Partner Article

5 tips for keeping clients satisfied

Marketing is all about relationships, and a marketer’s most important relationship is the one they hold with their clients. Satisfied clients means retained business, and smart marketers know that makes good business sense. In fact, according to Econsultancy’s Cross-Channel Marketing Report, 82% of companies are in agreement that retention is cheaper than acquisition. But keeping clients can sometimes be challenging.

Here are our tips on keeping your clients on side long term:

Do your research

Happy clients are ones which have a marketing team with a confident knowledge of their industry. Marketers need to know who their clients’ customers are, what matters to them and what they need so they can focus on messaging which really hits home. A strong research team is crucial, and marketers need to make sure they have this function in place so they can provide thorough and timely analysis of their clients’ key audiences.

Tell a good story

Today’s consumers are targeted with marketing from many angles, whether that’s an e-mail to their smartphone, a post on Twitter or a sponsored article in their favourite magazine, so marketers need compelling messages to cut through the noise. We’re programmed to prefer stories to hard sells, so engaging content is paramount. Marketers who successfully engage their clients’ customers put themselves in the best position to maintain a strong, and retained relationship.

Be driven by data

Modern marketers have no excuse not to use data. Consumers are leaving bigger data trails than they ever have done before, and marketers should use this to better understand their clients’ customers, markets and campaigns. Data drives results and marketing teams need to work hard with data to maximise client campaigns by better targeting key audiences.

Keep reaching

Any business which has invested in marketing wants their industry to sit up and take notice of them. But how can this be achieved? Put simply, it’s reach. But this reach has to be relevant. To deliver on their clients’ needs, marketers need to be on top of all channels – old and new. Social media is critical, but that doesn’t mean that print magazines and journals should be excluded. Marketers have to know who reads what to deliver the right message, to the right people, through the right medium.

Focus on measurability

Today more than ever, businesses need to be able to quantify everything. All budgets demand a measurable response and marketers need to ensure they consistently provide that. A client that attribute business value to its marketing initiatives is one which will likely be satisfied, and marketers should strive to deliver tangible results for each and every client they work with.

Client satisfaction is an essential part of the marketing business. The happier a client is, the more likely they are to continue invest in the marketing team delivering those results. Marketers should strive to deliver the best service they can and in turn foster successful and profitable relationships.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by James Foulkes .