Don’t fall into this common marketing trap

Posted by Anya Sleezer << back to blog

Play the long game, not the short game.
It’s a numbers game. The more leads you gather, the more prospects you find. The more prospects channeled into your marketing funnel, the more sales you make. The more sales you make, the more money you make. It’s common sense. It’s also dead wrong.

As a marketing professional, playing the numbers game is a losing endeavor when it comes to increasing your company’s sales and longevity. Customers and clients are more sophisticated than ever and have access to virtually unlimited amounts of information. If you turn sales and marketing into a numbers game, you will be frustrated when customers leave to chase special offers, discounts, and cheaper prices.

A good question to ask yourself is: Are you building relationships or seeking transactions?
The most successful marketing isn’t about getting more sales. It’s about attracting the right customers. Marketing that increases profits over the long-term focuses on building relationships.

That doesn’t mean you need to throw away all of your data and metrics. But it does mean you have to stop patting yourself on the back just because you captured 1,000 new email addresses. Transactional marketing focuses only on the quantity of people at different stages in the funnel.

Relationship marketing focuses on the quality and quantity of prospects and customers. When you’re building relationships, you have to believe one customer who is a perfect fit for your offering is worth much more than 100 prospects who are only a marginal fit. At its most radical, relationship marketing is about one-on-one interactions.

It may seem less efficient, but those customers will be loyal. They will be worth much more to the company over their lifetime than transactional customers.

Fact: Just 11 percent of Americans trust advertisers, putting us with congressmen and car dealers.

Tip: Speak from the heart, talk with people instead of at them and they’ll believe what you say and value you over the competition.

Increase Loyalty
While many claim brand and customer loyalty are gone forever, the truth is customer loyalty is alive and is a powerful profit booster.

What has changed is that loyalty cannot be bought with discounts and deals. It’s impossible in this global marketplace to compete profitably on price over the long term. Someone will always be able to offer something similar to you for less.

If you want to avoid the trap of needing more and more leads just to stay afloat, you need to have a relationship with your customers. The better you serve their needs, the more loyal they will be to you. The more loyal your customers are, the more profitable they will be over their lifetime, and according to the Harvard Business Journal, the less you will need to spend marketing to them.

How do you better serve your customers? You get to know their wants and needs. You overdeliver, offer unsolicited upgrades, solve problems quickly, and show gratitude for their business.

You increase loyalty and develop relationships with your customers the same way you build relationships with your friends. You show up and engage with them regularly.
Successful marketing is less a numbers game and more of a relationship game. If you want to stand out in the marketplace, focus your efforts on attracting and keeping ideal customers and let your competitors fight it out over the bargain seekers who are only interested in a transaction.

Fact: When the Harvard Business Review studied people for their listening ability, they found only 5 percent were successful at it, even though nearly everyone in the study described themselves as “good listeners.” Listening to your customer is much more than staying silent while they speak. Tip: Become a great listener and really understand your customers’ needs by asking good questions to prompt discovery and insight. A good listener also makes people feel supported and valued. Customers who feel that way will stay with you for the long haul.

Anya Sleezer

Anya Sleezer is the owner of Levo, a full–service marketing agency, focused on helping companies from all industries who are concerned with their marketing results, traffic, branding, advertising, or websites.

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