Happy National Recommitment Month! No, really, it’s a thing.
Have you ever started something totally committed, only to find yourself fading a couple months later? Sometimes it only takes a couple days. How many diets have you started, only to catch yourself with a bar of melting chocolate two days after the fact?
Recommitment isn’t a bad thing, though we tend to spin it that way. Recommitment is actually healthy and essential — in love, in fitness, in business, and in life. Read on to discover …
Recommit to Customer Relationships
Google search “stages of relationships,” and you’ll find a staggering 976,000 results. Hundreds of blogs talk about recommitting to your spouse. Psychologists, social workers, dating sites, relationship gurus — they divide romantic relationships into all sorts of different stages in all kinds of different ways. But most have three things in common:
- An infatuation stage.
- A stage marking the beginning of a committed relationship.
- A final stage where real love begins or, as Dr. Nancy Wesson, Ph.D puts it, a recommitment stage.
These phases can apply to your business as well. When you initially attract a customer, they’re often infatuated with your marketing, excited about all the features promised. Eventually, they commit to your product and your brand. But without continued contact, customers can easily be stolen away by competitors. (Check out Shaun’s book for more on the value of keeping in contact with your customers.)
It’s absolutely essential for you to help your customers recommit. These three steps can help you turn a fair-weather buyer into a lifelong customer.
Recognize
If you’re already on our site, you’ve probably recognized a need for recommitted customers. You’ve realized that something in your marketing isn’t quite right, or that there’s a better way. Maybe your current advertising efforts just aren’t getting the reaction you want, at least not alone. Now it’s time to figure out why. What’s causing your customers to lose commitment?
Often, it’s simply a lack of communication. Why should your customers care if they see no indication that you care about them? The authors of “Foundations of Marketing” recommend doing a SWOT analysis to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Once you find your problem, it’s time to reassess.
Reassess
Serena Star Leonard’s book “How to Succeed in 12 Months: Creating a Life You Love” suggests three steps for inspiring recommitment. The first is to “analyze how you operate.” The next? “Create or recreate inspiring goals.”
In your marketing, this means looking back to your initial plan and purpose and figuring out where you have strayed. Where have you lost sight of your original commitment? This stage is the perfect time to reassess those goals. Learn from your experiences and make the change. The best kind of recommitment is the kind that is flexible.
After you’ve created your goals, examine how they will affect your customers. What do you need to do for your customers in order to make your goal a reality? What problems do you need to fix?
Recommit
Finally, it’s time for you to recommit. Much like the final stage of a romantic relationship, recommitment is realistic and practicable. In business, it involves an action plan.
If your current marketing efforts are failing, maybe it’s time to try something new (we recommend a newsletter). The final step is simple. It’s time to go forth and do. Star Leonard’s final step to recommitment sums it up perfectly: “Make it real now.”
So what are you recommitting to this May? Leave us a note in the comments below!
If rebuilding customer relationships is one of your main goals, The Newsletter Pro can help. One of the reasons newsletters work is because they show your clients you’re committed to customer relationships.
In any business, providing quality content is one way to show you care. And that is an attractive trait.
