Welcome To Relationship Marketing 101

Today's consumer has a billion choices when engaging with brands, no matter the vertical or price point. How will yours win their business and foster long term loyalty? Many marketers have relied on #adtech to start relationships and persuade them to buy, but it falls flat as a true relationship marketing channel. Ads are excellent for #brandawareness when coordinated and targeted at the right audiences, but by nature they are both disruptive and (usually) only a one way messaging tool.

Consumers want to have a meaningful connection with their favorite brands and this is a trend that has being increasing year over year for at least the past 4 years. As the former producer and co-author of the annual Global Consumer Trends Index series by Marigold, I've helped identify what consumers care about most when building relationships with brands vying for their attention. It should be no surprise that personalization is the common core ingredient that permeates their wants and needs when it comes to your marketing efforts to win their dollars... and endorsement. Here are just a few bullets from the US version of the 2023 Consumer Trends Index that bolster this theory:

• Email beats banner ads, social ads and even organic social posts by up to 139% for driving revenue.

• 86% of US consumers say their favorite brands treat them as an individual through their marketing efforts.

• 81% of US consumers favor brands that strive to develop relationships with them.

• 51% of US consumers are frustrated with brands who send emails and mobile messages that suggest are irrelevant offers or content that don't match their wants and needs.

• 72% of US consumers will pay more to purchase from their favorite brands.

Each of those cherry picked stats are also rising year over year, with some hockey sticking as much as 50% over the past 3 years. There has never been a better time to reinvest in a relationship marketing strategy that aims to truly understand your audience as individuals and provide next-gen personalization across owned channels, as well as on ad platforms. But this takes a disciplined approach that spans these three simple stages of relationship marketing (simplified for this blog):

Step 1: Acquire and Understand Your Audience

Grow your marketable database to include both customers and potential customers. But not only amass contact information, collect zero-party data to understand each individuals wants and needs. This should focus on the psychographic data your competitors can't easily deduce. This is the art of listening by asking relevant questions that have the potential to deliver mutually beneficial outcomes to you and the consumer.

Step 2: Engage with Personalization

When you know something special about an audience member you can use that information to personalize and hone in your message and offer to align with their needs. This is most easily delivered across the email and sms channels (remember that email is the #1 channel at driving revenue in the US). This also means only sending relevant offers and content to your database rather than blasting everyone with similar messages all at once. You can use dynamic content when everyone needs to be sent an email or sms message (think product launch or holiday sale). You could use triggers to automate personalized content being sent in the moments that matter as consumers engage with your brand (think abandoned cart email or an offer sent when someone visits a product page on your site or in your app). You can also suppress individuals that have expressed a conflicting data point when you're sending that next email campaign (think of someone who said they are vegetarian when sending that Philly cheesesteak offer!).

Step 3: Retain and Foster Their Loyalty

Recognizing or rewarding a consumer who interacted with your brand is not a new concept, but it generally is only deployed to customers that have made a purchase. What about the consumer (not yet a customer) who visited your site 5 times in a month, or opened your app recently? These are moments that show emotional loyalty and they should be recognized as opportunities to retain their interest as much as we tend to reward a customer for making a purchase. Also, rewards and recognition do not need an intense loyalty platform dishing out points complicated incentives. Emails and sms messages simply recognizing their actions with your brand (back to 'triggers' in Step 2) or a discount can go a long way fostering long term loyalty. It's actually one of the most effective ways to excite a consumer.

I was fortunate enough to develop these 3 steps with some incredibly intelligent colleagues during my time as Global VP of Content at Cheetah Digital over the past several years. We proved this theory out by delivering amazing results for both global brands and small organizations alike. Just as all links in this blog so far highlight my work in various industry publications, you can watch yours truly talk about relationship marketing and real results in these video interviews with executives from Starbucks, American Airlines, Smartbox and more here.

We created Audience Approach to serve smaller brands in specific verticals based on our success and experience with larger ones. Following the 3 steps will lead to expected results but many marketers at sub-$100 million dollar brands lack the experience executing a relationship marketing strategy effectively, or at scale. We've been able to efficiently identify a brand's unique needs and accelerate their journey into a long term relationship marketing strategy that can be honed and refined in a short amount of time to transition that skillset in-house. We're the agency that doesn't want to be your agency in 3 years. This is exactly what we've done for brands such as Bowtech, Leupold, Health-Ade Kombucha or ASHOC Energy. They continue to deploy the core tenets of a relationship marketing strategy today on their own after engaging Audience Approach to show them the path. How can we help your brand accelerate your efforts to reach your goals efficiently and effectively? Give us a shout and let's talk.

About The Author:

Tim Glomb is a 20+ year brand marketing veteran who lives at the intersection of content and digital marketing. As co-founder of Audience Approach, Tim brings a deep understanding of how zero-party data can move brands closer to their audiences to drive revenue and long term loyalty. He has held senior leadership positions for organizations and brands operated by Marigold, CM Group, Cheetah Digital, Norwest Equity Group and Mark Cuban Companies. Tim has presented at dozens of marketing events across the globe and has been published or quoted in the likes of Harvard Business Review, AdAge, The Drum, Forbes and many other trade publications.