In a world of Face-Snaps, Twitter-Books and Insta-Whatever’s, digital marketing has taken center stage in how businesses are communicating with, and reaching out to, their potential and established client base.
Though digital plays an undeniably important role in how a business communicates with the world, it’s imperative that owners, and employees, never lose sight of the effectiveness of a human-to-human, handshake-to-handshake, relationship-selling strategy.
A relationship selling strategy, or face-to-face marketing strategy, means exactly what its name implies; get off your fanny and interact with your customers in person!
There is no greater way of showing your clients just how much you care, than meeting with them at their office, taking them out for coffee or lunch, and discussing what their business goals and needs are.
Here are some reasons why you should get out from behind your desk right now, and start meeting with your customers:
- You will build trust and establish a positive brand image. An email or phone call can only do so much, when establishing rapport. Meeting with your prospective and current customers gives them a face for your business. They know who you are, how you are representing your business, and that you are willing to make the effort to come to them.
- You will increase sales. A happy customer is a loyal customer, and when they find a need for an additional product or service that you provide, they are more likely to come to you, as their trusted vendor, over a vendor.
- You will turn customers into advocates. There is no greater power than word-of-mouth referrals, and all the online reviews in the world will not change that. If you have managed to turn your customers into advocates for your business, you have not only gained their loyalty, but you’ve also added the most powerful salesperson to your roster.
In the recent Harvard Business Review article “A Face-to-Face Request is 34 Times More Successful than an Email,” by Vanessa K. Bohns, two studies were conducted to determine the effectiveness of an email over a face-to-face request. Not surprisingly, they determined that face-to-face requests are up to 34 times more effective than those received via email.
I’m not telling you that the only way to be successful is to solely pursue person-to-person contacts, because if you want to have your voice heard these days, you need a digital plan. What I am saying, is that in a world that’s so well-connected as ours, we sometimes lose sight of the importance of a face-to-face relationships and interactions with our clients.
