If you ask marketers, what is the purpose of what they do at work? Most people will answer: build a long-term relationship with customers. However, in the past, most advertising marketing activities, especially specific product marketing activities, often caused the relationship between brands and consumers to be short-lived, rather than deep spiritual fit.
Now all this is changing, because the development of marketing has led to a complete change. Due to the competition from Internet, pay TV and other new technologies, mass media is losing control of its core customer base. In addition, the media market itself is also divided into independent market segments. The integration of technology is the decisive factor leading to change. As the boundary between Internet and TV becomes thinner and thinner, communicating with single users, attracting their attention and making them repeat customers need more targeted marketing strategies than TV advertisements that last for an average of 30 seconds.
Because of this, loyalty and relationship marketing constitute two major trends in future marketing.
For franchising, it is of special significance because of the dual marketing objectives of brand development and franchisee's local marketing. Because they enable franchisees to cultivate the loyalty of the local market while trying to shape the overall brand. According to the successful experience of some Australian franchisees, relationship marketing is the most efficient in terms of the effectiveness of marketing expenses and the cost of target marketing.
What is relationship marketing?
Any marketing strategy to establish a "one-on-one" relationship or dialogue with major customers can basically be called relationship marketing or loyalty marketing. It can be as complicated as a website with a centralized "background" database at present; It can be as simple as those direct mail promotions, frequent customer discount activities with special discounts or coupons, or those promotional products that attract repeat customers.
There are some basic tools for developing relationship marketing projects, which can be used in practical applications: frequent visitor preferential activities aimed at rewarding repeat customers; A customer club that provides shopping discounts, customer exchanges and special services; Can reply to the customer's online database system by email; Send direct mail information of directories or additional services; Customer magazine for cultivating loyal customers.
However, when marketers realize the need to integrate online and offline activities, comprehensive relationship marketing will become more and more complicated. The key here is that we need long-term results. One-off or isolated activities cannot gain long-term customer loyalty and frank dialogue. The information obtained from any single loyalty marketing activity must be stored in a centralized knowledge base to ensure long-term usefulness to the company.
Establishing valuable relationship with valuable customers is a long-term strategy, which is the most important point of relationship marketing.
How do franchisees apply relationship marketing?
Just Cuts, Subway, Autobarn and other franchisees all use relationship marketing to consolidate customer loyalty to varying degrees.
Case study 1: subway. Subway is a sandwich franchisee, headquartered in the United States. Since the establishment of 1970, it has applied relationship marketing and loyalty marketing to establish its brand market.
Jim Demis, the head of Subway's franchise development, said that relationship marketing and loyalty marketing are still the cornerstones of Subway's marketing strategy. "Our local marketing and customer loyalty activities include three aspects: customer awareness, trial and consumption. All franchisees have to contribute to the national advertising expenses, but we set up local departments in each region to decide how to spend the money, "Demis said," because usually local franchisees know how to make the best use of marketing funds in their own local markets. "
Subway relies heavily on regular customers' preferential activities to build customer loyalty wherever it is. This includes giving customers a membership card when they visit for the first time, so that they can become members of Subway Club. Every time in the future, customers' members will get extra points. After reaching a certain consumption amount, they will be rewarded with a free subway product.
According to Demis, this is very effective because it encourages customers to spend more money.
The only method that Subway has not adopted, but is increasingly adopted by other relationship marketers, is to centralize the database information obtained from the loyalty marketing activities in the local market. Demis said: "We still believe that what happens in the local market drives our business development, so our database development is based on a single store."
Case study 2: Otto bar. Devon Jarvis, the marketing service manager of Otto Bar, said that in the past few years, relationship marketing has been the center of discussion for many companies. He claimed that this was a catalyst for the rapid spread of loyalty training activities.
Chavez said that Otto Club is a very valuable marketing resource, which provides franchisees with a system through which they can identify each individual customer, thus providing incentives to attract business back.
This project is based on a reward system, which provides points that can be converted into "Otto Yuan". Otto yuan can be spent in any Otto bar. You can also invite customers to participate in the "member night". This evening is only open to members, and there is a special discount.
Otto Bar publishes three issues of the club magazine every year, which is distributed to every member with 6.5438+0.3 million. This publication provides valuable contact with customers and encourages many customers to participate in many regular activities.
Chavez said. Customers feel that they are part of the company's business, so they often patronize and promote sales.
