What Do You Call Your Best Customers?

16 Aug What Do You Call Your Best Customers?

And he [Carl Jung] pretended, or told it in a way, as if she really had been on the moon and it had happened. And I was very rationalistically trained from school so I said indignantly, “But she imagined to be on the moon, or she dreamt it, but she wasn’t on the moon.” And he looked at me earnestly and said, “Yes she was on the moon.” Marie Louise von Franz, Matter of Heart

What we call something has more power than we realize.

It’s because words are more than just a group of symbols that just signify an object or idea: They go further than that to the point that they act as a stand in for that object or idea. In other words, they are a symbolic representation of the object or idea. And, symbols have great power because they act as a host of multiple meanings and layers of meanings within a single structure.

The symbolic power of words is why we choose the term Brand Lovers to refer to a company’s most passionate—and highest spending—customers.

We noticed a lot of companies found these customers to be “odd,” “weird,” or “crazy.” They saw their behavior as irrational. After all, why would some of them tattoo themselves with a company logo?

What is more passionate and seemingly irrational as love? You can’t understand a person’s love for something or someone through your own understanding, inclinations, or even the things or people you love. You can only understand love by empathizing with the other person and understanding their reality.

Calling these passionate and valuable fans Brand Lovers is a constant reminder to us and our clients to understand these customers on their terms instead of ours.

And, doesn’t thinking of them as Brand Lovers rather than “crazy” create a much different attitude and set of associations?

What do you call your best customers?