Acquiring new customers is always a top priority for companies, but don’t let this overshadow your focus on your existing customer base. When you increase brand loyalty, you’ll encourage existing customers to make additional purchases. By doing so, you’ll increase their lifecycle value and your company’s revenue.
In addition to this, gaining brand loyalty can also increase brand awareness. When people go from being customers to brand ambassadors, they’re more likely to share your content, leave positive reviews and recommend your products or services to other people. This increases your reach and can help you to acquire new customers at the same time as nurturing your current customer base.
Now you know why brand loyalty is so important, find out how to develop it. With these top tips, you can begin to build long-term relationships with your customers and foster a sense of trust and brand loyalty:
1. Publish user generated content
User generated content, or UGC, is a powerful commodity. When you encourage users to create their own media and submit it to you, you’re involving them in your business and reinforcing the value you place on them. With rewards as incentives, you’ll find that people are always eager to create and share their own content.
Furthermore, UGC can be weaved into your own content strategy and used in articles, blog posts, on social media and on various other platforms. Take a look at the wide range of content expert food marketing company uses to boost their clients’ brands here, https://www.ceres-pr.co.uk/work. Whether you ask your customer base to submit videos of them unboxing new products, posts sharing their favourite brand experience or images of them experiencing your brand, you can gain their loyalty by making them part of your company.
2. Reward desired behaviour
When customers act in a positive way, make sure you recognise it and reward them accordingly. When someone makes a purchase, for example, offer them a discount on future orders. Similarly, you can send a promo code to customers when they sign up for your newsletter or share your content online.
Rewards incentivise people and encourage them to act in a particular way. By giving your customer base extra reasons to engage with your brand, you propel them further down the sales funnel. This inevitably makes it easier to reach your goals, regardless of whether they’re sales-focused or data-driven.
3. Deliver great customer service
One of the most straightforward ways to garner loyalty from your customers is to deliver great service. While this might sound obvious, you’d be amazed at how many businesses lose customers simply because they receive disappointing service. When people don’t feel valued or heard, they’ll quickly defer to a competitor who appreciates them. This means it’s vital to have an established customer service strategy if you want to maintain your market share.
Remember – things will go wrong from time to time but it’s how you handle them that makes the difference between mediocre and exceptional customer service. If someone has a query or makes a complaint, be sure to handle it quickly, compassionately and effectively.
4. Engage with your customers
Your existing customers are perfectly placed to give you honest and genuine feedback, so be sure to listen to what they’ve got to say! Using a combination of face-to-face focus groups, virtual meetings, feedback forms, surveys and social media activity, it’s easy to connect with your customers.
Inviting regular customers to join VIP groups can be an effective way to generate useful feedback and garner brand loyalty. When you establish confidential information sharing platforms, you are able to gather a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative data from people who are already enjoying your products or services. At the same time, you’re highlighting just how highly valued they are and reinforcing the important role they play in the development of your brand.
Grow Your Business with Brand Loyalty
When you increase a customer’s lifecycle value, you’re boosting your company’s future revenue and generating more turnover. However, the benefits of brand loyalty don’t stop there. Facilitating repeat transactions is typically far cheaper than acquiring new customers. This means you’ll get a better ROI when you focus on establishing brand loyalty than when you use marketing techniques to attract new customers.
While every business should aim to acquire new customers, the additional profit margins created by increased brand loyalty should never be ignored. With the potential to grow your business, increase your profits and secure your future, establishing brand loyalty should always be a top priority for your company.