Negosentro.com | In the days of television and magazine advertising, the path to brand loyalty was through advertising alone. The company with the biggest advertising budgets got the choicest spots to advertise and generated more brand loyalty. However, with the coming of the digital age and the Internet, the marketing field has been leveled a bit with just about anyone being capable of creating brand loyalty, without needing a huge advertising budget. Granted, in some ways, creating brand loyalty can be more complex and difficult, with Amazon as a direct competitor, but it can also be more rewarding. It’s also an area where even the slightest innovation can yield big gains for early adopters in building brand loyalty. Here are three ways to generate brand loyalty in the digital age, which are far different than past methods.
Interactive Displays and Videos
The goal of generating brand loyalty is still accomplished the same way, in some respects. The more people you can get to view your advertising, the more it is likely to work in your favor. However, getting in front of a potential customer is now done far more easily through a web presence and mobile marketing. Yet, it can be a blessing and a curse all rolled into one as many businesses find their direct competitor is no other than Amazon, who doesn’t really care what brand of soap you buy, as long as it’s through their portal. This company knows how to get eyeballs and how to compete on price and generates a fanatical following. Businesses make the mistake of thinking that it is either a friend or foe, when likely it is just what you make of it. Instead of trying to compete on price (which never works), businesses should differentiate their service to create brand loyalty by either providing exception content of value to their customers or new technologies, like shoppable videos, interactive displays, or beacons in their stores to add a customized form of entertainment to the shopping experience.
Businesses Need to Be More Social
Instead of just placing one ad in a high-profile venue, businesses can now exploit social networking services to leverage these audiences into brand aware consumers. Brand awareness is about connection to the company’s brand and it can be accomplished by establishing conversations, publishing content, and engaging friends and followers on social media. Then, reward your most ardent brand lovers with discounts, freebies, and recognition online. You can also share, like, and comment on other people’s feeds to generate some interaction with them. Don’t just use one social networking channel, go for more than one so that you can gain a wider following and more customer insights.
The Game Has Gotten Far More Personal
Online marketers, like Amazon, gather immense amounts of data from their customers and use it to push new products and services to their attention. The fact is, the more customized your service is, the more likely the person will feel a connection to your brand. Content that directly speaks to your visitors is one way to create a feeling of intimacy and helps in building brand loyalty. Amazon may have customer data, but they don’t always have searchable content on a variety of topics. Use the customer’s names in your emails and try track buyer preferences so you can match them to your offers. A study conducted by Swirl credited personalization with an 87% increase in brand loyalty.
What About Loyalty Clubs?
There is still plenty of room for loyalty clubs, but they may be tracked via a mobile app these days. Also, the rewards offered should be personalized to the person’s preferences. Loyalty clubs can benefit from word-of-mouth, as a form of advertising, and so you should encourage them to share it with friends and followers in return for more perks. In this way, the loyalty clubs of the past change from paper cards that are easily lost to something more advanced and digital too.
