These 3 Communication Strategies Give Customers More to Love About Your Brand

In business, we tend to talk in terms of transactions and data points. However, sometimes the most effective way to appeal to your customers happens through personal interactions.

Take one-to-one conversations, for instance. When your employees engage in personalized discussions with your customers, magic can happen. They’re engaging in the art of relationship-building. They’re building a common frame of reference. And they’re helping your organization stand out.

To be honest, standing out can be tough. Most industries involve high degrees of competition between players. Frequently, the biggest differentiator boils down not to the product or the service but to the customer experience.

When you meet customers where they are with genuine care and interest, you increase your chances of becoming one of their brands of choice. As such, they’ll be more apt to stay with you because they’ll see your company as dependable and trustworthy. Plus, they’ll feel a natural emotional bond with your people and offerings. After all, you’ve shown them that they’re important by treating them like individuals, not numbers on a spreadsheet.

Strengthening Your Ties With Customers Creatively

Even if you already have a customer loyalty process embedded in your marketing strategy, you may not be getting the benefits you could. To maximize your return on investment in your buyers, consider incorporating the following steps into your customer journey pipeline.

1. Send greeting cards during the customer acquisition stage.

Customer acquisition costs have soared in recent years. Accordingly, you want to make sure the lifetime value of each customer you convert keeps going up.

Sending a greeting card with a unique message to each prospect can help you set the tone for a lasting relationship. Customers feel differently toward cards compared with other types of direct mail pieces. They may even hold onto them or display them. This allows you to get more mileage, performance, and potential out of each affordable card you mail.

2. Blend life event marketing into your other marketing tactics.

Life event marketing means making contact with customers during their most pivotal moments. Some moments, such as their birthdays or major national holidays, may have nothing to do with your company. Nevertheless, getting in touch with customers during those times solidifies your brand as an important part of their lives.

Staying in contact with customers using emotionally focused communication formats like greeting cards can make it easier to hold onto them. They’ll be less likely to give their business to your competitor because the competitor doesn’t feel as much “like family.” The result should be a reduction in churn, which saves you the time and trouble of spending five times as much to replace lost customers.

3. Arm your frontline staff and customer service teams with Hallmark’s Customer Care solution.

Hallmark Business Connections offers a special toolkit that makes it easy for customer-facing employees to engage with their buyers. The toolkit includes access to greeting cards that can be deployed through a digital portal after an interaction. For instance, a support agent who learns that a customer’s pet passed away may choose and send an appropriate sympathy card to send to the customer. The process takes just seconds but makes a huge impact on the customer.

It’s not hard to imagine how this type of response can affect a customer. Many will send or email thank-you notes. Others will give unsolicited shout-outs about and referrals to your company on social media. All because your team took the time to listen and react in an authentic, customized way.

Your customers don’t have to stay with you. They could spend their money elsewhere. But if you show them that they count — truly count — they might just become lifelong fans. Reach out to us today to find out how Hallmark Business Connections can help you build lasting relationships with customers.