MARKETING
MARKETING
WHAT IS RELATIONSHIP MARKETING?
Relationship Marketing: Part 1
WHAT IS RELATIONSHIP MARKETING?
MARKETING
MAR· KET· ING | \ˈMÄR-KƏ-TIŊ
THE PROCESS OR TECHNIQUE OF PROMOTING, SELLING, AND DISTRIBUTING A PRODUCT OR SERVICE
The trends are moving. You may have seen this, you may have sensed it. I want to provide some clarity on what you can achieve when you shift your focus as a business owner, employee, or any kind of entrepreneur in regards to marketing. The stats don’t lie, consumers are being guided by their relationship to a brand’s values in increasing numbers.
WHAT IS STANDARD MARKETING?
Standard marketing isn’t a bad thing. It’s not a terrible profanity that should make everyone’s skin crawl. Chances are if you’ve talked with someone about marketing it involves complaints about being cyber-stalked by a lamp they looked at on Amazon ten years ago. I feel for you, lady stalked by the lamp. I’ve gone rounds trying to manage how I’m marketed to.
The other side of marketing provides value to someone’s life. Inspiration, utility, enjoyment. Whether it’s another heartfelt commercial from Coca-Cola during the Superbowl or that exciting moment when the new Avengers movie trailer drops. Each of these goes through a rigorous process to ensure it’s delivering the goods to their audience.
Where marketing goes awry is when someone’s sole purpose, beginning, middle, and the end is to sell you something.
RELATIONSHIP MARKETING
That’s where Relationship Marketing comes in. Our approach here at Bema Creative orbits around two things, building relationships and operating with transparency. In the following weeks, we’re going to break down these two values and how they should be your values too if they’re not already.
Let’s talk about the difference between seeing a new e-book on Facebook that will revolutionize your business and sitting down with a real human. That e-book doesn’t know what your client’s goals are. They don’t know that your client has a family, employees, and customers who are relying on them to execute. What these things can’t offer is a relationship.
Have a brief conversation, ask about their life, dig into the real problems they want to solve, and most importantly… LISTEN! When you change your goal from, “I have to sell this person a product” to “I want to find out what they truly need”, you are going to see a shift in the relationships you can build as a business professional.
When you change your goal from, “I have to sell this person a product” to “I want to find out what they truly need”, you are going to see a shift in the relationships you can build as a business professional.
Caveat, e-books are valuable tools, but in the context of relationship marketing, they are a tool at best.
Good relationships with your clients have to have good boundaries. Relationship Marketing doesn’t have to be an open door to an afternoon-long conversation. It doesn’t have to lead to tears, though sometimes it just might. Having good boundaries is key. But, take a moment and really think about how you can solve their problems and provide some peace of mind.
Most likely, you began your business not just to make a paycheck but to make a difference. Relationship marketing focuses on the WHO first before addressing the WHY and the HOW. And once we know the WHO, we can tailor the WHY and HOW to meet your customer’s needs and establish a mutually beneficial relationship.
This is part one of a five-part series digging into the topic of Relationship Marketing. We’re gonna examine how to find out what people want, common mistakes, and what it means to kill it at Relationship Marketing.
See you soon! Check out our blog to read the next four parts of this series as they become available.