Customer relationships

The key to profit

When referring to customer relationships, you need to be thinking of all potential customers not just existing ones.

As we discussed in the "Four Steps", you should be looking to build a relationship with your target market way before you try and sell to them.

The vast majority of people will not buy on their first point of contact with a seller. Of course there are exceptions, but in general you will have a much better chance of making a sale if you build a relationship with your target market.

Human nature is such that most of us only really trust a friend or a person in authority. And most of us would prefer to buy from someone we trust. Agreed?

So your job, if you want to sell more, is to become a trusted ally – someone who understands the needs and desires of the target market, and provides value to them; and an authoritative person – someone who is an expert in their field and knows what they are talking about.

They key is communication.

Whether it is direct, like a mailshot or email, or more indirect such as an article in a newspaper or an advertisement. Anyway that best gets your message across to those people who you want to trust you enough to buy from you.

If you really want to maximise your potential for success and rise above the mass of average businesses, you need to test and implement multiple marketing activities.

There are many strategies that you can use to communicate with your target market, including:

• Advertising
• Public Relations
• Direct Mail
• Internet Marketing
• Social media