I pulled out an old planner from my early days selling on Etsy on the weekend, and inside I had a pile of working todo list of all of the tasks I needed to do for my couples – custom things they needed, alterations to the design, if I needed to quote something special or add a product to my store for them. A common theme was that every customer I had listed by name and man, it felt like a blast from the past reading them – I can still remember specific custom jobs (like Kimberly’s custom pink and rose gold dahlia invitation or Emily’s vintage rose invite suite on felt paper).

I valued and respected every customer and as a result of that, I would usually take a couple through from save the date to thank you cards and be able to work on all the stationery inbetween. That is special, and because of the gravity of what a wedding is, the loyalty you can build with a couple is unique to this niche.

I can definitely throw out a marketing term like customer lifetime value – but the gift of return customers runs so much deeper than this. Building great relationships through the way you run your business is extremely fulfilling – so here are my top five tips for nurturing good customer relationships.