We’ve all heard that relationships take work and take time.
The same is true in business, but this can be an issue for some entrepreneurs who want to make the sale as quickly as possible.
Relationships don’t work like that.
Your audience needs to be wined and dined a little bit. Who could blame them?
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Converting leads into sales is what you do, but it’s not all you do.
If quick conversion becomes your goal, your focus will only be on earning a one-time transaction rather than earning a customer for life.
Relationship marketing is a better solution, and I’m going to break down why.
What is relationship marketing?
Relationship marketing is a great long-term strategy for growing your customer base because you are putting energy toward building a strong, personal connection versus a one-time sale.
We’ve all heard that people want to learn and buy from people they know, like, and trust. This is nothing new, but the way you build this know-like-trust factor often comes down to how well you are nurturing a relationship with your leads and customers.
Why focus on relationship marketing if you won’t necessarily see the full benefits right away? One reason is to play the long game. Any entrepreneur will tell you that true business success comes down to sustainability.
In the race of the tortoise and the hare, you totally want to be the tortoise. Relationships take time to build, but they will last much longer than a quick sale and possibly lead to more revenue in the future.
Did you know it can cost five times more to acquire a new customer as it does to retain a customer you already have? Your focus should be on customer retention rather than acquisition, even though 44% of businesses have a greater focus on acquisition. (Psst…this can work in your favor when you go up against competitors!)
When you focus on retention marketing, you allow yourself the time to build stronger relationships with your audience so they turn into lifetime customers. This is the holy grail of marketing since they have the highest level of brand advocacy. You can learn how to calculate your own lifetime customer value here.
What you need to create a strong relationship marketing strategy
You’re sold on the importance of relationship marketing, but where do you begin? There are a few key factors that go into a successful relationship marketing strategy, but let’s start with the basics.
Approachable and fast customer service
Whether you have a dedicated customer service team or you wear the customer service hat in your online business, creating a strategy for how you will interact with your customers and solve their problems is one of the most important steps in relationship marketing.
After someone buys a product or service, they want to know that their questions can be answered if they have a problem or issue.
Without an emphasis on stellar customer service, your customer may feel like a number or a sale than a human, which can seriously hurt your relationship when it comes to future marketing efforts.
To have great customer service, you must:
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cut the jargon and speak the same language your customers do (this is huge!)
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advocate for the customer in all situations
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use (or create) tools that help you seamlessly communicate with your customers
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try to keep response times low so you can answer questions promptly
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always underpromise and overdeliver
Customer service is all about prioritizing people and their needs. When you do this, you’ll be able to win their trust and repeated business.
Personalized email marketing strategy
Before someone becomes a customer, they may want to join your email list to learn more about you and what you offer. Email marketing is a great way to do both.
Since it acts as a direct line of communication to your audience, email marketing often performs better than social media marketing and even paid advertising.
Did you know your email subscribers can drive as much as 15 times more business than your social media followers?
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So yeah, it’s worth it to start building an email list.
When you build an email list, think about:
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what topics you want to talk about through your emails
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how often you want to create email content for your audience
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introducing yourself with a welcome email sequence
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how you want to tackle email segmentation for personalizing your email content
As you create your email marketing strategy, you’ll probably be thinking about how you can persuade people to join your email list. A vague “join now for updates” call-to-action doesn’t really work anymore.
Instead, you’ll want to use lead magnets that act as an incentive when a person gives you their email address. People are more likely to sign up for your email list when they know they’ll receive something valuable in return.
Besides, everyone likes free stuff!
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Helpful data about your customers and leads
Ever tried playing the guessing game?
It can be pretty brutal to guess what someone is thinking, feeling, or doing. We want everything to be black and white, but there always seems to be a little bit of gray area.
When you start to make decisions on how you want to market your business and sell your offerings, collecting data will give you more clarity so you don’t need to guess.
Nothing can guarantee a 100% success rate, but using data to inform your marketing decisions is just smart. Why not use actual answers from your ideal audience to influence your sales strategy?
One of the easiest (and most enjoyable!) ways to collect this kind of data is by creating your own personality quiz.
By building an online quiz, you are able to collect answers to thoughtful questions from real people in your audience. You no longer have to guess what’s going on inside their heads.
