We’ve all heard “it’s who you know” that brings in business. “People buy from who they know and trust.” But if you’re stuck in an office most of the time, how can you build relationships and share with people what, exactly, you can for them?

You can still build strong connections even while mostly office-bound. Some of the ways to do this is to actively engage with customers through digital channels like soliciting feedback, running targeted campaigns offering personalized interactions, following up with customers post-sale, dedicated customer relationship management (CRM) systems built into your website, email, and social media.

Soliciting Feedback

Here are several ways to find out how customers feel about your business and services.

__ Use live chat interactions on your website and social media
__ Analyze customer calls
__ Ask for feedback on social media
__ Provide feedback forms on your website
__ Send post-purchase emails
__ Offer incentives for feedback
__ Targeted Marketing Campaigns

Here are Some Tips for Creating a Targeted Marketing Campaign:

__ Identify who needs your product and who is most likely to buy it
__ Conduct a market analysis to identify your audience’s challenges and pain points
__ Use audience segmentation by dividing your audience into subgroups based on shared characteristics
__ Create an omnichannel marketing strategy by creating a customer centric approach that delivers consistent brand messages across all marketing channels
__ Analyze your campaign data by examining your analytics to identify what worked well and what didn’t

Following up with Post Sale Interactions
You don’t want your customers to feel that once your job is done, you don’t need to have anymore conversation with them. Make sure they feel that you care about their business by staying in touch with them even if the job you did was a one off job.

CRM
A few months ago we dedicated our emails for about 2 months to adding a CRM to your websites to help build relationships with your customers or find new customers. Here’s a link to those articles to refresh your memory

How to Make Your Website Your 24 Hours a Day, 365 Days a Year Sales Team

Email Marketing
Email marketing by reaching out consistently to your mailing lists with news, updates, trends, etc. It’s a great way to tell people all about your business just as you would be doing if you were out networking. As Charles said, “it shows you are on top of your industry, keeping customers current with news. They will rely on your knowledge when making purchasing decisions.”

Social Media
Maintaining an active presence on the social media platform that is best for your business is great, but how do we do that consistently when we’re busy with the day to day details of running a business? Honestly, it’s not enough to just post; you need to interact with those who comment on your posts. This keeps you busy. But this builds relationships just as much as if you were out networking. (We have a solution for that).

With the New Year approaching, this is great time to review your marketing strategies; determine what has worked and what can be enhanced.

We’re offering a free Marketing Plan Template to help organize your efforts and maximize results. Just download and customize.Or Contact us to help you develop a strategy.