Better customer relationships or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) will not only increase your sales. Your team and your customers will be more satisfied in the long term. Our article shows you how good customer relationships work. And how you can make your marketing even more efficient.

This article is the fourth and final part of our series on customer acquisition. To learn the basics of how to acquire new customers, we recommend reading the previous posts: They deal with target groups & inbound leads, remarketing & affiliate marketing as well as upselling, cross-selling & measuring success. You can also download the complete series of articles as an e-book.

Optimization of your processes

Before you think about building closer customer relationships and customer relationship management, your internal marketing processes need to be right. After all, whether or not your customers are satisfied with your work also depends on them. When it comes to processes and productivity, the question usually arises: Can I handle my (online) marketing completely in-house? Or should I focus more on outsourcing?

It is not only in the WordPress environment that there is always a heated debate about whether you should outsource your own marketing measures or invest in your own team or know-how. This question also applies to agencies: almost no agency team can always do everything themselves. Or the existing knowledge is urgently needed for current clients. It is better to concentrate on your own strengths and leave the rest to others.

For freelancers, on the other hand, "outsourcing" means joining forces with other experts in order to be able to offer related service packages together. This can create a productive network that benefits everyone involved.

Outsourcing vs. in-house marketing

Certainly (online) marketing is more than just cobbling together a few SEO keywords and posting an occasional update on Facebook. It's a full-time job for one person who really knows their stuff. As soon as your agency gets bigger, you'll even need several people who split up according to their expertise. After all, nobody can really know all the disciplines of online marketing anymore. Online marketing has become too complex and comprehensive for that.

But not only that. If you don't have a competent, professional and trained staff who know your business and who will put together and implement your marketing plan, then you need to rethink. A half-hearted attempt to make an impact in today's oversaturated media landscape is like hoping someone will happen to notice you and buy your products. Here are a few general pros and cons of outsourcing that you should consider.

Advantages of outsourcing

• Readily available expertise: If you hire the right professional team that focuses exclusively on online marketing, you won't have to worry about a learning curve or integrating new employees into your existing setup.
• Results and flexibility: You hire professionals and they will deliver results. Otherwise, you can terminate the contract and hire another outsourcing team - which is not so easy to do with in-house staff.
• Save costs - under certain circumstances: Outsourcing often means that you can reduce your expenditure on marketing staff. Or that you can invest flexibly when you need to. But be careful: in some cases, the costs of outsourcing are higher in the long term than hiring your own employees.
• Fewer administrative tasks: Outsourcing to external parties means that you don't have to manage your own staff administratively. This can streamline your organization.
• Honest feedback: An external team is less imbued with the company philosophy and is therefore better able to offer honest criticism. Or to think outside the box.

Disadvantages of outsourcing

• Risk of poor quality: When outsourcing, you only have a limited insight into what a particular company has to offer. The people in charge will only show you their best side and access to customer reviews in this area is limited. Or you may not end up working for the people you have met and approved of. However, you can contractually protect yourself against the latter risk.
• Your reputation is on the line: If you hire external marketers, they may have to deal directly with your customers. So you need to be sure that their professional behavior matches your quality standards.
• Unreliability: Once the contract is signed or payment is received, communication with your external contractors sometimes miraculously stops. Or your small business is not considered as important. With an internal team, you at least have the opportunity to take direct countermeasures if the work is behind schedule.
• No knowledge of your business: An external marketing team brings fresh perspectives. At the same time, they can never know as much about your business and your customers as you do.

What can be outsourced? What stays in the team?

There is no one-size-fits-all solution as to whether a small company should invest in a qualified internal team to run its marketing. Or whether it should hire external experts. It depends on the culture of your business and where you are on your growth and revenue path. But here are a few general guidelines. Tasks that are good to outsource:

• Marketing activities that require specialized skills, a lot of experience, new technical knowledge and fresh approaches.
• Activities that can easily be carried out outside the company and require few skills.
• Short-term marketing projects that offer significant savings compared to using your own employees.

