In the season of romance, it's easy to think that "love" is all heart-shaped chocolate boxes and showy floral arrangements. But don't forget that in business, there's another kind of love—the kind that boosts revenue and helps you build year-on-year growth long after the overpriced roses have wilted.
We're talking about customer loyalty. You might be surprised at the impressive rewards you’ll reap by shifting your focus to wooing your existing customers (rather than constantly seeking new customers). If you put the work into boosting your customer retention numbers, you'll be able to build more than just construction projects with your clients—you'll build long-lasting and profitable partnerships.
Let's take a look at customer relationship marketing and how it can help you forge a closer connection with your client. Then, we'll share the go-to strategies that help cement any relationship—business or otherwise. 😘
What's so special about your customer relationships?
Loyal customers are profitable customers. Studies show that increasing customer retention rates by 5% increased company profitability by 25-95%.
It costs money to attract new customers, but once you've won their business, they become far more profitable to your company every time they re-engage for a new project.
Think about it: your existing customers have already taken the plunge with your company. They believe in your abilities, and they've said "yes!" to a project commitment with you. You don't need to spend time and money convincing them that you're the firm for the job—they already know your firm's value. But you do need to keep things sweet if you want them to stick around.
How does customer relationship marketing build strong customer relationships?
If you stop calling that special someone in your life, it won’t bode well for a long-term relationship. The same goes for your clients. Like any relationship, your current customers need connection and communication to keep that relationship alive and thriving.
Customer relationship marketing (sometimes called "customer relationship management") is a strategy that encourages customer loyalty and promotes long-term engagement. With customer relationship marketing (CRM), you can boost your clients' customer lifetime value (CLV), ensuring that every client feels like their business is important to you.
Relationship-focused marketing efforts help you stay top-of-mind with your clients, making you the de facto choice when their next project arises. They'll turn to you because you've stayed in touch, offered guidance and ideas, and listened when they gave you feedback. They'll have stopped thinking of you as "just another firm" and started considering you a partner in growing their business.
5 customer relationship marketing strategies that keep the spark alive
If you want to get serious about building customer relationships, we recommend starting with these 5 tactics. These tips will help you build strong relationships with clients, and they don't require an army of customer service representatives to achieve.
1. Take a pulse
It might not sound romantic, but like most marketing strategies, the best place to start your customer relationship management is to dig into the data.
Your customer data provides insights on which customers are your most profitable and which ones could be, with the right maneuvering. Look at:
- Marketing key performance indicators like email open rates, email click-through rates, and social media engagement
- Financial metrics like project profitability, customer lifetime value, and customer satisfaction rates.
These metrics will give you baseline indicators of how customers feel about your services and which customers are most likely to re-engage with your firm. You'll also see which customers are highly profitable, and you can increase your communication with them strategically to encourage re-engagement from the clients that give you the highest ROI.
2. Never stop communicating
Even when the project's over, you should never go dark on a client.
If you want your clients to keep thinking of your firm when new projects come up, they need to hear from you! Make client communication a priority by implementing tactics like:
- Regular blog updates
- Periodic email newsletters
- Social posts, especially ones that feature a past client
- Check-ins with project managers
- In-person client appreciation gestures, like stopping by the office with donuts or organizing a client-love event
You don't want to clutter up a client's inbox, but consistent communication that offers value—like helpful blogs or links to important industry news—ensures your firm is much more than a fling. When you keep communicating with your client, you become a constant in their work lives and a go-to resource when they need your services.
3. Make it personal
If you're sending one-size-fits-all emails, you're unlikely to get enthusiastic responses.
Segment customers based on their project type, and then again by the length of time since they last collaborated with you. Then, compose personalized emails that speak to those clients and address them like an experienced colleague.
For example, let's say a portion of your clients specialize in building large retail outlets, and you haven't engaged with these clients in over 6 months. A re-engagement email might start like this:
"Hi (PROJECT MANAGER NAME),
I wanted to check in on your retail projects in case you've hit any snags in the last few months. We've been working on streamlining our retail project builds, and I'd love to tell you a bit more about how we're innovating. Do you have time for a call or coffee?"
Little touch points of personalization, like mentioning retail projects or alluding to the length of time since you've last engaged, makes your emails feel more personal. You can segment your lists and send emails via CRM software that takes the heavy lifting out of personalized service.
4. Offer help instead of self-promotion
Clients are savvy, and if they sense your outreach efforts are self-serving, they'll be less than impressed.
Overly self-promotional content is a turn-off, so make sure that your content calendar is packed with blogs, social posts, and newsletters that will offer value to your clients.
You can still talk about yourself every now and then—after all, you want them to see your firm as an innovator in the industry! But take a tip from the dating scene and keep the self-promotion to a minimum.
5. Ask for feedback
In a good relationship, you can't be the only one talking. Healthy relationships are built on two-way communication, so ask for honest feedback and listen to your clients' needs.
Remember that "listening" might involve a response—or even a change—from your firm. If you really care about creating a customer experience that's second-to-none, you'll be willing to make improvements that keep your customers happy and give you a competitive advantage.
Share the love of customer relationship marketing with help from BRIX’s best
Customer satisfaction isn't just a box that you check—it's a commitment to building lasting and strong relationships with your clients.
If you're looking for ways to build strong customer relationships and increase customer lifetime value, BRIXbranding can help! Talk to the team to get started.