Across the globe, 72% of customers feel loyalty to at least one brand or company.
There are many things that a business relies on to grow and succeed. One of the most crucial is brand loyalty. This is an important element, and it will take work to build it for your company.
Many people still don’t understand brand loyalty, which can be detrimental. For 5 key things you need to know about brand loyalty, keep reading.
1. What Is Brand Loyalty?
Brand loyalty is an association that people will have with your company, and the stronger it is, the more they’ll feel connected to your brand. When someone is loyal to your brand, they’ll choose you over your competitors almost every time.
It’s much easier and more cost-effective to maintain customers than it is to bring in new ones, making brand loyalty ideal for generating more sales. Loyal customers will make repeated purchases, even if other options are more affordable or accessible.
In most cases, a customer will remain loyal to a brand because they believe they get better service or higher-quality products. They’ll tend to feel a more personal connection to the brand as they trust it to meet or exceed their expectations.
Part of building customer loyalty is creating a somewhat emotional connection. People feel safer shopping with a brand they trust. If a loyal customer cannot access your products or services for whatever reason, it will create negative emotions as they’ll have to settle for another option.
As such, fostering brand loyalty will help with customer retention. This is beneficial for sales and can make it easier to bring in new customers.
2. The Importance of Brand Loyalty
Brand loyalty directly impacts your company’s revenue. It can still prove beneficial even if your other marketing efforts fail. It also produces the most effective organic marketing available through word-of-mouth.
A loyal customer will naturally turn into a brand ambassador. They’ll then talk to their friends and family about your business, highlighting why they choose to buy from you. Conversely, customers who’ve had bad experiences will speak negatively of your company to people they know.
Loyal customers are likely to provide feedback about their experiences. Listening to this feedback will help you improve your business. It will also show them that you care about their opinions, creating further brand loyalty.
When a customer is loyal to your brand, they will almost always choose you over a competitor. Depending on the nature of your business, this can create a lot of continuous sales from one individual. This tends to remain true even if your prices are higher than the competition.
It’s often more beneficial to focus on keeping current customers happy than bringing new ones in. This is because it’s significantly cheaper and easier, which helps maximize profits.
3. The Characteristics of Brand loyalty
In general, there are 5 main characteristics associated with brand loyalty. It’s important to focus on all of these so your brand loyalty strategy is as effective as possible.
Perceived Brand Value
After a customer has purchased your products or services, they’ll assess the value in terms of price and quality. When a customer decides the value is good, they’ll be more satisfied.
Perceived Brand Equity
Perceived brand equity is how the customer values a product and includes what they know and feel about your brand. This relates directly to brand satisfaction.
Perceived Brand Equality
When someone buys something, they’ll have certain expectations of what they’ll get. This tends to relate to expected standards and meeting needs. If your products meet or exceed expectations it will lead to better perceived brand equality.
Satisfaction and Trust
Satisfaction relates to how happy a customer is with their experience. In an ideal situation, the brand will fulfill the customer’s needs, and the customer will remain loyal. This builds trust that goes both ways, leading to increased customer loyalty.
Affective and Continuance Commitment
Affective commitment is based on how much a brand and its customers share the same values. Continuance commitment relates to negative feelings a customer has about a brand. Ensuring the quality of what you provide is in line with the cost will prevent customers from leaving to go with a competitor.
4. How to Build Brand Loyalty
There are several things you can do to build brand loyalty. The first is by providing good customer service. Two brands might sell similar products, but if one clearly provides better customer service, it will gain a much more loyal customer base.
You should build your brand with trust in mind. Be honest with your customers and they’ll feel more of a connection to your brand. Transparency in terms of values, ideals, goals, and practices can help significantly with this.
Another focus should be on the community. This is often best done online by creating a space where your customers can interact with one another. It will make them feel like they belong and they can share the experiences that they’ve had with your company.
Some other things you can do are:
- Get brand ambassadors
- Build your brand on consistency
- Deliver quality products
- Maintain active social media accounts
- Interact with your customers
- Offer discounts to returning customers
- Set up loyalty programs
- Don’t break confidentiality
- Act on customer feedback
It can be difficult to do all of these things effectively, but making an effort to focus on them will produce good results.
5. How it Differs From Customer Loyalty
People often confuse the two, but there are some differences. Brand loyalty relates to your customers’ perceptions of your brand. It centers around values, reputation, and past experiences.
Customer loyalty concerns the spending habits of your customers. The main driving factors are the quality and prices of what you offer. To build a successful brand, it can be beneficial to learn more about customer loyalty as well as brand loyalty.
Building Brand Loyalty
Growth and success depend on a range of factors, and in many cases, brand loyalty is one of the most important. It will ensure customers stay with your brand rather than moving on to competitors. You should strive to always maintain the best brand loyalty strategy possible to maximize sales and profit.
For more business articles, check out some of our other blog posts.
