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Signature Aspen / Posts tagged "Print"
Signature Aspen - marketing
April 22, 2021

What’s Another Name for Personalized Print Marketing?

 

What’s another name for personalized printing? Relationship marketing! This is an approach that uses personalized printing to focus on nurturing long-term customer relationships rather than pursuing just the short-term sale.

 

How does this work?

Say you are a family-owned hardware store. Typically, a customer walks in and does his/her shopping. You’re available to answer questions and recommend products. You are hoping that your excellent service, quality merchandise, and expertise will maintain the customer’s loyalty. You might have special promotions or discounted merchandise in a bin at the front of the counter as well!

 

What might this look like if you decide to add Relationship Marketing?

It looks a little different. Each time a customer walks in, you smile and greet them, but you also ask if they would like to be on the mailing list for your newsletter “Tips for Shop & Home.” If they say yes, you collect their name, address, and additional information, such as whether they rent or own, have children and their ages, and any specific home needs such as a garden, pool, or workshop.

 

Personalized Newsletter

Once a month, you send out a personalized newsletter addressing each customer by name. You customize the content, providing weatherizing tips, suggestions for ongoing home maintenance, and relevant offers based on what you know about their property. If they garden, for example, you might offer planting tips and discounts on seeds, berry bushes, or garden mulch. If they have a pool, you might offer winterizing or seasonal opening tips.

 

Deeper Connection

To deepen the relationship, you find other opportunities to engage your customers, as well. This might include an occasional customer survey, feedback form, or contest (such as best recipe using home-grown vegetables or DIY project). This makes each customer feel valued and more deeply engages them with your store. While at the same time giving you more information to further personalize future mailings.

That’s relationship marketing—and it’s one of the opportunities that makes personalized print so powerful.

Signature Aspen - Trust
April 21, 2021

5 Tips Using Print & Digital Communications to Build Trust

Never has trust between customers and brands been more critical. As e-commerce continues to grow, both for health and convenience, a gap is growing between brands and their customers. Trust bridges the gap. Here are five ways you can use your print and digital communications to increase the level of trust you have with your customers.

  1. Be transparent

Be honest about your intentions with the communication—don’t bait and switch. Buyers are very smart. They know when you’re real with them.

  1. Show you care

The more you show that you can relate to your customers’ concerns, the more trust you gain. That’s why empathy has become such a massive trend in marketing. Look at the success of home meal kits. Of course, advertisers promote the great taste of their food, but they also focus on helping families reclaim time out of their over-scheduled days and use meal preparation as a way to spend quality time together.

  1. Deliver on your promises

Things like money-back guarantees, free trials, and “no questions asked” returns, are one way to assure buyers that your promise matches what you deliver.

  1. Emphasize reliability

Promote the results of customer service surveys showing high satisfaction rates. For example, “95% of our customers would recommend us to a friend.”Also, include customer testimonials and online reviews as part of your print and digital layouts. If other people had a good experience, this increases buyers’ confidence that they can trust you, too.

  1. Segment based on values rather than demographics

Buyers in the same demographic categories often have similar priorities and needs, but when your goal is building trust, marketing to a prospect’s values can be more effective. Another example, if you are selling children’s toys, target your message based on the shared value set of being active, involved parents rather than simply being parents of school-age children.

Especially in times of uncertainty, use your communications to convey consistency, transparency, and empathy. It’s a different approach than the traditional direct sell, but it’s highly effective. Especially during times right now.

Source: Drawn from survey results of “Global Marketing Trends” (Deloitte, 2021)