When it comes to marketing and selling your product, customer is the king. You can’t carry on a business venture if your customers are not satisfied. If you look at this from a rational and specific point of view, your customers are nothing but humanization of your revenues. These are the ones who are going to purchase your products and pay you for the same. Thus, you always need to make sure that your customers are happy with the products you are selling.
Whenever you would have gone to purchase soft drinks, you must have seen people asking for a “Coca Cola” which would have meant any other soft drink in the market. Also, you must have noticed that even after the ‘Coca-Cola’ scandal was out, people wanted to go and drink the beverage. This is the relation customers build with their brands. This bond makes them go for the brand no matter what the environment beside them wants them to display. This instills a blind faith in the minds of the people which makes them choose the concerned brand no matter what. This is what we call Brand Loyalty.
If you are married or in a relationship with your partner, you expect them to be loyal to you and with no one else. In the same way, you need to make sure that once you have made sales to a group of consumers, they don’t choose to switch brands and buy products from your contemporaries. Enjoying brand loyalty is extremely beneficial for your organization. If you have loyal customers, you have a fixed number and section of people that will buy your products, no matter what. This gives you surety of customers, which in turn reduces your promotional costs. You don’t need to spread more awareness about your brand if you already have a section of people ready to buy your products. Also, having brand loyalty serves as an incentive to take risks and diversify. If you don’t have a loyal customer base, you need to think twice before venturing into a new product line or category. You are not so sure of how people will react to this change and you tend to play safe. On the other hand, if you have substantial brand loyalty, you can take bolder risks and diversify your business. You can venture into another product class altogether and still have surety that your loyal customers will always try your new product. This is because you have created a favorable image in the minds of your customers which makes them trust you under any situation. Hence, even if your product fails to please them, you can always go back to where you were, or make further changes according to the needs of your customers. Either way, you are more or less safe due to the brand loyalty you enjoy.
It is very important for a brand to earn loyalty in order to stay in the market for long. If you have loyal customers, you can have a legacy of your own that enjoys a good reputation in the market. This will always give you an upper hand amongst your competitors. On the other hand, if you do not have a loyal fan base, you are likely to get faded or even kicked out of the market after a span of time. There will always be new brands and innovative products entering the market and the customers are always dynamic. Hence, having brand loyalty will help you retain your customers in the world full of competition.
There are several ways in which you can increase your brand loyalty. Some of them are discussed here:
Stress On The Value Of Your Products
No matter how much you spend on promoting your brand, there is no substitute to offering your customers value for their money. The first thing that you should keep in mind is the quality of your product. You need to understand the needs of your customers and come up with the best product to suit the needs. As the market and the needs of your customers keep on increasing, you should keep refining your products and services. As you’ll be in sync with the changing needs of your customers, their loyalty will increase. You should also have a USP in the product you’re selling and incorporate the same in all your campaigns. This would attract more customers and retain the existing ones for long.
Provide The Best Customer Service
As the customer is your king, your success or failure as a brand would highly depend on their reactions and feedback. You’ll have your customers’ loyalty if they are immensely satisfied and you may lose them if you disappoint them. Hence, you should always make sure that you do your best while providing customer services. Provide after-sale services to your customers for free. Give them attractive discounts and offers on a specific purchase. Send personalised messages to each of your customers regarding new ventures and offers. Ask for their feedback and work on suggestions. All of this makes a customer feel special and when they feel so, you can rest assured that you will not lose them for quite some time.
Segment Your Customers Based On Loyalty
Not all your customers have equal amount of loyalty towards the brand. There are always varying degrees of loyalty and preference when it comes to your customers. Hence, you should offer your services according to the degree of loyalty. You shouldn’t treat your annual customers in the same way as your treat your monthly customers. Always give an added incentive and benefits to the customers which are more loyal to you. Make them feel valuable and special for the fact that they are loyal to your brand. This would make the lesser loyal customers want to get more loyal and retain the already loyal ones.
Use The Digital Platforms To Popularise Your Brand
Today, almost every other brand is available online. The digital market is as competent and developed as the traditional market, if not more. Hence, you should always use various tools of digital marketing in order to increase your brand loyalty. The best part about digital platforms is the fact that they are personalised. As a brand, you will have a set database for each of your customers that you can use to target them accordingly. Send them online offers during festivals. Greet them on their birthdays and anniversaries. Shoot a mail asking what’s wrong when they haven’t visited your site for a long time. Use search engine optimisation to increase the number of visitors. If your site ranks higher on the search engine result pages, more people will visit your site and you have a greater chance to get them hooked to your products and services. Once they get a hang of your products, they will not switch to other brands so soon. Use the most unique and catchy content to attract more visitors to your site and retain your loyal visitors. Optimise the site not just for search engines but also for your customers. Hence, if you manage to build a perfect site that can attract more customers, you will not lose them soon.
Engage Your Audience Through Mobile Marketing
Over a period of time, mobile phones have become a necessity. Almost every individual today owns a mobile phone. We have reached at such a level that it is difficult to imagine even a week without our cell phones. Also, more people are replacing computers with mobile phones. Every facility that a computer can provide is available on the phone. In fact, it is reported that there are more people that use social media on the phone as compared to a laptop or a desktop. Hence, if you market your brand through your customers’ mobile phones, you can increase considerable brand loyalty. If you are an online food delivery brand, notify the customers about the status of their order on their phone. Notify your customers about the latest offers. Give receipts as a text message. As mobile phones are always at a disposal of the users, you can be sure about the message reaching to your customers. Also, phones offer a personalised experience which in turn increases your loyal customers.
Hence, customer loyalty is one of the most important factors that you need to keep in mind to establish your brand. Having surety of customers is very valuable for a brand. However, your job doesn’t end with you getting the loyal customers. You also need to work on retaining them. Though you can manage to take risks, never take your customers for granted. You need to keep striving to retain your loyal customers. There have been brands that have reached the peak of their success and lost all their customers in a jiffy. You may take years to build a loyal customer base, but it often takes hardly one mistake to lose the same. Thus, it is always good to work hard to attain loyal customers, but it is much harder to retain them.