In addition, the database also provides useful information about customers, such as the amount of consumption and the frequency of customer visits. Chavez said that compared with ordinary consumers, members of the Otto Club spend at least twice as much each time as ordinary consumers. Member-only promotions usually attract more than 10% of member responses. Members of Otto Club patronize more than three times as many times as non-members.
The cooperation with Otto Club is club magazine. Chavez said that the concept of customer magazine is constantly sublimating. "We plan to further explore the editorial content of the magazine to encourage members and customers to participate more."
Case Study 3: Citizen Video. Angela Birrelli, marketing manager of Civic Video, said that her franchise has long been committed to identifying every customer. This is a part of integrated marketing, trying to combine brand building and regional marketing to promote each other.
Bi Anqi said that in fact, the relationship between customers and Heineken Audio and Video is not as simple as it seems. "Some of the relations between the two are very complicated, and they are all based on a single person. The first relationship is very complicated for a successful promotion, which refers to the relationship between the franchisee (Xili Audio & Video Co., Ltd.) and the franchisee. Other important relationships refer to relationships with suppliers. Xili Audio & Video Group maintains very good relations with all film distributors, product suppliers and other contractors. We strive to maintain smooth communication and ensure that we catch every marketing opportunities. "
"However, it is generally believed that the most important relationship is the relationship between Xili audio-visual retail terminal and movie rental customers. In fact, only by effectively managing other relationships can we achieve the best state, "Bianchi said.
"We have established a long-term relationship with our customers. Bianchi said: "We know who they are, where they live, how often they rent CDs and what kind of CDs they rent. "This information provides us with a powerful marketing tool. We use this tool for mail promotion, loyalty marketing activities aimed at increasing passenger flow, and relationship marketing aimed at increasing the average sales of each transaction. We seize the needs of customers and formulate marketing strategies to attract CD consumers.
"Marketing is not just about communicating through advertising materials. The key point of our contact with customers lies in the sales staff. We have a highly involved training department to train employees and franchisees. Training manuals and regular materials at headquarters also contribute to this work. "
Bi Anqi pointed out that each market is very different and needs different loyalty marketing tools and different marketing methods. "This is the advantage that stores decide how to use marketing expenses. In some areas, mailing information will have a good response. When using different methods, or when the contractor's ability is different, we will also choose how to deliver.
"Other tools we use include local media advertisements. This will be very effective if local newspapers pay wide attention to it and readers are consistent with our target customers; There are also direct mail and store displays, including postcards, packaging bags, posters, shelf advertisements, and external stickers. "
Bi Anqi said that Hilary Audio has a website with product information, customer comments and cartoon columns. She summed up the success of the website as "a highly interactive website, covering all key communication methods and forming an organic part of the company's overall communication strategy."
"At present, we are conducting a sample survey on the marketing activities on the website to assess the Excellence of this media. So far, we have found that websites lag far behind traditional media in communicating with specific individual customers. "
Xili Audio & Video's customer magazine also played a very important role. The magazine publishes the latest news and other information about CD-ROM distribution. The magazine is also free in Xili video store, which is part of the omni-directional communication strategy of Xili franchise.
Generally speaking, Bi Anqi believes that what contemporary customers pursue is convenience, value and service.
Regarding localized marketing, Bi said that Xili Audio & Video gives each franchisee considerable autonomy in controlling local marketing expenses. By controlling the communication standards, the marketing of the local market is closely linked with the brand of Xili Audio & Video. These include purchasing printed matter and patterns, organizing delivery according to standards, finding the theme consistent with marketing partners, organizing promotional activities in coordination with franchisees' marketing plans, and providing consulting services at the request of individual franchisees.
Franchisees can also choose to organize their own promotional activities as a supplement to regional marketing. Franchisees provide support by providing posters, counter cards, shelf advertisements and other display materials. Entrepreneurs who have successfully operated Heineken video stores for many years have the opportunity to use Heineken's LMO system and choose their own promotion methods. This gives them control over marketing expenses and also gives them responsibility.
Bi Anqi concluded that the core of Heineken is to "find new members while maintaining existing customers". "The concept of membership, as the name implies, is an individual concept, which means a commitment between consumers and service providers. Xili Audio & Video actively communicates with customers on a regular basis, and through the flexibility of LMO, it can effectively target each target user more frequently and accurately.