We help you get
closer to your customers.

So what is relationship marketing anyway?

Despite the best efforts of Peppers & Rogers, this is a question I still get…

Simply put, relationship marketing is treating different customers differently.

Relationship marketing is a way of doing business that treats customers as individuals instead of as transactions. It’s like answering the phone on the first ring instead of making you go through “please listen carefully for our menu options have changed.”

Relationship marketing focuses on finding the right customers, engaging them, picking up clues about what’s important to them, offering them a relevant solution, and then servicing the heck out of them so they have no reason to leave.

Most traditional marketing executives define success as selling as much stuff to as many people as possible. It’s sometimes mistaken for shouting. Shouting can be effective to get everyone’s attention, but it doesn’t make for very effective communication. As Seth Godin would say, traditional marketing is best suited for average companies promoting an average product to an average consumer.

If that’s you, then you’re in luck. The world is filled with traditional marketing agencies that would be all too happy to get your business.

Relationship marketing, on the other hand, is based on the premise that long-term customer relationships are grounded in personalized communication, active listening, and authentic engagement. Kind of like real life.

There are no shortcuts to building long-term customer relationships. Listening is harder than talking. Engagement is more challenging than transactions. But as we head into an uncertain economic future in which business growth will be hard fought, those companies that have invested in building relationships instead of transactions will enjoy both loyalty and pricing power that won’t be available to the average company promoting an average product.