How your business communicates with its customers is a large part of establishing and expanding a successful, long-term relationship with them. Modern technology has given businesses large and small access to affordable, easy-to-use tools with which to accomplish this. From email marketing to the multifaceted, rapidly evolving world of social media, marketing technology offers firms a vast array of affordable, flexible resources for reaching out to customers and enhancing the quality of their customer relationship management (CRM).
New Pathways to Connect with Customers
With the evolution of the IT industry and the universal acceptance of Internet-based technology, marketing has entered a new age. “The tools we use to communicate with customers are crucial to our success,” noted First Security Bank IT manager and Vice President Brody Walker in an article featured at the Wall Street Journal Technical Association’s forum. Cloud computing has taken off in a huge way and the marketing world has been one of many industries to benefit from the newest innovations in hosted third-party IT services.
With the widespread use of technology to gather information about consumers and their preferences, businesses have a great opportunity to target their customers by knowing what they want and whom they want to buy from. CRM is an often-used term and despite its nebulous jargon it’s essentially a company’s strategy for attracting consumers, winning them over and keeping them loyal. Today’s marketers have more tools in their arsenal than even a generation ago to take CRM to a new level, and the cloud is a big part of this. An example would be a cloud database strategy, which can allow sales, marketing and customer service to integrate their information in one centralized location and collaborate when needed. When employees are traveling, they still have access to important data regardless of where they happen to be as long as they have an Internet connection to access the cloud.
Using Digital to Gain Customers
If you believe social media is a business and customer relations frivolity, some figures from Social Media Examiner should change your mind. Many marketing professionals have turned to social to acquire customers over the long term. And it’s working. The study reports that 40 percent of the respondents attributed increased sales to digital marketing, while 69 percent said it led to increased traffic. Further analysis indicated, unsurprisingly, that the time invested in digital campaigns and increasing experience with them was proportionate to success. Those willing to invest 30 or more hours a week saw the greatest increase in sales over a three-year period. Any campaign should be preceded by a careful analysis of the digital platform that best suits a business and it's customers. For example, healthcare firms had the most success attracting customers using LinkedIn, while retail had an astounding 92 percent success rate with Facebook.
A considered approach to building customers via digital media requires careful goal planning, notably in terms of time management and the quantity of quality postings, developing good marketing content and analyzing results. Building customers through digital requires a long-term effort and the adjustment of campaigns and content in light of the results.
Whichever tools of modern marketing technology you choose to establish and build customer relationships with, you’ll need to research them thoroughly before investing time and effort into them. Then dedicate yourself to learning to use them productively. The cloud has created new CRM strategies and implementing one that meets your business needs could lead to greater customer loyalty and profitability for your company.
