Local businesses enjoy the unique privilege of being privy to the needs, preferences, and sentiments of their clients due to proximity. Relationship marketing strategies have increasingly been implemented to complement the positioning advantage and increase competitive edge. While small local businesses positively perceive relationship marketing, its execution still leaves a lot to be desired. Without proper implementation of a relationship marketing strategy, local businesses risk losing goodwill and incurring unnecessary sunk costs. Here are relationship marketing tips for boosting your business:
Encourage online interaction
Social media is one of the free and flexible tools that can be used to strengthen interactions and build a business-community network with mutual benefits. Your local business can get client insight and feedback while the customers participate in developing products that address their needs. Timely response and frequent updates should be deliberately integrated into the online marketing strategy.
Align with Influencers
As the movers and shakers of industries, influencers are well positioned to steer the market perception towards a product or business. Your local business can leverage the power of influencers to build relationships with customers. The existence of authentic relationships with the influencers is essential for this tactic to support the relationship marketing strategy.
Establish physical contact
Physical interaction is essential for your local business since online engagement can be insufficient in building customer relationships. The clients can be encouraged to subscribe to receive its periodic booklet to keep the conversation going beyond social media. Digital brochure printing, flyer printing, high-quality compliment slip printing along with letterhead printing, and other promotional accessories can be considered when deliberating content for the customers.
Control costs
The cost incurred in building and maintaining relationships should not outstrip the potential benefits of engaging customers. Small businesses can look out to lower their expenses by sourcing based on competitive pricing for marketing accessories. While keeping an eye on quality, costs such as graphic design for promotional products, brochure printing, and booklet printing should be justifiable within the marketing budget.
The value of relationship marketing lies in the ability to take advantage of multiple networking opportunities. Your local business needs to adopt a flexible strategy that ensures online and physical presence while taking advantage of both internal and external resources to develop authentic relationships with customers. Given the limited financial resources of small local businesses, remaining cognisant of cost implications is a critical element of executing a successful relationship marketing strategy.