Tasks that are better done with your own team:

• Campaigns and projects that require your team's core competencies. For example, if you offer SEO yourself, it's not a good idea to hire an external agency.
• Cost-effective activities that can be carried out internally without much control effort.
• Tasks that require in-depth knowledge of your products, services or target groups. By the time you have explained yourself here and revised the results, you will be doing it faster and to a higher standard yourself.

Effective use of Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

The romantic image of independent small business owners who keep their customer information in their heads and rely only on scattered Post-It notes and scribbles on their desk calendar has little to do with efficiency and customer service.

Every person who owns a business likes to think that the store is "running". That no outside help is needed to carefully complete all the necessary tasks that contribute to the customer relationship. This misconception is fatal, because customers often get a different picture.

There comes a point in the growth phase of your company when you lose track of things. Customer complaints start to pile up, things get left behind and, in the worst case scenario, you get bad reviews on Google, Facebook & Co. Then it's time for your organization to become much more professional. See also our article on typical freelancer mistakes, the tips in which also apply to your agency business.

Managing customer relationships

CRM is short for Customer Relationship Management and refers to systems that store and organize all information about your customers and prospects. From their first click on your website to every interaction with your e-commerce store to the processing and history of support requests, everything is easily accessible and helps you move forward:

Improved customer experience

You're much more likely to provide your customers with a consistently positive buying experience if you have a lot of information about them. Personalize every interaction, sift through every email they've read, every blog post they've clicked on, every purchase decision they've made on your website.

All of this can be easily documented in a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. Sure, you may be personally proud of being able to remember every detail. But is that still true after several years or with a large customer base? And what about the rest of your team?

At the same time, make sure that you do not wildly collect and, above all, store every conceivable piece of data about your customers; it must comply with the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). At the very least, you must inform your contacts about exactly what information is being processed. Get help from a law firm specializing in online law that will put your processes to the test to avoid warnings.

Higher productivity

However, a CRM is much more than just a fancy customer file. You can set it up to automate all kinds of tasks to increase your team's productivity. And to focus on growing your business by reducing tedious and repetitive work. You can automate the logging of activities and calls, set up automatic reports for each area of your business and much more.

More integrated collaboration

A CRM is a dream come true for anyone responsible for sales. Not only that, but it's an efficient way to bring your entire sales team together and keep them working towards a common goal. The manager can access the activity log of each employee and get an overview of their status. 

Other people in the team can intervene if necessary and also contact the (potential) customer. In doing so, they can be sure that they are informed about all relevant information and previous conversations and offers. In addition, everyone can see which measures and conversations are more likely to lead to success with which type of customer, or where there is potential for improvement in the process.

Insight and resources

You no longer have to constantly access your employees to find out the status of individual customer projects. The team can also determine whether customer projects are fairly distributed within the team or whether bottlenecks are looming in individual areas. Service campaigns - such as follow-up emails - can also be better planned and scaled.

Automated e-mail campaigns

Another way to improve the efficiency of your customer relationships and increase your sales is to set up a solid email automation system. Collecting contacts is all well and good, and we all work hard to do just that. But if you're not actively converting them into prospects, leads, sales and more sales, then your contacts are just taking up space on your hard drive.

This is where marketing automation of emails comes into play, which , according to some studies, results in a significant increase in sales productivity. Similar to CRM systems, email automation eliminates small and time-consuming tasks that are nonetheless important. By sending personalized, contextual messages that relate to where your customers are in the buying process. 

Automated e-mail tasks include, for example:

• The automatic sending of messages to groups of contacts that meet a certain criterion
• Obtaining customer feedback
• Updates to the product or guiding customers step-by-step through the individual functions
• Campaigns for targeted up-selling and cross-selling

Automating your customer communication can achieve a lot. However, you should test every measure and every campaign well, preferably with feedback from some important regular customers. This is the only way to find out whether the emails are helpful and whether they sound natural despite automation. Because nobody likes customer service from a bot or a machine. Especially not when it comes to services.

Building the customer relationship

So the project is complete, the invoice has been paid and the team is preparing plans for upcoming customer projects. That means you can slow down for now, right? Not if you want to be successful in WordPress development or web design. In this highly competitive environment, you need to keep an eye on developing a reputation that gets interested target groups looking for you.

