customer interests

Identify topics and interests customers have. Create (and regularly update) your user persona! With that information, you create content to address them and give customers free access to it. For an example, you can make an informational videos about products customers recently purchased. And don’t forget newsletters, they highlight individual customers and share their stories.

Communication with customers

Good communication skills are arguably one of the most important traits needed for improving and growing your business. Being able to communicate with customers via social media, email can lead to increased sales, repeat business and referrals. It will co-create better experiences that leave them more likely to buy from you and refer business to you.

Social media tool

Don’t forget about social media as a great tool to track your customer’s behavior. Not only that customers interact with your posted content but also they treat it as one of the mediums for raising their concerns. You can reply to comments and complaints and address customers’ concerns.

Rewards

Doing things differently than other companies will engender your customers’ loyalty. Any company can offer perks and rewards, but you need to expand beyond the typical reward program. Try to recognize customers in most unexpected ways and give them the things they will love.

And last but not least, even if a customer doesn’t have a current need for what your business provides, the simple act of staying in touch is good. A newsletter or email can convince customers you are still there to help them whenever they need it.

Picture 2. Great CRM will expand beyond satisfied customer 

Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) and Marketing Automation

By implementing MA in your business, you build a better relationship with your customers. It helps to get personal connections without time-consuming tasks. It also creates well-informed customers. Aside from its capacity to increase conversions, MA tools reduce the need for hiring additional manpower as well as the cost of managing and responding to customer concerns.

Using MA to improve a relationship with customers

Usually, the first thing you need to get to know is your audience. When you implement MA in your business, you will then have a full report about each customer interaction on your site.

Once you’ve learned who your audience is, you need to segment your contact base according to the preferences and interactions. By creating an MA that adds contacts to specific lists according to their actions, you do the segmentation. For example, contacts who subscribed receive a newsletter, contacts who opened the welcome email, etc.

Customers who want responses and patience is no longer a virtue in the digital age. Your MA system can address simple concerns. For more complex questions, it can escalate it to the right team to handle. You can rest assured that no complaint or feedback is falling through the cracks. Furthermore, the use of MA leaves your manpower free to maintain human-powered live chat, email, or voice support for personal CRM.

Create personalized actions. When you do, contacts can be easily added to lists through which relevant content is sent. According to their preferences or an email with a special offer connected to the buyer’s profile, is how they use the content. This way, with MA, it is possible to track the contacts’ actions, add them to a specific list and send them a personalized email according to their behavior.

MA tools can help you manage social media channels, allowing you to post a consistent update on multiple networks. Everyone has an account on social media these days. On average, people spend about two hours surfing social media on a daily basis, so they’re very likely to see an update you post.

By connecting your MA tool to social media channels where your customers are, you can send them targeted messages. Whether it’s via advertising or messaging. Reaching them on channels that they’re comfortable on helps them connect and engage with your brand more.

Customer Relationship Marketing and Email Marketing

Email is the cornerstone of Good Relationship Marketing. These two combined are a natural fit. If you get your target audience and want to keep them, you have to develop a relationship with them. And you can get that through email marketing.

It is the most powerful marketing tool you have for encouraging habitual online interactions with your brand. It gives you the power to reach your customers in one place that people visit every day – their inbox. Anyone who takes the step of signing up for your email list actually wants a relationship with your company.

The research backs it up:

• by 2024 there are going to be 4.48 billion email users
• 86% of business professionals prefer to use email when communicating for business purposes according to HubSpot
• The average weekly signups per account have increased by 34.9% since March 9, 2020
• Email marketing has a great ROI – businesses get an average return of $42 for every $1 you spend

Email gives brands a way to reach loyal customers. It provides direct, consistent interactions that other social media channels don’t. It is true that social media is great for content sharing, but it’s definitely not a good way of communicating with customers. For example, if you have a Facebook page and someone sends you a message, you would probably prefer to switch to communicating via email.

Finally, it’s preferable for building relationships because you can learn more about your customers. You can segment customers by age gender, group, and location on Facebook.  The targeting opportunities have a limit. In short, email has much more opportunities to personalize the content.

Customer Relationship Marketing: Final Thoughts

Customer Relationship Marketing’s primary focus is on marketing to customers. It’s about prioritizing who we already have a connection with, rather than looking at “new” leads and building trust through a flawless customer experience that delivers value.

According to researches, it’s much more expensive to bring in a new user than retaining the existing one. So by using proper strategies, you are building trust with your customer. Customer needs a reason to choose a brand over its competitors in general.

Email marketing is a powerful tool for reaching to a customer. It remains one of the best tactics to deliver a proper business message. Successful marketing teams use it to build a stronger relationship with their customers. With an appropriate strategy, you should consider implementing an MA in your business.