We all have things that are important to us. We all buy and use products and services. The truth is, if you care about your buyers, you should care about the things that matter to them. What better way to establish a relationship with someone than by simply partnering in the things that matter to them.

Relationship Marketing Example 4: Something That Actually Matters

I’m not talking about pure Cause Marketing, which of course is one way to align yourself with the things that matter to your buyers, I’m talking about a little bit more than that. Your customers are real people that are interested in real things. If you take the opportunity to treat them as such (rather than treating them as an impression among thousands) than you might be surprised by the results. Here are some examples:

Tell The Truth: Many recognize Dove for their Real Beauty Workshop campaign that started with this video where a they show how our image of beauty is sometimes distorted. They started an effort to improve self esteem (instead of selling product) and the video went viral.

Help Puppies: Once, a client out of New Zealand, Raw Dog Food manufacturer K9 Natural partnered with a Police K9 community to provide food to their dogs (which was otherwise something they had to do additional fund raising for). It mattered to both of them, in fact the company’s founder was a K9 trainer and handler himself in the past.

Provide a Resource: Samsung did it, by setting up charging stations in airports for people looking for a little juice for their phone. A ran across a liquor company that sent a bus to popular bar areas to provide a ride for people that had a little too much. Even two of our clients are providing highly valued leadership development seminars to add value to the community.

Relationship Marketing Example 3: Search Marketing.

When People are searching for a solution that is ultimately your product, that is the perfect time to get your brand in front of them. It is not irrelevant or an interruption, it is exactly what the consumer is looking for. The fact is, if you were searching for someone and you found it because of marketing, you would be appreciative. It’s all about marketing that is relevant within the context the consumer receives it. By searching or “asking” the buyer is essentially permitting you to be that result.

Where this turns into relationship is when the consumer seeking approaches you by signing up for your news letter, requesting more information, downloading a whitepaper, etc. Search marketing is an exploding industry, so I would say two things:

1. Don’t forsake search marketing for your business. With as much as people are starting the purchasing and decision making process with a search on the web, forgoing search marketing for many businesses can mean passing up a lot of business.

2. Don’t rely on search marketing for your business. As fast as this industry is growing, it is faster being manipulated. Just as fast, those that make the rules are changing them.

In short, use search to some degree by creating both organic and paid results – there are millions of related methods so hire an Indianapolis Marketing Agency to help you establish your direction in this area (full disclosure – I’m biased). In closing, search is a great wedge to open the door to establishing true marketing relationships that are truly relevant and interested in your brand and the solution you provide to them.

Relationship Marketing Example 2,3 and 4: Opt In Marketing

The people that opt into your marketing are the people that are the most interested. For this reason, it would make sense that those are the people that you should marketing most specifically to. It might also make sense that all your outbound marketing should (in many cases) be focused on simply drawing people into your opt in model. I’ve broken this into three specific examples:

2. Email Marketing. This is one of the most common and most known modern forms of opt in marketing. It is also known to be one of the most hated and abused as well. On the contrary, if you are truly using a permission marketing approach than you are not in the same category of those methods that have given email marketing a bad name. One of our customers told of of their raving fans (customers) that have called their email marketing “the only junk mail I look forward to”. This is because it is truly based solely on permission. That opt in list is the first to respond to special promotions, in essence, their most profitable customers.

3. Social Media. We do a lot to make our customer’s Facebook pages come to life. Using Facebook as the example, You have to “Like” a page to be opted into the brand’s content. Furthermore, you have to have activity on their wall (or responding to posts, etc.) before the algorithms of the famous “News Feed” will pull the brands content into your top news. For this reason, a Facebook user is only likely to really see what they are truly interested in. If you are using social media to market your business, I would focus on getting people interested, rather than simply putting out content.

4. Direct Mail, Catalogs. In this day and age we get a lot of junk mail. We don’t have laws against junk mail in the same way as we do spam and telemarketing. For this reason people have to be captivated by your message (or actually think it IS the IRS trying to send them money if they call now). The fact is, while I throw most of that mail away, the mini catalog from Guitar Center is one I always look through – because I am receiving based on my actual interests. I have made purchases there and given them my address (I.E. Permission).

Relationship Marketing Example 3: Offer a Sample

If you must do interruption marketing, let it be an opportunity to request permission. The secret method put simply is to turns strangers into contacts, contacts into friends and friends into customers. Let’s say you interrupt someone’s television show to tell them about a new cleaning product. And let’s just say that (instead of rudely expecting them to make a snap decision) you invite viewers to request a free sample via your website.

Well Proctor and Gamble did this very thing with a new product within the Mr. Clean brand. Not only we’re they able to make a huge impact at driving people to stores for product, they captured data from all the people willing to test the product. The interruption approach was only used to pry out the relevant listeners for a short time frame. This allowed them to see where their founding users are and create a direct marketing relationship.

Not only is the sphere of influence a valuable result, but the free sample drove the number of people willing to try the product up. Once you start using a consumable product and like it, you are more likely to pay a higher price (considerate of value) for it on a regular basis.

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