Building The Affinity Bond

March 18th, 2009 · No Comments

Is psychology important in marketing? Absolutely!

Yes, the psychology of the intended customer is of paramount importance. This is the beginning discussion of this essential element in your marketing. Failure to pay the proper attention to this basic element, customer psychology, will seriously hamper your message and your sales.

While each of us may believe he or she is in a different business, we are all in the same business at the essence of business–building relationships.

As human beings we prefer to make our purchases from someone we know. The better we know that person, the more comfortable we feel heeding that person’s advice or making a purchase from him or her.

Remember the process? Know, like, and trust. First we must get to know a person. When we have known that person for a time, and perhaps in different situations, we come to like him or her. Finally, as the relationship builds, we come to trust that person. We trust him or her for advice and for products or services that reflect his or her ethics, quality, and reliability.

This is a fluid and continuous process that begins before the first contact we have with a potential customer and continues throughout the relationship we have with that person.

But it requires a well-conceived plan consistently and persistently executed to have its greatest beneficial effect to both parties in the relationship. And, yes, it is distinctly a joint relationship with benefits to each person.

Each contact with a customer or potential customer is a stroke strengthening the “Affinity Bond^SM.” The Affinity Bond^SM begins as a thin, tenuous connection, like a single strand of spider web, but can be built strand at a time with each contact until it is a hawser, which will moor the mightiest ship.

The plan a business person has must begin before the opening of business and should include a system to establish and build the affinity bond with each potential customer. When such a plan is pursued relentlessly, the results can be truly amazing. If it is allowed simply to grow on its own with little or no direction, the results at best are mediocre.

Your plan should begin with learning your potential customers’ names and referring to them by name. You should collect people’s contact information so you may contact them by email, direct mail, phone and, where appropriate, even in person. Each of these contacts strengthens that connection–builds the relationship–with your customer or potential customer.

Keep in mind that a relationship with the people who approach your business, whether on the Internet or in the community, WILL be built–for better or worse, on purpose or by accident. Seize control of this opportunity and never leave it to chance.

The importance of this process, done with a plan, cannot be over-emphasized.

In the pursuit of more and better businesses!

To your business success! How may I help your business grow?

Paul Elliott