6 Ways to Create Brand Loyalty

by Suzanne Vara on January 19, 2010

Brand loyalty the gem of all gems. Repeat customers who without thinking twice or even considering other options are the cream of the crop. Every business aspires to be the go to and have that loyalty. Loyalty is built based upon relationships and a sense of belonging. Relationships are built from trust which are stemmed from conversation, exceptional customer service, a website or store that has the product/service desired easily accessible with a trustworthy check out. The conversation cannot be built without awareness and a willingness to buy OR be a part of. I stress the being a part of as there is an emotional connection of being a part of, interacting with the overall experience. Brand loyalty comes in different forms and is spread across various industries. Sports teams, we associate with a team that we like and become a part of a group. We support that team and bleed their colors. Why? We do not know them but yet we watch them religiously, wear their jerseys like a badge of honor and act as if we played a role in their performance. What happens when they are not doing well? Some abandon, others stay and hope for the next season. There is an emotional connection to the team and with all the other fans as we form a bond by association. Authors, we await their next book and rush out to get it. Why? We anticipate that it will meet our expectations and want it to as we feel connected to them through their writing. We are not wearing their jersey and high fiving each other with each chapter and yelling at the book to perform better but yet we feel connected to the author and other readers. As we start to think about the tools whether traditional advertising or social media that we can utilize to create brand loyalty we need to examine how we can create the loyalty by utilizing the tools.

6 Ways to Create Brand Loyalty

1. Be Better than Anyone. What is your one thing and how can you do it better than anyone? This is not to say to only have one product but more to focus on what you really do better than anyone else. Being better than anyone else does not allow for consumers to consider alternatives as they know that they cannot receive what they get with you elsewhere. Chris Brogan says it best in his Do One Thing Very Well post. 2. Belonging. Create a sense of belonging whether it be via a community that is exclusive to your brand to give people a reason to want to wear that badge. Answer why should they be

associated with you and loyal to you. Go beyond the we have a great product and identify why people would want everyone to know that they are connected to you. 3. Credibility. This is more than doing what you say you will or a product that does what you say it will. Remember we are talking about how to build loyalty with the tools available. You may have a great product, message but your marketing materials are photo copied or a profile that is a template and not reflective of your brand identity. Well done, aesthetically pleasing and user focused organized websites, materials and profiles give a sense of credibility which leads to trust. 4. Accessibility. This ties into belonging as if the right person is accessible, people want to be a part of that to say that they know this person or the CEO of the company reached out to me. This is where the humanization of the brand comes in as we are able to connect and really let people know that behind the brand is a consumer, family man/woman, etc who eats lunch, drinks coffee, etc. 5. Connectionability. How do you speak to your audience? Learn to talk like they do or teach them how you want them to talk about you. This is widely used with tag lines and the brand message however there are times that a brand takes on a new language that is driven by the audience. Know this and adopt it (so long as it is what your brand represents). Outside Nevada, it is pronounced Na-vah-da where locally it is Neh-vada. While some may use the outside version locally to grab attention, the focus goes off of the product/service and becomes about how the name is not pronounced properly. 6. Repeat. Stay on top of what consumers are saying and avoid being stale or changing too fast. Brands have a very long shelf life and those that are on top of where change or the shift in the mindset of consumers are able to adapt and maintain loyal customers. Be proactive and not reactive to try and pull people back as once they are gone, they are gone. Brand loyalty is more than the product itself. Yes, it has to perform well, actually better than any alternative so there is no alternative in the mind of the consumer but place this more in the aspect of behavior. Socially how does your product fit into their social development and why should it? Why should they want to be a part of your brand and what emotionally will they gain? In some areas it will be the perceived value vs the quality (think laundry detergent) where with a television show it is about the connection to the characters and the plot. What have you done to create brand loyalty? Is brand loyalty more about perception and being socially acceptable than it is about the product/service itself? photo credit: Muffet You might also like:
Brand Loyalty or Loyalty to the Rewards? How to Brand your Brand

5 Things A Brand Is Not

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Tagged as: brand loyalty, Social Media, traditional advertising

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Roger "Be Better Than Anyone." That says it all really.

