How Do You Build Relationships at Scale?
The digital space is starting to look a lot like Tokyo Summerland on a hot day in June. As this happens, it’s more important than ever that you service your existing customers and help them to succeed.
In his refreshing article, ‘Happy Customers Are the Biggest Marketing Opportunity of 2018’, HubSpot CMO Kipp Bodnar recently explained the pivotal role happy customers will play in sales and marketing strategies as businesses seek to navigate these crowded waters. It’s a great read, and as we look to review our own marketing strategy over the coming months, it’s giving me a lot to think about.
But hold onto your Speedos, because happy customers aren’t just a means to glowing referrals. A happy customer is a loyal customer and a business growth opportunity in their own right.
Building financial success and stability through customer loyalty
‘Everything changes when a customer becomes a loyalist’, consultant and keynote speaker Micah Solomon reminds us in a piece for Forbes last week. ‘To the engaged and loyal customer, you are the only shop in the marketplace. All the other brands and all the other vendors don’t even come into focus. Like someone in love, the loyal customer only has eyes for you.’
What could you do to better serve your customers and build a more meaningful relationship? How could you expand on the products or services you are offering to not only retain but actually grow your accounts? Can you confidently say you’re maximising the value of your existing database?
Relationship building at the enterprise level
Last week we published a case study that explained how we helped global IT distributor Tech Data achieve just this, building thousands of customer relationships for its resellers around the world.
I won’t reprint the whole case study (you can read it here), but achieving this scale of personalised communication is no walk in the (water) park. Timely, personalised communication with customers on an international scale requires a combination of digital strategy and complex automation. HubSpot’s workflow automation software meets these requirements, enabling those global enterprises willing to implement it to engage in more meaningful interactions—with every one of their customers.
I would highly recommend and trust BabelQuest for any complex marketing automation. They understand our complexities and they have helped us build a 12-month campaign that we are rolling out across Europe to drive software subscription renewals for our partners. —Marketing development manager Jeni Taylor, Tech Data
At the enterprise level, the benefits of an automated workflow strategy are clearly visible. Personalised content tailored to each recipient and delivered at the optimum time suddenly represents a phenomenal opportunity for you to reduce churn and improve the customer experience at scale, with full visibility over marketing ROI, courtesy of HubSpot’s detailed analytics software.
Of course, there’s much more to think about. How will you position yourself in your communications? What will the personalised content look like? Does your organisation have the technical marketing expertise required to set up and monitor complex workflow automation? But as Micah points out, ‘At its root, creating loyal customers is about taking the time to learn about your customers individually and then using systems to turn that knowledge into enduring business relationships.’
‘Your job isn't to close deals, it's to open relationships’, writes Kipp. ‘And those customer relationships are ultimately what power your business.’
As the digital scene gets busier, and more and more consumers start tuning out your marketing assets, what will you do to keep your customer relationships afloat?
Thomas spearheads the content activities at BabelQuest—an agency and consultancy for sales, marketing, and services. Ranked in the top 10 HubSpot Diamond partners globally, we help organisations to drive scalable, predictable growth, supporting their people and processes with strategy, activity and technology. Find out more.