It's true that closing the deal and completing a robust, flexible, attractive and above all practical WordPress website is the primary customer-centric goal. But it's about more than that. The fact is that what you do for your customers and how you treat them in the future could, in some ways, be the most important part of the customer relationship. Even beyond providing the original contracted services. According to some studies, it is many times more expensive to invest in new customers than to keep existing ones.

What's more, your contacts are very likely to make another purchase after a positive experience with your customer service. This may not apply one-to-one to you as a service provider or WordPress developer, but it's still an important concept to keep in mind.

Think about it: If someone has agreed to pay you money to do a certain thing well, that's a fair relationship. But those providers who continue to offer cheerful support and stay in constant contact with their customers even after the contract has been signed stand out. And they are also recommended to others. Because good customer support and attentive listening are unfortunately by no means a given, as we all know.

Turning the relationship into long-term loyalty

The problem with creating something as ephemeral as a website is that what your client needed yesterday may not be what they need six months from now.

No matter how well you anticipate the needs of your target group and no matter how well you work with your contacts: Needs evolve. So countless websites need to be optimized, adapted and brought up to date. And when that's done, Google comes out with a major update and some of the work can start all over again.

But as we've already established, there are a lot of WordPress designers out there who are hungry for work. What's to stop your client base from turning to someone else to redesign the website you've put so many hours of work and sweat into? The answer is simple: you. And the quality of your development or consulting.

You are your reputation

The difference comes purely from the attitude you have towards your work. What you have to offer - not only in terms of your specific skills, but also on an interpersonal level - is what makes you stand out as a WordPress developer, designer or consultant.

Of course, you hope that former clients will come back to you because of the value you created for them the first time. But it's just as important to continue adding value for your client after the project is complete. Here are a few ways to make sure your clients keep coming back to you.

You save them time

We live in an age of lightning-fast broadband connections that link us to people all over the world, so no one likes to wait. And yet we all get stuck in this modern life time and time again: There's the phone queue. Or the delayed email reply. Or leaving a question in a comment or a review in a busy online forum that goes unnoticed.

And yes, it's convenient to put off responding to established clients; after all, you've already got their money in your pocket. Plus, you have your hands full creating projects for new clients. Nevertheless, it's important that you conduct every contact with people you've already won as if they were new prospects that you want to "land".

The fast, friendly and responsive support and advice you offer once the project is complete will cement your reputation as a top agency or WordPress professional. It will also secure you many a future project.

You treat them individually

Are your customers calling you because something isn't working in some part of the website you built for them? Then make sure that you or someone from your team who is familiar with the project and the technology responds as quickly as possible. And - this is key - in a personalized way.

We're talking about building relationships here, and relationships happen between people. When a person calls with a support request for a project that was completed six months ago, they don't want to hear: "How can we help you today?" But more personally: "Anna! Hello, how have you been with your project xy?"

This doesn't mean you have to know their children's birthdays or invite them for cocktails. But make sure you know the full history of the website you've built for them. As well as the ideas that went into it and all the cornerstones of the personal conversations. By the way, your customers can sense whether this friendliness is authentic or not. In your agency, customer contact should be handled by those team members who are not only technically adept, but who also have a naturally positive attitude towards other people. A few more tips:

Stay positive throughout

There's nothing worse than needing help with something you've already bought and paid for and then being turned away. Again, it's about building relationships that last. No one wants to hear "Oh, that's impossible" or anything along those lines. We want to know that we're being listened to. And that the person on the other end of the line is open to helping us find solutions rather than putting obstacles in our way.

Helping people with a smile and a positive attitude, giving them what they want and need - these are the hallmarks of every good customer relationship. Whether in a private or professional context. That's how you build trust and that's the only way people will continue to hire you or your agency.

Be transparent

To secure long-term loyalty, you need to communicate clearly and openly with your customers. If you don't listen carefully to what they want - and if you don't take care to listen between the lines - the relationship can quickly deteriorate. And another service provider will be hired.

And it's not just about what you communicate, but also how. You should communicate every step of the way and make sure your contacts know exactly what you're working on for them, what the progress is and what's going to happen next. If you get stuck or run into time constraints, communicate that too. And present alternative suggestions.

