what should my online business communication look like?

A few years ago, someone wondered if it was possible to sell our products and/or services without the need to use commercial intrusiveness. He wondered if it was possible to go further and make potential customers discover the value before making a purchase.

This approach became a dream come true thanks to the Inbound methodology, since Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah coined the term Inbound Marketing, the ways of selling have been immersed in a real revolution. As a consequence, companies have been joining the process of change, but how have they changed the way they communicate, how do they carry out their relationship with their customers?

This is the beginning of our journey through online business communication. Are you joining us?

A change in the way they communicate

Some talk about the era of two-way communication, but what exactly do they mean? For the term two-way to exist, one-way had to exist first. And it did. Just ten years ago, even less, companies tended to use a communication system where they put their ideas out there, consumers received them and no direct feedback was given. So perhaps it was less about communication between the parties and more about information.

Nowadays, companies have experienced a change in this sense, and that is that communication has become a kind of participation between the parties, so there is interactivity. Why have brands created two-way conversations? Users participate in the process.

In this way, companies have experienced a change in the way they communicate. Online shops, for example, are experiencing first-hand the benefits of two-way communication. They are witnessing first-hand the shift from transactional marketing focused on the product to relationship marketing that caters to the customer.

what is relationship marketing about?

Unlikethe type of transactional marketing we mentioned in the previous paragraph, companies are increasingly focusing on the customer in order to establish a stable and lasting relationship. In this way, we could even say that it is not a question of using intrusion to attract, but rather of offering value in order to establish long-term relationships and build loyalty.

The user has adopted a more active role in the purchasing process, which is known as two-way communication between company and customer. Actions are more personalised, the company has information on the behaviour and interests of its potential customers. Thanks to this, they can carry out important segmentation work.

In short, we have gone from wanting to attract customers to wanting to build loyalty, from focusing on the product to focusing on customer relationships, from the short term to the long term, from mass communication in a single direction to personalised, two-way communications, from the customer being a passive object to actively participating in the process.

how have online shops reached this point?

If we had to choose a single responsible for the transformation of the ways of shopping, perhaps, the most accurate would be to choose the arrival of the Internet, new technologies and user behaviour. If, on the contrary, what we want is to name a responsible for the adaptation to change, then, the most logical thing would be to point to Inbound Marketing.

This methodology has become the easiest way for companies to adapt to the new ways of buying. Together, we have created a way of selling to meet the interests of our potential customers, first, and to achieve our business objectives, later.

Inbound Marketing has become a technique designed to engage with potential customers from the very beginning of their process. We try to educate and teach them that buying our products or services may be the best answer to what they are looking for. However, online businesses do not do this in an intrusive way, but rather as two parties destined to meet.

It was the situation that opened the way to this methodology, and it is that consumers have been subjected to constant advertising at any time and place. However, where is the key to the success of Inbound Marketing? In transparency, honesty and commitment.