Here’s How to Build Brand Loyalty that Lasts

In the previous article on Brand Loyalty and why it matters for your business, we established that brand loyalty has everything to do with how consumers regard your brand, and it doesn’t just develop overnight.

Increased sales, a strong customer base, high customer retention and repurchase rate, long life business-customer relationship, amidst others are the perks of brand loyalty. Without customers, your business cannot exist and there’ll be no sales. Without loyal customers – who will keep coming back to you – your business cannot scale beyond a certain level, which most likely would be low.

Factors that influence brand loyalty

Brand loyalty is important and responsible for the long-term success of your business. Certain factors influence a consumer’s perception of your brand such as:

• Product quality: Customers are more likely to be loyal to a brand whose product provides long-term value.
• Dependability: Brand loyalty can be influenced by products that have established reputations and customers’ positive experiences with them.
• Brand image: A customer-friendly brand will have more loyal customers than a brand that pays little or no attention to its customers.
• Affordability: If customers consider your product as being pricey compared to another product of the same value, customers might switch to the more affordable one.
• Availability: To create brand loyalty, products should be made easily available and accessible to customers.
• Social media engagement: Brand loyalty can be established with active social media engagement because it’s where you can interact directly with consumers.

How to build brand loyalty

Your main focus when building brand loyalty is to ensure your customers are never let down. The purpose of building brand loyalty is to create ambassadors who will vouch for your products/service and also keep coming back to you. Here a few tips to get you started on building brand loyalty for your business:

Build trust: In a recent study, 83% of customers say they will recommend a business they trust to others. This shows that trust can drive a customer to advertise your business and generate new leads which will increase sales, and also retain your existing customers. You can establish trust by:

• Publishing customer reviews and testimonials. 
• Always put customers first.
• Being honest and transparent about customers’ expectations.
• Asking for feedback and input regularly.

Provide quality, consistent and reliable customer service: Quality customer service means better business. Consistent customer service means repeat customers can expect and receive the same service from your brand every time they patronise your business.  Good customer service can: leave a good impression on your customers, differentiate you from your competitors, and give your business a good name and reputation. You can provide quality customer service by:

• Maintaining a positive attitude when communicating with customers.
• Knowing your product/service.
• Responding speedily to customers’ queries.
• Offering personalised services.
• Providing self-service.

Use loyalty programs: A great strategy to building brand loyalty is to create a rewards or incentive program. It is one way to improve customers’ experience while boosting your sales. Give rewards to repeat customers who come back to patronise your business and to new customers who are purchasing from you for the first time. Juicy offers attract new customers and hook existing ones. 

Engage on social media: Social media platforms are places to broaden your reach, attract new customers, and also engage your existing ones. With Instagram, you can tell your brand stories with photos or short behind-the-scenes videos of your business. On Facebook, you can place targeted ads based on data collected from your website’s customer analytics. Facebook also has more space for longer posts and multiple photos. With Twitter, you can casually engage your customers in short sentences (tweets). Consider hiring a social media handler for your business who is equipped to professionally respond to comments or complaints from existing customers, and inquiries from new customers. 

Build an online community: If your customers are majorly online, you could a community around them.  A community is a perfect place to bring people who are loyal to your brand together. Building a community around our brand has been a key tool in converting our marketing efforts into sales,” says Tyler Hillstead, Copper Pearl‘s president. “Customers may be buying our products, but it’s much more than sales. We’ve found that once you have a community people love, they return to experience that community.”

A community provides a space for your customers to be seen and heard. It would be your port of call when you have new products or you’re rewarding customers. You can build an online community through newsletters where you provide additional information or hashtags to make social media interaction easy.

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Featured image: istockphoto