The goal of marketing is to create ready buyers for the sales force. Whether you do it through a website, a newsletter, a technical bulletin, magazine article, or seminar, show customers that your prime interest is helping them improve their well-being, profits, or happiness in some way. When customers believe that your prime interest is helping them improve their well-being, rather than lining your own pockets, you automatically become the vendor of choice. Instead of being regarded just as a vendor, they see you as a supplier of information or better yet, knowledge. And the momentum from one sale motivates everyone in the company to find new ways to serve customers and keep their business for the long run.
Relationships drive important purchase decisions.
The more important the decision, the more the need for an existing relationship to be in place before the deal can be made. They buy emotionally and justify the purchase with rational data to back up the emotional urge. Customers are intelligent and vote on your products and services with their feet and their money. They will always seek the best and most intelligent deal for themselves, whether they are consciously aware of it or not. Get the customer to want you.