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Suzanne Vara it really does as when you start looking at the competition and what they do and then back at your own company, it does not really so much matter as if you are doing one thing better than anyone, you will be leading the pack. Thanks for dropping in and sharing your thoughts Roger.
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The Next Generation of Consumers: Building Brand Loyalty for Small and Medium Businesses
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Brand loyalty begins in our formative years. Think breakfast cereals, soft drinks, TV programming, movie franchises, music and clothing brands. But in this era of short attention spans and exposure to myriad opinions from new social media sources, brand loyalty has become harder to sustain. Before making a purchasing decision, customers today ask for unsolicited advice from their friends on Facebook, evaluate Tweets sent out on a particular product or service, and assess consumer blogs. This growing viral phenomenon of consumer feedback on social channels can build or break brands. The advent of social media has forever changed the meaning of a customer relationship, giving customers more influence and control over brands. Clearly, the balance of power has shifted from organizations to customers, and chief marketing officers realize they need to change their marketing approaches and adopt new tools and skills to build or maintain brand loyalty. This is even harder for marketing leaders of small and midsize businesses who are responsible for driving growth and efficiency, but often have limited funds to do so. IBM research shows that when confronted with the shift toward digital technologies and social media, midmarket marketing leaders believe that enhancing customer loyalty is their top priority, and they need to find new solutions. At the same time they also have a great opportunity, since small businesses can become global brands instantly through social channels. They have to apply the right technologies to take advantage of these trends. Savvy marketers will create corporate cultures that gain insight from social media and incorporate it into their strategies. Understanding and learning from customers' behavior by listening to them will help businesses turn insight into action. The key is predicting what consumers will want and then adapting marketing strategies to give them the right product when and where they want it and at a price they're willing to pay. And it doesn't stop there. Flawless customer service is key to building brand loyalty. It's called smarter commerce, and it's a strategic approach that places the customer at the center of your business operations.

If midmarket marketing leaders are going to provide value to today's empowered customers, they need to embrace social business and advanced technologies such as analytics to understand and mine information on how individual customers are behaving and reacting to their brands. Midsize retailer Lee Jeans is using analytics technology to quickly see who's visiting its Web site, which products they're interested in, and which ones they're buying. This allows the company to plan more effective campaigns. And with merchandising information such as sales and inventory margins at their fingertips, company execs can make faster decisions and then implement those decisions with a few key strokes. Actions that used to take a couple of days to accomplish are now taking a couple of hours. Similarly, fashion house Elie Tahari is using real-time analytics to identify customer buying trends, increase customer loyalty, respond to demand, improve decision making and raise revenues. Elie Tahari's director of business applications says, "We needed a system that would quickly analyze information about what's happening on the selling floor and then share it with the right people while eliminating departmental silos." One of his business managers told him that after the analytics system went online, she was able to change her buying patterns for their retail stores to match what was selling on the floor. The lesson for small and midsize chief marketing officers? Customer loyalty is no longer a given. Unless you can act quickly on what your customers are telling you and deliver direct value to them, you cannot grow your brand or business. The usage of celebrity endorsements has been confirmed to result in more favorableadvertisement ratings and positive product evolutions (Dean and Biswas, 2001). It has evenbecome one of the most popular forms of retail advertising (Choi and Rifon, 2007). Marketershave heavily relied on celebrity endorsement, because they believe in its positive impact ofassisting in improvement of brand awareness, brand equity, and even financial returns.Celebrities are easily chosen by marketers to peddle their products. Especially in cosmeticsindustry, this tactic is commonplace and often seen in TV advertisements, magazines and othertypes of media. If you flip through the television channels, you can easily find a number ofdifferent celebrity endorsers; from Eva Longoria for LOreal to Julia Roberts for Lancme andeven Nicole Kidman for Schweppes. What do marketers expect from enormous amounts spenton celebrities appearing in their advertisements? Besides returns on the financial aspect andbrand awareness, using celebrities in advertisements can be a shortcut to assisting brands ingaining recognitions. All these efforts may be contributions in creating brand loyalty, which iswhere the marketing battle really begins. The brand loyalty concept has been somewhatoverlooked, in the sense that many studies have only been focused on the behavioral aspect.Recent studies actively propose that brand loyalty shall take both behavioral and attitudinalaspects into consideration in order to make it comprehensive. David Aaker (1991) suggested,The brand loyalty of the customer base is often the core of a brands equity. Because of theexistence of brand loyalty, it makes the brand choice and brand equity possible. For theseparticular reasons and arguments, the topic was chosen regarding both celebrity endorsement andbrand loyalty in cosmetics advertising, with the aim to probe the relationship between them. Thisstudy concerns celebrity endorsement in cosmetics advertisements and the creation of brandloyalty, thus investigating the use of celebrities in advertising and the effect it

