RTCRM

I often hear that some folks at our agency don’t fully understand what we do. Or better put, they aren’t able to clearly articulate what “relationship marketing” is, or how our practice is unique. So I thought it might be good to talk about what we do and how best to do it.I know in some recent training seminar the words “unique selling proposition” (USP) came up, which triggered the feedback that brought me to write this musing. Some of you had difficulty expressing RTCRM’s USP.

What we do is not unique. We are not the only agency, or company, or consultancy that practices or preaches relationship marketing. We have no corner on the term. But while what we do may not be unique, the way we do it is. Our people, our experience and our ability to solve real-world business problems make us unique.

So let’s start by talking about what we strive to do for our clients.

Relationship marketing is the practice of creating a dialogue—an intelligent, impactful conversation—between a brand and an individual.

That’s easy enough. But why have a conversation? Because dialogue lets us capture data to create relevant messages and content. The individual consumer is far more likely to engage when what we communicate is informed and has personal context. Responsive individuals who engage tend to do the things we want them to do. Bluntly put, it makes our clients more money. And it helps them make that money more efficiently.

There’s an immense amount of research, studies and white papers that cover this territory. If you scour the marketing literature (and I hope you do), you’ll find much written on the marketing “funnel” and how to create and measure brand engagement. Check out this excellent McKinsey video. (I have the full article if you’re interested).

Some of the best frameworks have been developed by Wunderman and Y&R. But the entire marketing world has been in agreement on one key fact for a long time:

Relevance drives results.

The reasons we want our clients to invest in creating conversations are many, but I’ll list just two basic ones:

1. By listening, we learn individual needs and preferences. This information in and of itself is highly valuable. It lets our clients communicate the right message at the right time via the right channel to make a sale or provide beneficial information. We listen by collecting data.
2. Personally relevant messages are more likely to be read and acted upon. It’s that simple. Think Amazon, which makes relevant book and product suggestions, or iTunes Genius, which builds music playlists based on your existing likes. What mail or email do you read vs. what you toss/delete? Relevance increases response, i.e. desired behavior, by 200% to 1,000%.

We listen in two ways: by asking questions and by observing behavior. So we survey individuals and ask them how we can help them get what they are looking for. We also observe what they do: what Web content they view, what they have bought from others, when and where they engage with our clients.

Of course, if we don’t provide value for the individual, we’ll lose him or her. Conversation over. And if we don’t create value for the marketer, it won’t pay out. Engagement over. We must please both parties.

Our clients measure and add value on their side of the ledger, but for the most part, they aren’t very good at creating value for the individual. They seek transactions—sales. But to create a considered purchase, they must engage in a dialogue and provide the right information to move the individual to a positive decision about their brand. Making a transaction happen is part of what we do—it’s good old-fashioned direct marketing. But trying to force a transaction on an unengaged individual is becoming less and less effective. It’s what the banks did with credit cards. That model is in trouble in today’s Google-ized, Facebooked world and the social Web, where people have multiple conversations with their peers about companies and products all the time.

In a considered purchase, the currency for the individual is information, or what is loosely called “content.” We provide information that helps individuals buy the right computer for a small business, design the right car, learn how to diagnose or treat a condition, understand long-term care insurance… or any one of the hundreds of things we’ve been tasked to do for our clients. Note that our actions are driven first and foremost by the individual—not the client. That’s why they outsource to us—we are here to interpret and meet the needs of the individual consumer. By doing so, we address the needs (i.e., increased sales) of the client.

The value for the marketer is ultimately financial, even for nonprofits like AARP. We continually measure and refine how this data-driven dialogue affects our clients’ financial performance (what is delivered to whom; where and when it is delivered). It’s both a micro and a macro exercise. We measure individual tactics. We monitor the total results of the tactics to measure campaigns. We understand how the tactics interact.

Let’s go back for a moment to creating a relevant conversation. You could argue that a good shoe salesman at Nordstrom does the same thing. And you’d be correct. But that shoe salesman is expensive and isn’t very scalable—because he or she must engage in one conversation at a time. We harness data to have conversations with thousands—or millions—of individuals. Data and technology are the enablers of these intelligent conversations.

When we pick a mailing list or make a media selection, we use data variables to make sure we are contacting those people most interested in what we have to say. When we get someone to engage with our client—on the phone, on the Web, in the mail, at retail locations—we seek to capture those data that let us keep the conversation going in the most meaningful way for both parties.

Married with consumer insights, data lets our creative staff know who they are talking to and why. It lets our media professionals know the best places to invest marketing dollars. Data is both the driver of, and the result of, the conversation.

Relationship marketing is a simple concept, with much complexity in the execution. If a client asks for one piece of advice, as a relationship marketer you tell them, “Grow ears.” This involves building marketing systems and programs that let you listen as often as you speak to individuals. Then capture the conversation in data and harness it to give personal meaning to what you say and do next. Measure what happens, make hypotheses and refine.

If it were easy, the clients would do it themselves. But once they see the hidden complexity behind the simple formulation “grow ears,” they hire experts like us to help them get it right. That is our unique selling proposition.