For us, Customer Relationship Marketing means that you’re building a deep and meaningful relationship with a prospect or client that is going to move the needle for you and your business.
You’re going to get to know your VIP on a personal level so that way when you launch a new product or service, you have a ready stream of clients waiting to pay you 7 figure annual contracts.
This is in stark contrast to what customer relationship marketing means to most companies.
Most companies think customer relationship marketing is about loyalty programs, data-backed reward programs, and these other types of transactional services.
This feels a lot like the relationship you’d have with your airline or your credit card company. How strong is your relationship with Visa or American Airlines?
Do you really feel like they know you much less care about you?
Who Benefits Most from Customer Relationship Marketing
Our typical client who benefits most from our customer relationship marketing program are businesses with enterprise clientele.
So if you’re a saas company with client’s who pay you $50 or $100 per month, you’re probably not going to be able to use our brand of relationship marketing.
But if you’re an ecommerce company looking to sell into large retail chain, or if you’re an agency looking to win huge contracts, or an enterprise software company looking to sell to companies with thousands of seats, then Customer Relationship Marketing is perfect for you.
3 Benefits of Customer Relationship Marketing
There are three primary benefits to creating a meaningful relationship with your customers.
Sales Are Easier
Let’s face it, it’s much easier to sell to someone who knows, likes, and trusts you than it is to sell to a complete stranger.
Imagine for a second two hypothetical scenarios on the eve of a big new product launch.
In the first scenario, you’ve been building a relationship with a prospect over the course of a couple of months.
You’ve sent them a gift to get on their radar (more on gifting in a second). You’ve had a couple of meetings with them to see what their company does. You’ve chatted with them at social events.
In the second scenario, you’ve not done any of this.
Which scenario do you think you’ll have an easier time making sales?
Scenario 1, right?
Because you have a true relationship with the client!
Lifetime Value
The stronger the relationship you have with your customer, the longer they’re going to be with your company, and the more money they’re going to spend with you.
This is where the power of your relationship marketing efforts are going to pay off. No, it’s not scalable at all. And you may pay several thousand dollars to get to this point.
But those few thousand dollars are going to result in millions of dollars in business.
Most marketing efforts try to make $3 for every $1 they spend. That’s considered successful
Our clients make Hundreds of Dollars for every $1 they spend.
Customer Advocates
Last but not least, when you have strong relationships with your clients and prospects AND you do great work, you’ll have advocates for your business.
Think about it, your VIP’s are people who are the heads of their organization. They have a large network of individuals who are also the heads of their organization whom they can refer you to.
And because you have a close relationship with them, they’re going to refer you as their friend, not “just” another vendor they work with.
That will pull a lot more weight.
How to Build a Customer Relationship Marketing Campaign through Gifting
Now let’s talk about how to use gifting to grow a customer relationship marketing program through two case studies.
Case Study #1: A top 100 relationship campaign
We recently finalized a ‘TOP 100 GIFTING CAMPAIGN’ for a rapidly-becoming known tech company.
The owner’s ROI goal was lead flow (first) and acquisition (second). The lucky 100 individuals were:
- 30 circles of influence (the people who KNOW people)
- 40 current clients (who could be referral partners)
- 20 prospects (that could pay for the investment 5x over)
- And 10 referral sources who has provided numerous leads in the past.
100 recipients, 3 gifts each, spread out every 4 months.
- Total gift investment for the year – $49,850
- This individual was considering 2 gifts each, which would have cost – ~$34,600.
- Another option would be to spend twice that (~70K) if they wanted to go bigger on gifts.
So as you can see? There’s wiggle room based on goals and budget spend.
- We’ve done campaigns that cost $5K and campaigns that cost $250K.
- Most of our clients hire us to be their agency partner (more on that below).
And when they do, we hear things like this:
“We’ve shifted our entire marketing budget to gifting and looking after customers. Revenue has catapulted as a result. Anybody who has had the chance to read the book can consider themselves lucky and fortunate. Fantastic work.”
-Jonathan Goodman, founder of The PTDC
Case Study #2: Multi-tiered relationship campaigns
Business leaders preach the 80/20 rule. And yet many gifting budgets are ‘same size pie slice for everybody.’ Because it’s easier. It requires less effort. It can be delegated.
But relationships are NOT created equal. Value potential is NOT equal. Customer ceilings exist at wildly different heights. Why wouldn’t your relationship efforts reflect these facts?
Relationship potential is identified by four variables:
- Possibilities – are we priming the relationship for a specific purpose? (upsells, promotion, etc)
- Past actions – have previous behaviors made this relationship stand out? (LTV, referrals, etc)
- Permanency – how vital is this relationship for the business in the next 3-5 years? 5-10? 10+?
- Perception – what could happen if we had 110% of this individual’s loyalty?
When you analyze a list of, say, 40 potential recipients against those four yardsticks? Winners, BIG winners, and ‘maybe next times’ emerge.
One client that has embraced a multi-tiered gifting strategy breaks it up like this. They have identified five different tiers of intentional relationships:
- “Chrome” is a two-year gifting strategy. Year one is an $800 relationship investment.
- “Silver” is a one-year gifting strategy, with a $400 relationship investment.
- “Bronze” is a lower-level tier. Less planning. Less spend. Likely triggered by some type of recipient action (follow-up to a zoom call, for instance).
- And then two other one-off gifting strategies for large clients. Surprise and delight, shock and awe, type stuff. These clients will then be integrated into “chrome.”
Recipients in the bronze tier are not thinking “oh man, I’m only a bronze.”
And even if they WERE aware of such things? Like an employee campaign – where Pam from accounting is bragging to Jared in marketing, unaware she received a superior gift? Wouldn’t bother me one bit.
In fact, inequality actually works in your favor here. You can probably guess why.
So that’s what a multi-tiered campaign looks like: different spends, different timespans, and different ways to assess value.
“Our referrals went up 105%. We’ve run this event for the past 5 years and haven’t changed a single thing, except this year we sent your gifts to every single [attendee], and followed your program to include the spouse as well. I would have been elated with a 10% increase in referrals, let alone 10 times that.”
-John Bowen, founder CEG Worldwide
Work with the #1 Customer Relationship Marketing Agency in the World.
GIFTOLOGY can build and execute a gifting program that will power your customer relationship marketing program.
Our goal is that for every $1 you spend with us, you will see hundreds of dollars in ROI.
This isn’t about loyalty programs or automation.
You’re going to build real relationships with real people who WILL move the needle for your business.
Should we be working together?
Apply. And let’s find out.
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