It’s that time of the year again! Love is in the air and this has just reminded us how important it is to show affection to our significant other! Valentines have sparked Umbrella’s office conversation not only about our own relationships, partnerships and marriages but also about the relationships we have professionally - with co-workers, suppliers or clients.
During our office discussion, we formed two camps: some said that they celebrate Valentines Day and would get into trouble for not doing so (!) whilst others took a view that Valentines is more of a reminder to show love and affection a little bit more often!
Regardless of our stand-point, we all agreed that relationships - whether personal or business, require constant work and nurturing. We have put together a list of characteristics and good relationship forming elements and because we like having fun, we came up with an acrostic pun.
Romance
Romance certainly applies to our personal relationships and particularly at the beginning stages of attraction. But we think that romance nostalgia or sentiment can also be used as a marketing tool and as a way of hooking your prospects. Once in a relationship, romance helps us to remind our significant other or our client why we got together in a first place.
Effort
Every successful relationship requires some effort put into it. As they say - Rome wasn't built in a day! Both parties in a relationship need to want it to work! It could mean that you spend some time trying to understand one another. In business terms, effort applies to understanding your clients, their needs and aspirations. This could be achieved via thorough market research or SWOT and PESTLE analysis.
Laugh
Laughter, or more so a sense of humour is one of the key ingredients of forming a healthy relationship. Here at Umbrella, we are a happy bunch and there is nothing we love more than a bit of banter! In the business world, things can get too intense at times, so it’s important to distance yourself, take a break before rolling your sleeve and giving it all again.
Affection
Affection, carrying, sharing… showing genuine interest. Everyone likes a little bit of TLC! In their business or in personal life, we all appreciate little gestures. Here at Umbrella, we pay attention to small details - and we are actually quite affectionate! We have daily or weekly phone calls with our clients, we remember about their birthdays and importantly - we are genuinely interested in their business’ success!
Trust
For some, trust is the foundation of a good relationship! In the digital era however and with all techy advancements - you don’t have to take our word for it! We are all about transparency! At the end of each working month, we produce our monthly reports. This shows to our clients how and where our time was spent, website traffic, the performance of campaigns, the effectiveness of social media - to name a few merits.
Involvement
Umbrella Marketing Team motto is that we are your team! We can work as your marketing manager driving the marketing agenda or as a simply as your ‘doers’ taking direction from you and getting the job done! We are as involved as you wish us to be - always treating your business as our own and being the part of your team.
Outgoing
By nature, we are friendly, sociable, communicative and responsive. No two days are the same at our office! We love sharing our ideas and love seeing them develop into bigger projects. Our creative approach is tried and tested!
Nurture
Some of our clients include international enterprises and others are smaller SMEs. Regardless of the size or sector, we pay the same attention to all of them. We like to nurture our clients and take them step by step through the marketing strategy and planning their next campaigns.
Synergy
The synergy between Umbrella team members is one of our USPs. We have a content writer, web developer, social media geek, graphic designer and strategist all in one team! This means that our clients don’t have to worry about managing multiple parties and suppliers, we as a team produce incredible results and have it all covered!
Human
In the era of algorithms, AI, VR, robotics, B2B and B2C it’s important to remember that we are humans! Personality, interests, traces of character, sense of humour are all the things that matter when we form relationships and are all the unique characteristics of humans! On top of that, there is empathy, intuition and decision making that distinguish us from robots! Without being human we couldn’t have relationships!
Integrity
Strong moral principles and moral uprightness are core elements of building a healthy relationship. Without those principles, the relation would be very weak, not say non-existent. Hard work and devotion are the virtue of a successful, long term relationship.
Profoundness
You can call us geeks but we like to know our stuff! We like going far beneath what is obvious for our clients and finding some profound insights! This can be applied to our market research, competitors insights or even some of the Google Analytics data! Having this deep insight and understanding help us drive your business forward and helps you gain a competitive edge!
People say that the best relationships are those mutually beneficial! To find out how we could help your business, please contact us to have a chat: 01244 515569.
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