has and if and howit contributes to brand loyalty. It is based on customers perception of this type of advertisingtechnique in relation to the cosmetics industry, and two different types of brand loyalty,attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty.The usage of celebrity endorsements has been confirmed to result in more favorableadvertisement ratings and positive product evolutions (Dean and Biswas, 2001). It has evenbecome one of the most popular forms of retail advertising (Choi and Rifon, 2007). Marketershave heavily relied on celebrity endorsement, because they believe in its positive impact ofassisting in improvement of brand awareness, brand equity, and even financial returns.Celebrities are easily chosen by marketers to peddle their products. Especially in cosmeticsindustry, this tactic is commonplace and often seen in TV advertisements, magazines and othertypes of media. If you flip through the television channels, you can easily find a number ofdifferent celebrity endorsers; from Eva Longoria for LOreal to Julia Roberts for Lancme andeven Nicole Kidman for Schweppes. What do marketers expect from enormous amounts spenton celebrities appearing in their advertisements? Besides returns on the financial aspect andbrand awareness, using celebrities in advertisements can be a shortcut to assisting brands ingaining recognitions. All these efforts may be contributions in creating brand loyalty, which iswhere the marketing battle really begins. The brand loyalty concept has been somewhatoverlooked, in the sense that many studies have only been focused on the behavioral aspect.Recent studies actively propose that brand loyalty shall take both behavioral and attitudinalaspects into consideration in order to make it comprehensive. David Aaker (1991) suggested,The brand loyalty of the customer base is often the core of a brands equity. Because of theexistence of brand loyalty, it makes the brand choice and brand equity possible. For theseparticular reasons and arguments, the topic was chosen regarding both celebrity endorsement andbrand loyalty in cosmetics advertising, with the aim to probe the relationship between them. Thisstudy concerns celebrity endorsement in cosmetics advertisements and the creation of brandloyalty, thus investigating the use of celebrities in advertising and the effect it has and if and howit contributes to brand loyalty. It is based on customers perception of this type of advertisingtechnique in relation to the cosmetics industry, and two different types of brand loyalty,attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty. The literature and theories used for investigating and supporting this area mainly focused on thetwo most important concepts for this study, celebrity endorsement and brand loyalty. In order toreview these two theories and support the research question, additional concepts concerningendorsement, attitudes, behavior, brands and products were investigated and evaluated. These inturn enabled the creation of a questionnaire, covering the area to be scrutinized.The literature and theories used for investigating and supporting this area mainly focused on thetwo most important concepts for this study, celebrity endorsement and brand loyalty. In order toreview these two theories and support the research question, additional concepts concerningendorsement, attitudes, behavior, brands and products were investigated and evaluated. These inturn enabled the creation of a questionnaire, covering the area to be scrutinized. For the purpose of this quantitative study, a self completion web based questionnaire was carriedout. The survey was sent by email to possible respondents, with a students email account atUme School of Business. The sampling method used when sending out the web survey was of anon-probability nature.For the purpose of this quantitative study, a self completion web based questionnaire was carriedout. The survey was sent by email to possible respondents, with a

students email account atUme School of Business. The sampling method used when sending out the web survey was of anon-probability nature. The findings led to a conclusion confirming that neither brand loyalty nor attitudinal loyalty isproved to be created by famous endorsers. Although, not bearing brand loyalty in mind, it can beseen that the endorsers help customers to get to know a brand better. The data findings alsosuggest that the costs of using celebrity endorsement are not reasonable in relation to gainingrespondents attitudinal loyalty. It is positively confirmed that both behavioural and attitudinalloyalty should be included when measuring actual brand loyalty concerning cosmetics brands.The findings led to a conclusion confirming that neither brand loyalty nor attitudinal loyalty isproved to be created by famous endorsers. Although, not bearing brand loyalty in mind, it can beseen that the endorsers help customers to get to know a brand better. The data findings alsosuggest that the costs of using celebrity endorsement are not reasonable in relation to gainingrespondents attitudinal loyalty. It is positively confirmed that both behavioural and attitudinalloyalty should be included when measuring actual brand loyalty concerning cosmetics brands.

obble, Gobble, Gobble Lessons From The Butterball Turkey Hotline

As marketers, we are constantly looking for ways to connect brands and consumers in meaningful and long lasting ways. Its the emotional connections that help solidify the brands place in the consumers heart and mind and create long lasting brand recognition and loyalty. The holiday season brings about many iconic images and brands that tug at our heartstrings, stir emotional responses, or just make us smile at the memory. Kay Jewelers reminds us that every kiss begins with Kay, A Christmas Story reminds us that the Red Ryder BB gun might shoot your eye out and apparently Santa prefers Coca-Cola with his cookies. These brand images are all powerful brand connections, but they lack one-on-one consumer connection. With the Thanksgiving meal beckoning us to the table to fill our plates with an abundance of turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and more, it seems Butterball comes up the hands down winner for consumer connection and brand loyalty.

Since 1981, the Butterball Turkey Hotline has been serving as the expert in all things turkey. When the hotline debuted, about 11,000 callers contacted Butterball to ask questions. In 2011, over 1 million callers contacted the hotline that is staffed by experts that are either dietitians or home economists. And even more users visit the Butterball website and Facebook for a more integrated experience that provides recipes, cooking videos, portion selectors, click to chat and more. What I find exciting and compelling is how Butterball differentiated their brand with expertise. They took customer service to a whole new level. A turkey is essentially a commodity just like produce. There is nothing special or value added about that Butterball turkey, its just like the turkey next to it. The difference is the people behind the scenes at Butterball and their commitment to delivering superior customer service. Regardless of your product, your brand has plenty of avenues to differentiate itself in the marketplace. Its only limited by your willingness to commit to a marketing path that shuns ordinary and seeks to identify a point of differentiation that creates long-term loyalty and emotional connection. You might not be in a position to save Thanksgiving, but surely youve got some panache that will make somebodys meal special.

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Leave a Comment Filed under Marketing Planning Tagged as A Christmas Story, brand connection, brand expertise, brand loyalty, Branding, Butterball, Coca-Cola, customer service, Kay Jewelers, marketing, Thanksgiving

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