Brand loyalty can make or break your business, here’s how to keep their interest

Brand loyalty is a powerful thing.

Loyal customers spend more and tend to have higher repeat purchases. They also often cost less to market to and buy more often. 

All of that sounds like a recipe for success. 

After all, what business wouldn’t like to add a surefire way to increase their bottom line? 

The issue is many brands don’t spend enough time cultivating relationships with their current customers. The primary focus is often the chase to find new blood. And while that is a vital part of any marketing strategy, your business needs to approach it with the long game in mind. 

That doesn’t mean just getting a new customer and going off to look for the next. It means cultivating loyalty with brand new customers — and even potential customers — right from the start. 

So how can you do that?

One approach is through email. 

Learn what makes your customers tick and personalize for it

The truth of the matter is a lot of consumers don’t have as much brand loyalty as they used to. There are many reasons for that, including customer service, pricing, and lack of personalized experiences as well as poorly performing loyalty programs. 

All of those factors combine to make it more difficult than ever to get customers to stick with you and not go out searching for the next shiny new deal. 

But there are ways you can counteract the trends, and one way is diving deep into learning about your customers.

Your journey to inspiring customer loyalty should start with the very first contact you have with them. 

The more information you can glean from your customers, both current and potential, the better. As you learn more about your customer’s behavior and motivations, you can craft content and emails that cater directly to their needs. 

That type of personalization can make a difference in a crowded inbox. When a consumer opens an email and gets personalized content that speaks directly to them, it’s something where they will pay attention. 

Here’s one example, a localized email that focuses on geolocation: 

With an email like this one, your customer is getting information that matters to them. A tasty new burrito sounds great, but if it’s not going to be at a restaurant close to you, why should you care?

This email personalizes in a few ways. First, it can highlight some past customer behavior. Burrito lovers can get a different email compared to everyone else. It also looks at something that’s deeply personal to most people, where they live. 

So right from this one email, current customers are encouraged to come back and buy more. Simple concepts like this are a great way to build brand loyalty, and it starts with understanding your customers and personalizing content for them.

Build loyalty programs that matter

Loyalty programs, rewards programs, VIP programs, all of these are hot topics when it comes to building brand loyalty. 

But, there’s a big difference between having a standard-issue loyalty program and developing something that actually influences consumers to become loyal. 

Starbucks has a good example of a loyalty program that attracts customers to buy and incentivizes them along the way. 

The company offers a loyalty program that rewards customers with free drinks, refills, special offers, and discounts the more they buy. For huge coffee consumers, all of these perks can make them dedicated Starbucks drinkers. 

Members get all sorts of personalized loyalty focused emails each month that drop surprise discounts and events just like this one:

But they also have some perks that entice uncommitted potential customers too. For example, they offer a free birthday coffee upon signup. 

Starbucks also has an app that’s basically dedicated to their rewards program. Users can track their rewards levels, a bit of fun gamification, check special offers, and even pay from it at stores. 

How does that translate to the bottom line? In 2019, Starbucks cited it had nearly 17 million members in the program. These loyal customers account for approximately 40% of all transactions and tend to spend more per purchase. 

See why building a great loyalty program can make a massive difference in how your customers interact with your brand?

As you focus on building better brand loyalty think about how you can approach your customers with more personalized content and better rewards to keep them engaged and ready to buy from you again and again.