10 Tips for Building Brand Loyalty

Does your brand have a dedicated following? Whether you sell pizzas or insurance policies, brand loyalty matters; it’s good for business. Attracting and maintaining customers long term ultimately leads to increased profits: According to Adobe, repeat customers buy nearly 30% more items per order than first-time shoppers and are nine times more likely to convert than first-time shoppers.

So, how do you drive brand love when immediate access to your competitors is just a click away? Here’s a few ideas for attracting and keeping customers:

1. Establish your brand identity. Know who you are—and then stick with it, using consistent messaging from the top of the sales funnel to the bottom, as well as across channels.

2. Make it personal. Develop messages that are tailored specifically to your target audience: That personal connection makes your customers feel like you are speaking directly to them, not to the masses.

According to an Infosys study, 86% of consumers surveyed said personalization plays a role in their purchasing decisions—and 73% said they preferred to do business with brands that use personal information to make their shopping experience more relevant.

3. Listen to your customers. Find out what they want or need—and then dig deeper: Why? How? Answering these important questions can help you better align your products/services/delivery methods to better meet customer needs and expectations. What’s more, we all like to be heard. Asking for feedback sends a clear message to your customers that their opinions matter.

4. Provide Raving Fan customer service. There’s a lot of competition out there touting better, faster, less expensive products/services, so exceed their expectations with standout customer service. Do the unexpected things that let your customers know you care: Make a follow-up phone call, send a personal email, share an article or video that aligns with their industry or interest, or surprise them with breakfast for their next staff meeting.

5. Prompt ongoing brand experiences. Keep your brand front of mind by making connections with your customers at various times during a transaction or program experience using blogs, emails, social media prompts, and more. In this age of immediate access, out of sight means out of mind, so keep your brand relevant with frequent, strategic touches.

6. Create Community. Engage with your customers and ask them to share photos of themselves at your event or using your products on social media—facebook, Instagram, twitter, Pinterest. Shared posts on these channels will start a conversation about your brand, and will also foster an emotional connection—think happy, exciting, motivating, inspirational, etc.

7. Innovate. Quality counts, as does innovative product/service offerings. By continuing to improve, evolve and introduce new products or solutions, your customers will associate your brand with what’s next.

8. Create a consistent experience. Give your customers the quality and the experience they have come to expect from your brand, every time. Example: I know I’m going to get the same bold cup of coffee from a new Starbucks location as I do when I visit my regular store—that consistency is expected.

9. Be transparent and honest. If there is a customer service issue, a product problem or a mistake, own it. Your customers will appreciate hearing directly from you, rather than through another source.

10. Recognize loyal customers. Whether you offer points for transactions, reward service anniversaries, or simply connect with customers who have been with you for a while, it’s important to show existing customers that you appreciate their business. And, a customer loyalty effort is less expensive than spending marketing dollars on new-customer development.

Do you have any tips that you’d add to this list for boosting brand loyalty? Please share your thoughts on our Facebook page.

All the best,
Tim Connor

Make Tangible Brand Connections with Experiential Marketing

More experiences. Less stuff. That pretty much sums up the millennial mindset. Today, more young adults are choosing experiences over possessions…like travel over a new car; or concert tickets instead of designer shoes.

Experiences matter—not only in everyday life, but also in marketing. The rise of experiential marketing gives today’s mobile-driven consumers what they want: A firsthand, engaging and tangible connection with your brand.

Creating these brand experiences is simply smart business: According to data from the Event Marketing Institute, 72% of consumers say they view brands that provide quality experiences more positively, and nearly three-quarters said that when they can engage with a brand's experience, they're more likely to invest in its products or services.

When you consider that 49% of people create mobile video at branded events — 39% of which is shared on Twitter — it makes sense to incorporate subtle branding in a way that can be shared socially to drive recognition beyond the event or experience.

A great example of experiential marketing done right is Google’s Mini Donut Shop experience: To promote the new Google Home Mini automated assistant—which happens to be the size of a donut—Google opened pop-up donut stores in strategic cities. They welcomed visitors inside where they were met by conveyor belts moving donuts and Google Minis throughout the space. When the customer asked the Mini a question, a donut box slid down the conveyor and onto the counter—some boxes contained donuts, and others, the new Google Home Mini. Watch the video:


Google Home Mini Donut Shop

The campaign was a success because it was engaging, unexpected and multi-sensory—there was a “sprinkle” booth that showered customers with confetti. Combining Google and irresistible donuts was a genius idea that created a viral celebration surrounding the brand.
If you can’t go as big as Google with a pop-up store experience, consider borrowing a few of the essential elements from the campaign: Create a non-venue venue (in a park, a neighborhood, a lobby, etc.); create/encourage interaction with your product; provide a giveaway; and create a hashtag to drive social media sharing.

Can you think of an experiential marketing campaign that caught your attention? Join the conversation on Facebook.

B2B Marketing 2018: 4 Hot Trends

Digital technology has changed the way we communicate. Whether scheduling a meeting or participating in a video conference, we can now manage those tasks using our digital devices—functionality that makes the everyday a lot easier. It follows then, that to be effective in B2B marketing, digital must be a central part of your approach.
  

A recent article in Entrepreneur magazine explains the shift to digital:

 

“While the traditional B2B model was about targeting the B2B buyers and purchasing managers, the reality is that today any B2B prospect employs younger managers who research online. Typically, millennials, they are digital savvy and they look up the vendor’s digital assets to develop a clear picture of the vendor’s offering.”

