Graham Bailey - Marketing Blog

With so many businesses still in survival mode and the U.K. and European governments taking the axe to puiblic spending what should the marketer do in such difficult times. One of the wisest approaches is to get close and stay close to your best customers and listen to what they are telling you about their business and its prospects. It seems like Marketing lesson 1 but how often do we actually put it into practice. Some useful tips are:-

1. Check your feedback loops from customers.

2 Set up formal and informal talk sessions to enable you to listen to them.

3. Brief your whole organisation on the need to feedback all customer comments and criticisms.

4. Be proactive in getting out there amongst the customers - you’ll learn loads and they will see you responding to their needs.

5. Don’t cut things that will impact on your customers perception of your treatment of them.

You can do no worse than try some of these as they have been known to work and it will also make you feel more positive about your business.

As more and more marketing effort is concentrated on CRM strategies and relationship marketing, I raise the question ‘How good is the average marketeer at developing relationships?’ This goes beyond hosting discussion forums and sending e-newsletters to the core of relationship nurturing and building. Most of us are not giving enough time and attention in our marketing planning to this fundamental skill. I believe we should all work harder at this and probably get some help to do it well.

Keep building the relationships!