Relationship marketing , i.e. marketing of relations with customers, represents a long-term strategy with a focus on building close relationships between the company and customers. Research has shown numerous benefits of investing in this type of strategy. Not only is it more profitable to market new products and services to existing customers (even 6-7 times cheaper), but customers with whom a quality relationship is built for a longer period of time are less likely to leave the company.
Although research indicates that as many as 85% of surveyed companies really see value in building relationships with customers and state that these relationships are important to their business, only 24% of them implemented this strategy in 2020, while 19% of surveyed companies state that they will maintain this strategy in 2021.
While discounts, loyalty programs and personalized service can help build relationships with customers, they are only the beginning. For a relationship that is much more complex and therefore of higher quality, you need to connect with your customers, produce friendly and other pleasant feelings in them that no price, marketing campaign or discount can compete with.