Keep the conversation going

To cement your reputation as a first-class address for WordPress development or design, you need more than just a positive first impression when your customers contact you. You want to keep the conversation going on your terms and be a constant presence in the minds of your contacts.

A good way to stay in touch is a regular newsletter. A weekly or monthly reminder about you and your services will keep you in people's minds. Not only for the needs of your customers themselves, but also for projects from their friends, acquaintances or business partners who may also need a WordPress website.

Get them to sign up for the newsletter themselves. Perhaps by offering a small bonus or gift. Other ways to continue customer loyalty after the project has been completed include

• Sending personalized emails
• Follow customers on social media and interact with them
• Invite them to follow your company blog
• Offer competitions or prize draws, send small gifts
• Approach them for your PR development (for example, to get feedback on their experience with you for testimonials etc.)
• Send birthday greetings
• Personalized recommendations on how they can use your product or service even better

When it comes to your customer relationships, it is advisable to always think long-term. And not just in terms of the next payment due, the next leads, the next quarter's revenue or when a customer contract expires. Without this mindset, you're just one of many WordPress developers who seem to be interchangeable.

Customer acquisition is not something you do on the side

Customer acquisition and retention is not something you do on the side. The strategies described in this e-book - from inbound leads to remarketing, up- and cross-selling and affiliate marketing - each require sufficient time. But also long-term monitoring. Only then can they develop their full effect. Is your desk already overflowing? Then opt for one central measure and do it right.

Be honest with yourself: Which online marketing discipline are your strengths? Or those of your team? What do you enjoy? And what don't? Otherwise, your only option is to hire specialized employees for your online marketing or think about outsourcing measures (see chapter 7).

Regardless of whether you carry out the measures yourself or have others do so: Customer acquisition programs can only ever be as good as your figures prove. You should therefore familiarize yourself with the analysis tools from Google Ads or Facebook, for example, and review the figures regularly (at least once a week). By comparing the time periods, you will gradually find out what good values are in terms of clicks, conversion or customer acquisition costs. This is because these can differ significantly depending on the business model, industry, product/service and target group. And this is the only way to determine whether your content strategy is on target. Or whether your SEO is focusing on the right keywords.

Don't give up too quickly, no matter which measure(s) you decide on. All the strategies and tools described need several weeks or even months of lead time and readjustment before the first sustainable successes can be achieved. For example, there is no point in focusing on keyword A today and keyword B tomorrow. This will not only confuse Google & Co. but also your visitors. Nevertheless, find a clear content focus for your services, on your website, in the categories of your blog or your online store. Because then you are more likely to be correctly classified and found by search engines.

Expand your knowledge

Last but not least: Expand your knowledge and use your contacts, because you are not alone when it comes to finding the right strategies for your customer acquisition. Together with strong partners, you can utilize synergies. In this context, we invite you to join the Raidboxes partner network. It is the ideal platform for exchanging valuable experience and at the same time helps you to expand your know-how and your network.

This allows you to further optimize the growth of your agency or your services. Our goal is to build a long-term partnership with you that will advance you and your WordPress projects. Our partner program is aimed at agencies and freelancers who develop and centrally manage their WordPress projects at Raidboxes. Start now as a Raidboxes agency partner and benefit from exclusive services such as

• Special rates
• Additional features that can be used free of charge
• An agency profile in our partner directory
• Commissions for your referrals
• Direct contact persons in the partner management team
• Joint events or a content partnership

Are you a freelancer or web designer? Then take advantage of the FREE DEV affiliate program. With attractive affiliate commissions and the opportunity to develop at least three projects with us free of charge for 90 days. If you have any questions, please contact our team at any time. Here are all the previous parts of our customer acquisition series:

• Target groups & inbound lead generation
• Remarketing & Affiliate Marketing
• Upselling, cross-selling & performance measurement
• The entire series of articles as an e-book B2B customer acquisition made easy

We support you with strong services and a network that is constantly growing. Together with you, we will advance WordPress and WooCommerce - benefiting your customers as well as your own business. We wish you every success in implementing these measures. And now good luck in acquiring new customers!