How to Build Brand Loyalty with Your Consumers

In today’s oversaturated market, brand loyalty is essential. On the long and winding path from a consumer’s eyes to their wallet, many brands lose sight of the big picture: fostering brand loyalty in a select few segments is more cost-effective than getting thousands of individuals to simply notice your brand. In the long run, it’s also more profitable to cultivate a loyal customer base that will keep coming back vs. using resources on getting people to make one purchase.

Why Brand Loyalty is Important:

Brand loyalty is based on the public perception of your brand, meaning that people are loyal to the image and values of the brand rather than just the pricing or the product. Your everyday customer may purchase more than once if it’s a good product, but they are also liable to switch brands if the price is right.

Brands can foster loyalty by examining how they engage with the world, leaning into data to figure out what their consumers care about. 83% of millennials favor brands that align with their values, prioritizing ethical consumption over price. Once you have a grasp on the segments of customers that keep coming back, you can then tie your promotions and content to values that resonate with your customers, perhaps highlighting sustainability or ethical production for the web visitors that engage with those causes.

Brand loyalty sets the stage for repeat purchases and increased revenue by encouraging customers to refer their network to a brand and trust them for future purchases. 81% of customers trust recommendations from family and friends over those from companies. It also costs less to retain brand-loyal customers than it does to recruit new customers. And it pays off: 65% of revenue in most companies comes from repeat business with existing clients.

How to Build Brand Loyalty with Personalization:

88% of consumers say it takes three or more purchases to build brand loyalty. Here’s how personalization can help improve brand loyalty with your customers:

• Develop content that speaks to your brand values: Content is still king in today’s marketing sphere. Whether it’s detailed product descriptions, a mission statement, or About Us pages, a consumer will appreciate getting to know more about how your brand lines up with their values. Once you’ve built out content on your website, you can then personalize the browsing experience for each new visitor using machine learning to collect and act on consumer data. For example, if a consumer values sustainability, the content they see on your website should reflect that.
• Give consumers autonomy and choice: Allow your consumers to opt in to sharing their data, and make it clear what features they will enjoy if they do. For example, signing in and creating an account at the time of purchase can enable you to save their purchase history and offer promotions for the products they purchase the most. Even if they choose not to share data, there are still ways you can personalize your website or other channels to cater to the values and interests of each consumer. An easy example that you’ve probably seen before is pushing a promotion for first-time purchases. Respecting privacy while still serving up relevant content helps foster brand loyalty by providing a good customer experience.

• Use behavioral data over demographic data: In this day and age, personalizing based on age or sex doesn’t cut it. Behavioral data enables personalization that delights customers and makes them feel understood. One of the CPG food brands that we work with personalizes their website based on patterns in browsing history: after John has viewed a few gluten-free recipes and air fryer recipes, the AI engine gets the hint and pushes more relevant content to that consumer. Then, on John’s version of the homepage, they’ll see more recipes that fit their dietary preferences as well as the materials they use to cook.

70% of consumers say that how well a company understands their individual needs impacts their loyalty. The way for brands to demonstrate understanding of their consumers is to implement thoughtful personalization that inspires brand loyalty by being uniquely engaging and informative.