10 Things That Will Make Customers Love Your Brand
Connect with your audience and make them fall in love with your company.
With so many brands out there, providing endless choices for millions of consumers – how do you get people to love your brand? Trust is one of the most valuable traits between a brand and a customer. Yet trust doesn’t just grow on trees. Brands must earn that trust, which is a constant process to achieve in a highly competitive marketplace.
So let’s talk about how your brand can get a customer’s trust, support, and love. Here are 10 ways to connect with your customers and make people absolutely love your brand.
Be Honest
Honesty, yes…is still the best policy. It sounds cliché, but being honest and transparent with your audience is a direct way to their heart. Honesty shows you care about your customers, their needs, and getting the results they’re looking to achieve. Don’t try to hide or deflect unflattering aspects about your brand or service. If something bad happens or if there’s a product situation, it’s key to just be honest, remedy the problem, and move on. When left in the dark, customers tend to assume the worst. Being honest with your audience helps get rid of this uncertainty and shows your brand’s genuine nature.
Be Authentic
Consumers can spot disingenuous tactics from a mile away. Today, people are more aware of their buying habits and want to align themselves with brands who ‘keep it real’. It’s key to define who your audience is and speak to them directly. You don’t need to appeal to everyone, you’ll then become a watered down version of yourself. Just be real, be genuine…and be you! People are loyal to certain brands because it aligns them with a community of people with shared interests. Show your customers that you care about the same values, lifestyle, and interests they truly care about. For instance, your company can make a donation on behalf of your customers to an organization they support. Action always speaks louder than words.
Also, a “behind-the-scenes” view of your business provides a sense of authenticity. Give your audience an inside look at your employees, your workspace, and even how your products are made.
Listen
Listening is a crucial element in any healthy relationship. Listening to customers is more than just hearing about problems, it’s about making a connection on a personal level. It involves paying close attention to a customer’s needs and understanding how to help them achieve their goals. Today, social media is a great platform to listen to your audience. Social listening gives your brand an opportunity to track, analyze, and respond to conversations about them on social media. Knowing how people feel about certain products, social topics, and trends will help keep your marketing efforts on track. Social listening also allows you to respond right away to positive or negative posts.
Communicate Frequently
People love to be in the know, so be sure to communicate with your customers on a frequent basis. Be an open, resourceful channel for people to get breaking news, brand info, product updates, and so forth. Utilizing digital and social networks will help let customers know exactly what is going on with your brand. It’s important to keep a constant line of communication to retain trust, interest, and loyalty to help your brand stay relevant.
Be Unique
People don’t buy for logical reasons, they buy for emotional ones. If your brand has a unique ‘cool’ factor, that can go a long way. The most lovable brands are the ones that have a recognizable and fun personality. When it comes to customer engagement and communication retention, ‘different’ differentiates your brand from the pack. Let your business' personality shine within your traditional marketing communications and digital content. Be personal, relatable, brave, interesting, and fun. In this digital age, consumers are looking for brands that have a unique story to tell, create incredible content, and share similar interests and viewpoints. From your products and services to your social content, it’s advantageous to your brand when you ‘dare to be different’.
Great Customer Service
When it all boils down, nothing seems to beat good old, friendly, and responsive customer service. It’s important that shoppers feel secure, relaxed, and fairly treated. Recent findings strongly indicate that reliable customer service is still as crucial as ever:
73% of customers love a brand because of friendly customer service
89% of customers have stopped doing business with a brand after experiencing poor customer service
70% of customers base their buying experiences on how they feel they are being treated
55% of customers would pay more for a better customer experience
Be proactive to mitigate problems and respond quickly to customer issues. Deliver on time, every time. Have a gift, credit, or some other way to 'make it right' with customers that have a below standard experience. Go the extra mile, be friendly, courteous, attentive, and treat your customers as an extension of yourself…because they are.
Reward Your Customer
Rewarding your customers not only shows that you appreciate their business, it also helps you gain more customer trust and love. It’s psychology 101, really. Whether it’s personal or business, feeling appreciated makes people more compelled and happy to continue the relationship. Start by offering incentives, promotions, and special offers. Implement a reward series for your customers through customized incentives, events, and social media. Create unique experiences like a fun online or in-person event for VIPs and loyal customers. Give them sneak peeks into product development, allow them to be the first to try out a new service, or offer discounted rates only available to paying customers. Also, social media is the perfect platform to reward people and spread customer love. For instance, you can retweet customers' tweets of things they care about or successes they’ve had.
Create Amazing Content
Right now, companies are sharing more relevant information to retain loyalty and build trust with their customers. In fact, 75% of customers get to know and trust brands through content rather than traditional advertising. Providing fresh, unique content is a way to humanize your brand and share information with people without seeming intrusive. It’s important that content reflects your target audience’s voice, tone, personality, interests, and mindset. Content that’s authentic and genuine creates an instant connection between your customer and brand. For instance, during the pandemic brands like Dove and Sam’s Club created compelling campaigns highlighting everyday heroes who worked on the frontlines. Both of these campaigns created content that resonated powerfully with millions of people.
Believe In Your Brand
If you’ve ever witnessed an evangelist give a sermon, they back their words with great conviction, faith, and a powerful presence. That’s how you should broadcast your brand, product, or service – with 100% absolute belief! Even a simple email can convey enthusiasm that moves mountains. Be unwavering about your commitment to the quality of your product. Let people know about your production methods, your dedicated workforce, and sourcing. If your advertising, digital marketing, and social content displays excitement about your brand, your customer will hopefully feel the same as they click the ‘buy’ button.
Stay Consistent
Customers love reliability. Whether it’s getting a shipment on time, package design, or brand messaging, people like things consistent with their expectations. If your brand isn’t ‘on brand’, customers won’t stick around long. Maintaining consistency lets people know what to expect, makes them feel comfortable at purchase, and raises the intrinsic value of your brand. So however people interact with your brand, it’s important to have consistency in every touchpoint. Your content, delivery, tone, voice, and imagery are all pieces to keep consistent.
When it comes to brands, love (and trust) is a two-way street. The more you do for your customers, the more they will support your brand. These efforts will not only make people fall in love with your brand, they’ll work to help create loyal customers. And when you’re building brand loyalty and driving growth, that's truly a win-win situation.
