Marketing is the practice of allocating resources to gain awareness and consideration from future customers for purchase of a product or service. Marketing is about creating customers.
A brand is a relationship, formed and shaped by all the emotions and ideas that the customer associates with a product or service that create a distinct customer experience.
A brand is a co-authored experience—a mutual relationship that lives between the customer and the brand. Branding is the process of cultivating relationships with your customers on tangible (logos) and intangible (emotions) levels.
Brand loyalty occurs when your branding efforts are effective. Your customers develop an emotional bond with your brand. They become loyal to your products and services. (Degrees of loyalty vary, of course. See “Brand Loyalty Continuum” section here.)
Why Building Brand Loyalty Is Important
When you help develop a strong bond between your brand and your customer, magic occurs. You can naturally increase customer retention. Frequency of purchase often goes up. You command a greater share of wallet from your customers as you become more meaningful to them and more worthy of a business relationship.
If you’re successful at building brand loyalty, your customers will help you grow your business themselves, helping you harness the power of word of mouth.
Do you need another reason? It can actually makes your business practices more fun and engaging as you’ll be building relationships with real human beings. It can make you feel more human too!
Attend Our New Marketing Seminar on Brand Loyalty
Building brand loyalty rarely happens by accident. Cult Brands are skilled at creating customer evangelists, but you don’t have to be a Cult Brand to reap the benefits of brand loyalty. You can model the marketing and branding strategies of Cult Brands by understanding the psychology of your customers: what drivers the behavior behind customer loyalty.
We’ll be exploring this topic in greater detail at our next Winter Marketing Seminar on December 6th at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando. This intimate seminar, “How to Build Brand Loyalty: The Art of Getting Your Customers to Love You,” will explore ways your brand can develop stronger emotional connections with your customers.
You’ll meet other like-minded marketers and exchange ideas to help you grow your businesses in this fast-changing marketplace.
Former Chief Marketing Officer of PetSmart, Ken Banks, will also be sharing how your company can develop a more resonant brand and reach more customers by understanding the four “Buying Styles” your customers have.