How To Build Brand Loyalty
What’s the ultimate goal to building an intentional brand that resonates with your audience? Creating brand loyalty.
WHAT IS BRAND LOYALTY
Brand loyalty means you’ve delivered…big time. It means you’ve won over your audience, you’ve defined a product or experience that’s truly special and your best customers won’t sway to your competitors because they are in love with what you offer. Having loyal customers doesn’t just mean they keep coming back for more, but they are true fans of the brand and tell others about your brilliance, too.
Think PC vs MAC people
Think Coke vs Pepsi
Starbucks vs Dunkin Donuts
Boston Red Sox vs NY Yankees
Usually if you’re a Mac person, you’d never even think of buying a PC. If you love Coke, buying a Pepsi wouldn’t occur to you even if Coke was sold out. If you love your Dunkin coffee, you won’t be caught dead in a Starbucks. And, if you grew up in NY as a Yankees fan, there’s no way you’d switch to being a Red Sox fan. You get the idea.
You don’t have to be a huge global business like Apple, Coca-Cola, Starbucks or an MLB team to build a loyal brand following. As a small business owner or entrepreneur, you can build a brand that inspires fandom and loyalty, too.
3 STEPS TO BUILDING BRAND LOYALTY
STEP 01 – LISTEN TO YOUR AUDIENCE + BUILD AN AWESOME OFFER
If you only takeaway one thing from this article to implement in your business, makes sure it’s this:
Listen to your audience.
If you’re working to attract a certain group of people who are best suited to your offers, listen to what they say they need (not what you think they need). By keeping your finger on the pulse of your audience’s true challenges, ambitions, mindset and desires, you have what you can consider insider information. It’s like a cheat sheet to create the right offers that your customers will find irresistible!
Once you know how to deliver a solution (or desire, depending on the type of business you have), deliver it in your signature style. Put your spin on it, make it your own and be sure it stands out and disrupts instead of blending into the sea of competition.
Check in with your audience regularly (yes, listen some more!) and pivot your message or tweak your offering to align with their needs. Finally, keep graduating your audience to the next level of your brand and continue serving them well.
STEP 02 – DELIVER AN EPIC EXPERIENCE TO INSPIRE REPEAT BUSINESS
Don’t just sell your stuff. Inspire your audience. Surprise them. Create an experience that’s memorable, or simplifies something for them…one that they can’t wait to tell their friends about! The best definition of a brand is literally the experience you provide your customers and the feeling that’s created and shared because of that experience.
Brand loyalty starts to form when you over-deliver on consumer expectation, thus increasing your positive brand perception, leading to repeat customers. Pro-tip: be sure you’ve created brand synergy, a similar level experience across all consumer touchpoints for your business…since you never want to de-value your brand.
STEP 03 – INCENTIVIZE YOUR BEST CUSTOMERS
When you’ve gained great customers who’ve bought something on repeat, or more than one of your products / services, invite them to become a bigger, more active part of the brand they’re falling in love with.
Three ideas to make your best customers brand insiders include:
Inviting them to become brand ambassadors (example: LuluLemon has an awesome program where they find influencers in their local markets who epitomize their brand & provide them with product to wear while they workout, and share all of it with their audience)
Creating a loyalty / rewards program (example: a yogurt shop offers a punch card and when you fill it up, you get a free yogurt!)
Mobilizing your biggest fans to do your marketing for you with some type of referral or affiliate program (example: for all you course creators out there – think about someone like Amy Porterfield leveraging Gabby Bernstein to help her sell her Digital Course Academy online course and Gabby markets and sells the program as if it’s one of her own because she gets 50% of the profit for any leads she drives to buy Amy’s course. That’s huge incentive and a win-win!)
The type of incentive best for your business will depend on what type of brand you have and what kinds of products / services you offer.
In summary, brand loyalty doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a goal you work towards in your business. Starting now, whatever phase you’re in, is a great idea because it simply means you’re going to listen to your audience, build offers that resonate, deliver unforgettable experiences that inspire your best customers to keep coming back for more, and incentivize them to stick around AND market your business on your behalf!
If you haven’t yet developed your brand strategy, that’s going to be step one. When you have the clarity to position your business successfully, doing these 3 steps becomes so much easier!