 

The article concludes that if you’re talking the researcher’s digital language—and making it easier for them to search and find your value proposition upfront—then you’ll rank higher on the consideration list of the B2B buyer, thus increasing your likelihood of making the sale.

 

For best results, take the time to ensure that your B2B marketing program is aligned with these digital trends:

  

Mobile. To demonstrate your value to potential customers, go to where the millennial researcher is always present: Mobile. (More than 42% of B2B prospects use a mobile device at some point during their mobile journey; and 57 percent of all internet traffic now comes from smartphones and tablets.) To provide a seamless user experience, your website must be responsive to digital: How quickly do your pages load? Are your videos in vertical format? Do they have subtitles? Test drive your site and adjust accordingly.

  

Social Media. Traditionally, social media was considered a lead generation tool for B2C marketing, but more B2B marketers are using these channels to target and communicate with potential prospects. 

 

• 53% of B2B prospects say that social media played a role in their buying decision.
• LinkedIn, with its exploding use of video, is the emerging channel for B2B marketers.

Review your social media plan and identify opportunities for new customer interaction. 

 

Content Marketing & Personalization. As part of a smart content marketing strategy fueled by data, you can ensure you’re delivering the right message at the right time to the right audience. After segmenting your email list, further segment your contacts with demographic data, customer lifecycle positioning, lead nurturing and trigger-based messaging.

 

 

Video. Interactive formats, like video, account for half of all mobile traffic—be sure to incorporate video into your digital presence—on your website, in blogs, on your LinkedIn page, etc. These statistics from Hubspot (April 2018) reinforce the power of video in marketing:

 

• 97% of marketers say video has helped increase user understanding of their product or service.
• 76% say it helped them increase sales.
• 80% of marketers say video has increased dwell time on their website.

At Shamrock, we continue to review our B2B marketing practices and recalibrate based on new trends—and digital is one of them. Our big push is in incorporating more video. What’s yours?

 

Ellen Moriarty

10 Tips for Building Brand Loyalty

I’ve been with the same mobile provider for 20+ years; and I’ve used the same brand of soap for as long as I can remember. I guess it’s fair to say I’m a brand loyalist.

A recent article in Entrepreneur magazine addressed the issue of whether such brand loyalty is a dying trend. It cited statistics on both sides of the argument: According to a study from Retail Perceptions, millennials expect brands to earn their loyalty—and they rank product quality as more important than a brand name. Yet, a Facebook survey showed that 77% of consumers returned to the same brands over and over again.

Where do you fall between these two camps? How about your customers? Whether your business is selling pizzas or insurance policies, brand loyalty matters. We all want to attract and maintain our customers long term. Ultimately, that loyalty leads to increased profits. So, how do we drive that brand love when immediate access to competitor brand information is just a click away? Here’s a few ideas for attracting and keeping loyal customers:

1. Establish your brand identity. Know who you are—and then stick with it, using consistent messaging across all channels.

2. Make it personal. Develop messages that are tailored specifically to your target audience: That personal connection makes your customers feel like you are speaking directly to them, not to the masses.

According to an Infosys study, 86% of consumers surveyed said personalization plays a role in their purchasing decisions—and 73% said they preferred to do business with brands that use personal information to make their shopping experience more relevant.

3. Listen to your customers. Find out what they want or need—and then dig deeper: Why? How? Answering these important questions can help you better align your products/services/delivery methods to better meet customer needs and expectations. What’s more, we all like to be heard. Asking for feedback sends a clear message to your customers that their opinions matter.

4. Provide Raving Fan customer service. There’s a lot of competition out there touting better, faster, less expensive products/services, so exceed their expectations with standout customer service. Do the unexpected things that let your customers know you care: Make a follow-up phone call, send a personal email, share an article or video that aligns with their industry or interest, or surprise them with breakfast for their next staff meeting.

5. Prompt ongoing brand experiences. Keep your brand front of mind by making connections with your customers at various times during a transaction or program experience using blogs, emails, social media prompts, and more. In this age of immediate access, out of sight means out of mind, so keep your brand relevant with frequent, strategic touches.

6. Create Community. Engage with your customers and ask them to share photos of themselves at your event or using your products on social media—facebook, Instagram, twitter, Pinterest. Shared posts on these channels will start a conversation about your brand, and will also foster an emotional connection—think happy, exciting, motivating, inspirational, etc.

7. Innovate. Quality counts, as does innovative product/service offerings. By continuing to improve, evolve and introduce new products or solutions, your customers will associate your brand with what’s next.

8. Create a consistent experience. Give your customers the quality and the experience they have come to expect from your brand, every time. Example: I know I’m going to get the same bold cup of coffee from a new Starbucks location as I do when I visit my regular store—that consistency is expected.

9. Be transparent and honest. If there is a customer service issue, a product problem or a mistake, own it. Your customers will appreciate hearing directly from you, rather than through another source.

10. Recognize loyal customers. Whether you offer points for transactions, reward service anniversaries, or simply connect with customers who have been with you for a while, it’s important to show existing customers that you appreciate their business. And, a customer loyalty effort is less expensive than spending marketing dollars on new-customer development.  

Do you have any tips that you’d add to this list for boosting brand loyalty? Please share your thoughts on our Facebook page

All the best,
Tim Connor