Quizzes help with relationship marketing because quizzes don’t feel salesy. They put an emphasis on helping your audience member understand who they are or how they think, not on what you want them to buy. This is done when your quiz provides a personality result that feels like a fit.
This quiz result helps your audience feel seen, heard, and known when they resonate with your personality description. They’ll feel as though you can read them like a book!
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Improve your relationship marketing with personality quizzes
Think of personality quizzes as a way to make a memorable personal introduction.
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You thought I meant an introduction between you and your ideal customer leads, right?
Not quite. Before you introduce yourself to new leads, you’ll first introduce your leads to themselves.
Okay, that might sound crazy, but hear me out.
Many of us walk through life not knowing why we make the decisions we do. We put our decision-making process on autopilot and then wonder what we can do to better understand our own thought process.
We might understand a little bit about what makes us tick, but deep down, we all want to know what makes us special, the things that set us apart from the pack.
With quizzes, you can play a unique role in your customer’s self-discovery process, creating a stronger relationship from the very start.
Ready to get started? Create your personality quiz now!
Let’s begin the quiz process by understanding exactly who your ideal client or customer is.
Define your ideal customer
Most entrepreneurs will create ideal audience avatars, conduct audience research, or survey their audience to understand who their ideal customer is. (Our poll tool can make the survey process easy!)
Once you have a better understanding of who you are targeting, consider what they care about in relation to your niche.
Ask yourself:
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What do they want to learn more about?
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What topics are they struggling to understand?
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What solutions are they looking for?
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What traits or quirks make up who they are?
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How do they think, or how are they naturally wired?
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Why do they think they way they do?
Understanding the psychology behind your customer’s decision-making process can help you unlock opportunities to speak directly to their needs. It’s like you know the ins and outs of a secret language they understand on a deep level.
Once you have an idea of who your customer is, you want to assess what problem they need help with.
Assess their struggles and create solutions
Everyone is looking for an answer to their problem. It doesn’t matter if they are reading an article, seeking advice from a friend, or following a tutorial.
The promise of alleviating a problem or struggle is a strong motivator in life and business.
You can use your knowledge of a customer’s struggle to create a personality quiz that offers a solution. Naturally, you’ll want to choose a quiz topic that relates to what you teach and sell.
Here are a few examples to get your creative juices flowing:
EXAMPLE 1
Problem: An ideal customer wants to save more money for experiences (like travel, entertainment, etc.) but can’t seem to stick to a budget.
Solution: You want to help your ideal customer understand what their spending habits are and what their money mindset looks like before you teach them about personalized budgeting techniques.
Quiz: How Financially Literate Are You?
EXAMPLE 2
Problem: An ideal customer is planning her wedding but doesn’t know what wedding tasks should be prioritized first or what wedding vendors she should hire.
Solution: You want to help your ideal customer create a wedding preparation checklist that gives her a sense of confidence and ease in the planning process.
Quiz: What Kind of Bride Are You?
If you want to see more quiz template examples, click here. We have hundreds to choose from. You can start with a quiz template that relates to your industry that you can customize to your brand.
Follow our step-by-step personality quiz process
When you have an idea of who you are trying to reach and what kind of solution you want to offer to their problem, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty of actually building your quiz.
Our quick seven-step process to creating your own personality quiz:
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Create a lead generation funnel that guides quiz takers through your sales funnel.
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Choose a quiz topic that relates to what you are selling and teaching.
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Write personality quiz results that resonate with your ideal audience.
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Write engaging quiz questions that can be connected to each personality quiz result through each potential answer.
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Implement your quiz into the Interact quiz building platform. (Get started now!)
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Create a follow-up email sequence so quiz takers can become email subscribers.
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Add your quiz to your website, social media, and other online platforms.
Most of our Interact users say they can get up and running with all seven of these steps in about 3-5 hours on average. After your quiz is live, you can sit back, relax, and know it will run on autopilot. You’ll never have to touch it again!
Interested to hear what kind of business growth results are possible with quizzes? I have a few success stories I think you’ll love.
Kaye Putnam created a brand archetype quiz that over 100,000 people have taken. Yes, you read that right. Paired with her automated email sequence, her quiz has helped her generate over six-figures in profit.
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In addition, Amber Lilyestrom generated 2,500 leads with her quiz. That’s an amazing number, but Leisa Peterson gained over 20,000 leads from her quiz.
We can’t wait to see what kind of buzz your quiz generates.