Businesses with a loyal audience and customer base have a distinct advantage within increasingly competitive marketplaces. If you want to increase your own brand loyalty over the next 12 months, here are 5 strategies to consider.
A multi-channel approach
Adopting a multi-channel approach to your digital presence is beneficial for several key reasons. Not only will you avoid unnecessarily limiting your reach, you will also create more opportunities to gather data that will help you to understand your core audience in greater detail. When executed correctly, multi-channel approaches deliver consistently high user experiences and communicate core messages in a variety of engaging ways. By actively demonstrating to your audience that you understand them and genuinely want to engage with them in the specific ways they want to be engaged with, you will ensure that your brand is established in the consciousness of the people you need to secure positive results. It is crucial to make sure you are displaying the same brand message and values across organic search, paid search and social channels.
Personalisation and emotional connections
Having had a taste of personalised experiences, increasing numbers of consumers are beginning to expect brands to adopt personalised approaches with their messaging. When implemented correctly, loyalty marketing is a powerful force. Forging and nurturing emotional connections with your audience can result in substantial rewards, with emotionally loyal consumers typically spending almost 50 per cent more than those who do not have an emotional bond with a brand.
Strategic partnerships
Increasing numbers of brands are beginning to see the inherent benefits in forming close connections with other businesses, to work towards achieving mutually beneficial goals. The key to success in this sphere is partnering with a business that will add value to the lives of your core audience or provide them with tangible rewards in ways that feel genuinely authentic.
A word of caution is required here, because if your audience don’t feel as though a partnership has anything of value to offer them, you risk jeopardising the relationship you have already invested time and resources into building.
The increasingly appealing nature of premium programs
The consistently increasing success of fee-based programs such as Amazon Prime is quite astounding. Providing that the rewards are deemed valuable enough, rising numbers of consumers are open to paying for access to premium programs across a variety of industries. Although arguably not the ideal model for all businesses, those which do pursue a premium program model have the opportunity to leverage increased consumer spending alongside nurturing a loyal customer base.
Demonstrate your socially responsible credentials
Millennials are the driving force behind a consumer-based demand for the businesses they support to be both socially aware and socially responsible. Over 80% of millennials expect brands to look beyond the generation of profit and begin to demonstrate a willingness to involve themselves within communities and make choices that will affect positive change in some way.
When asked, two thirds of consumers voiced a willingness to pay more for services or products provided by brands who have made an explicit and demonstrable commitment to environmental or social initiatives that will improve lives across the globe. Overtly conveying the core purpose of your business has never before been such an important component of driving customer loyalty and if you aren’t yet demonstrating your social credentials, this is something you should ideally address in the very near future.