To stay in business, a brand has to continually entice new customers and generate income. In order to do this, you may either sell to your current clientele or draw in new ones.
The second choice is both cheaper and simpler. Through social media and email, you may market to your current consumers who are already familiar with your brand, have purchased from you in the past, and can be reached for practically no money out of pocket.
The same is true for clothing companies, automakers, and even health and beauty companies. A devoted following of customers might advance your brand. Here are five quick strategies to encourage repeat business.
1. Create an online community
Building an online community for your customers to interact with each other as well as your brand further fuels the loyalty aspect. Also, with most sales occurring online today, it creates a very seamless bridge from community interaction to purchase conversion.
Use your community as a gathering spot for news, updates, access to sales and drops before the general public and more. You can build an online community as an extension and feature of your website, accessed when members log into their accounts, or host it on a third-party platform like Facebook, creating a private group.
As your community grows, so does the impact on your brand. Create a hashtag for your community members and watch how many will start to use it organically across social media. This also leads to natural discovery by new customers who then also become community members.
2. Have a high-quality product or service
You could have the largest marketing budget, an army full of celebrity influencers, and a well-designed plan, but if your product or service is subpar, you will never build a loyal customer base. Consumers can spot a cash grab a mile away and have no problem voicing their displeasure on social media.
Take pride in your service or product and ensure it’s the highest quality before expecting your customer base to roll over and love your brand and become a loyal advocate and supporter. A smart brand will know its customers’ needs, wants, desires and expectations — and deliver on all of those.
When you put quality before anything else, your customers will never have a reason to go elsewhere. A great service or product is the foundation for any brand’s success.
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3. Take your customer service to the next level
Want your customers to be loyal? Then ensure they have a pleasant experience with your brand after the sale. Customer service comes at a cost — having chat reps available 24/7 online, social-media managers checking tags, mentions, and DMs for customer-service issues, phone operators, support-ticket staff, and more.
But when you offer reliable customer service, it has a positive impact on creating a loyal customer base. Have you ever reached out to a company and your phone call was rerouted to several different reps, none of whom could resolve your issue? It’s very frustrating and makes you never want to engage with the brand again.
Invest in your customer service and watch how much of a return it generates. Any brand that has plans to be around for a long time needs to invest heavily in the support — speed and quality — offered to its customers.
4. Be transparent and raw on social media
Consumers are naturally attracted to and loyal to brands that are real and raw — brands that show emotion as well as a human side to them, beyond just the corporate logo. Social media gives you a platform to leverage and allows your customers to see the other side — beyond the advertisements.
Use social media to host Q&As and live streams with different employees and staff members. Take your followers on behind-the-scenes tours of your manufacturing facility, warehouse, and offices.
The more “real” your brand appears on social media, the stronger that connection becomes, which directly translates to customer loyalty. When consumers feel connected beyond the sale, they are going to continue to support the brand to maintain that feeling of being involved and deeply rooted in the brand’s activities.
5. Launch a customer-loyalty program
Want more loyal customers? Reward their loyalty with a rewards program. This can be a points system that can be redeemed for store credit, discounts, or free products. Many businesses balk at the idea because they associate it with a hard cost. Sure, it comes with an expense, but it’s far less than your brand would spend attracting a new customer.
There is a tonne of pre-built alternatives for Shopify and WordPress that you can use to develop a customer loyalty program that blends with the branding of your website and operates in the background to reward and foster loyalty. You can install and set up these apps and plugins in just a few minutes.
Loyalty programs are particularly beneficial for businesses that sell expensive goods. Giving loyalty program members a little discount might encourage them to choose your brand over a less expensive alternative since they will be receiving a special discount.
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