2. Integration

There are three levels of customer relations:

1. You Bribe your Client Continue the Business Relationship
People are human and because of that we are naturally greedy. The principle of greediness is what makes capitalism successful. Publishers who reward (bribe) their customers with coupons, points, credits, and bonuses create an incentive-based relationship that crumbles once the incentive is taken away.

2. You Have a Positive Relationship
In this instance, your client liked their ad, they've signed up for a small schedule and now have a positive relationship with you and an emotional bond with your publication.

Unfortunately, unless the emotional bond is nurtured, it dies a fast death - - and quite frankly, there are extremely few publications that properly nurture their relationships with their customers. They're too busy looking for 'new business'.

3. Your Client "Has" to Continue the Relationship Because the Cost to Change is Too High
This is what you want. Your goal is to create a client who ties has his operations into your publication so closely, that to move to another product or service provider would cause damage emotionally, socially, operationally, or financially.

Why would any client allow you to do this?

To give a couple of examples from different industries, consider a person who is emotionally dependent on his therapist (emotional) or a customer who uses your software to run their business (operational).

These are "Integrated Relationships" because the relationship extends into the life of a person or into the operations of a business. Of the four types of Integrated Relationships (social, emotion, operational, financial), the operational relationship is the most powerful.

Operational relationships exist when the actual work processes of two businesses overlap.

So your goal is to get your client's work processes to overlap with your publication.

It's The Secret Key to Guaranteed Repeat Sales

The Integrated Relationship has severe penalties for breaking the relationship and therefore forces your client to come back again and again whether they like it or not.

This is the ultimate customer relationship and the secret key to guaranteed repeat sales.

Now ask yourself these questions:

Operational
1. Do you have a technology that you can deploy into your client's business?

·         If you can help your client with their website, especially if you can help smaller businesses by organising the design and the hosting of their website -- they're tied to you

2. Can you take over or manage a portion of your customer's business operations?

·         If you can use your printer to procure for them all their printing needs -- they're tied to you.

·         If you can organise their exhibition booths and bookings -- they're tied to you.

3. Can you house or manage your customer's data or assets at your place of business?

·         If you can store your client's bulk print, or exhibition stands -- they're tied to you.

Social
1. Can you get your customer to be a public poster child (i.e. provide a public testimonial) for your business?

2. Can you create a brand so "cool" or popular that to not use it would be embarrassing?

3. Can you present an award to your biggest customer(s) (or target prospect) and announce it to the industry?

Financial
1. Can you offer a program that requires a large upfront investment that delivers products or services over time?

2. Can you offer your significant customers an opportunity to financially invest in your business?

3. Can you lock your customer into a long-term contract with penalties attached for breaking the relationship?

Emotional
1. Can you provide your customer with so much support (i.e. advice, attention, help) that they can't do without you?

The idea is to move your client from a single ad to a package of marketing services, to becoming integrated in some way with your publication.