5 Ways to Get Started with Relationship Marketing

Admit it. We’ve all tried the “spray and pray” method of direct marketing - yours truly included - and received marginal results. But now's the time to move forward fearlessly to achieve a higher ROI using relationship marketing strategies.

To some marketers, however, the word "relationship" conjures up fears of all the hand holding they'll have to do with their client, and how much time and energy it could take (that they don't have) to successfully execute a relationship marketing campaign.

Here's the good news: relationship marketing doesn't have to be that way if you have the right approach and right tools to get started. Even better, some companies can automate all your direct mail and email campaigns for you, so you can focus on your business and clients and not the mundane and time-consuming side of campaign management. Plus you’ll experience greater ROI.

Here are five ways to get started with relationship marketing:

1. Don’t repeat the same mistakes. Repeat after me: I will never do “spray and pray” marketing again. We know from experience that it doesn’t work, so don’t keep doing it. Embrace segmentation and personalization in your direct marketing campaigns.
   
   
2. Implement a multi-touch, multi-media strategy. Get in touch and stay in touch with a combination of direct mail, email, phone calls, social media and text messaging. Don’t rely on one media type to get your message through to your targeted audience. There’s no silver bullet of media, an integrated approach using various outlets will produce greater results.
   
   
3. Present relevant, personalized offers. Engage your audience with content tailored to them using individualized direct mail, email and text messages to keep them interested in your products or services. Present to them what they want to hear, not what you want to tell them.
   
   
4. Don’t pick only the low hanging fruit. Reach for the opportunities at the top and stay in touch with them over time. Over 80% of sales leads are not ready to buy right now according to Marketing Sherpa, but these same prospects will buy in the future. Don’t ignore these latent prospects and miss sales opportunities. You’ve started a relationship with them, now advance them to a sale.
   
   
5. Expand on your current relationships. Focus on your customers and those prospects who have expressed interest in your product or service, but have not yet purchased. You have an established relationship with these contacts. They are a great source to re-engage and converse with. Create a dialogue with them using online surveys or web forms to capture their needs and interests. Use these data points to educate them about your products and services.