There’s nothing more important than aligning with the right businesses and service providers.
As a business, who we choose to work with is crucial. We want to align with the right people and be proud of the companies that we use as service providers. We want to be proud of the people that we connect with.
When we show up as we are, not only does it build culture but it is what builds our community!
Showing up as we are is how we attract the right people, people we can be proud to refer to our clients and help them to solve even more pain points they may have.
Not to mention, by working with the right people, we serve to enhance our message as a brand that truly cares about delivering exceptional experiences.
We’ve seen firsthand as an agency how costly it can be to work with the wrong people; not only is it a waste of time, but it sucks energy and enthusiasm from us. Conversely, working with the right people is an uplift and a major boost of creativity and inspiration.
That’s why we’re proud to actively create working partnerships with brands that truly understand the principles of relationship marketing. The brands that do relationship marketing right are not only the brands that “get us,” but the ones that we feel strongly about supporting.
Creating A Sense of Community:
Authentically showing up is how you build community partners. These are businesses that you feel confident recommending and sharing about because they care about the same things that you do!
One example of a company that does this is Sugarwish. We are huge fans of Sugarwish for so many reasons; Sugarwish hits on every one of our senses during the gifting process and the multitude of touchpoints help us ensure that true delight is sent and remembered.
Not to mention, aside from their amazing delight-delivery-digital-deliciousness (say that 5x fast!,) the team at Sugarwish truly understands the value of relationship marketing and they appreciate us being clients and superfans of their brand.
We realized that these companies like Agorapulse and HR Partner to name two more, truly understand the art of relationship building. It’s because of our ability to work with like-minded companies that we can grow and help so many more people!
Here are 5 critical components to establishing a sense of community:
Being Yourself:
Understanding who you are at your core - what your culture is as a brand - is critical in order to know how you can show up, which will dictate who you align with. By being your authentic self and staying true to your brand as a core, it’s easy to find your people.
Your people being employees - your team, similar companies that share your values - your community, and the people who you can serve - your customers. That’s how we know who the right people are to start building relationships with.
Personalized Responses:
This is such an important part of relationship building and community creation because it’s how we get to know each other.
Taking the time to provide personalized responses through email, voice memo, hand-written note… this is the difference that makes the difference. It’s how we get to the next level of the relationship and understand how we can provide memorable and meaningful experiences for our people.
Exceptional Experiences:
When we understand our people and established a real connection with them, we take the time to create exceptional experiences for them.
By going above and beyond to make sure that our people feel thought of and cared for, and being there to answer their questions along the way, we create an experience that becomes memorable.
Deliver Delight Consistently:
It’s not enough to make a customer happy once. In order for us to really create a sense of community, we need to be committed to delivering delight on a consistent basis.
We create a sense of community by being focused on happy people.
It’s about doing what’s right, not what’s easy - to ensure that someone is genuinely enjoying their experience with our brand.
Out-CARE:
This is really how we create a close-knit community: out-caring our competition because we actually care.
It’s about infusing your heart into every touchpoint for no other reason than it feels good to do so. It’s taking time out of our day to send an article to someone because we think it could help them with their business.
When it comes to doing business, we believe this is how it should be! This is truly how we go about turning our community into collaborators.
Turning Your Community Into Collaborators:
When brands show up as you do, you can truly become collaborators because you know you’re speaking the same language.
It is by showing up as ourselves that we have the ability to truly build relationships and engage in meaningful conversations with other brands.
That’s why we will always focus our efforts from the inside out. This is how we show up to out-care the competition, create memorable experiences and drive repeat and referral business for years to come.
At the end of the day, the goal is to truly turn your followers into true fans, our clients into our biggest advocates, team members into our evangelists, and our community into our biggest collaborators.
Do you agree with these 5 steps? What brands do you think do a great job at this?
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