Building engaging brand experiences is essential in the new marketing eco-system to solidify loyalty among your customers. For the past few years digital marketing has been able to differentiate and help brands to cultivate valuable relationships with their customers. Unfortunately this medium of communication has quickly become saturated and just like TiVo did to the TV ad, new software and web browsers are being used to block corporate and unsolicited messages online. This is why it is more important than ever to find disruptive ways to establish and build relationships with your customers turning, one-time triers into loyal lifelong buyers.
Seth Godin has a very thought provoking piece on his blog recently regarding loyalty (find it here). He tells us that there are two types of loyalty, ‘the loyalty of convenience’ and ‘the loyalty of being stuck.’ While the second may sound unattractive it is actually the goal every brand strives to achieve. It is the point where your brand is looked at with out any consideration for your competition. Godin says, “This is the loyalty of, ‘I’m the kind of person that sticks with people who stick with me.’ This is the loyalty of someone who doesn’t even want to know that there’s a better deal somewhere else, because, after all, he’s in it for the long haul.”
So how do you earn this type of loyalty? As the question implies, you have to earn it. It cannot be created or fabricated. This loyalty takes a connection with the consumer that ensures your customers feel that your brand has invested in them, and that is why they will continue to invest in you. You have to begin by reinforcing the relationships you have established, personifying your brand to your customers. Allowing people to feel like your brand has human characteristics allows them to build a more meaningful personal relationship.
The challenge with the ‘loyalty of convenience’ is that you must constantly build new barriers to your competition. And your competition will inevitably overcome these superficial fears.
Look at Coca-Cola, they embrace the “traditional” message that the brand has long promoted. Yet, Coca-cola is also moving beyond the traditional streams to connect with their customers and has invested hugely in disruptive ways to broadcast their message. In one of their latest campaigns “Coke Rolls Out Happiness,” they created a lush green park in the middle of a drab concrete city square. This experiential marketing campaign lives both as a visual (video ad) and physical experience for Coke and it reaches consumers in either medium.
The point is that they are creating experiential marketing arenas for their customers to both appreciate their product and feel special for being a part of the brand. By drinking coke consumers are promoting happiness too. These experiences can be the difference between establishing convenience and creating a lifelong loyal (stuck) customer.
What brand’s are you stuck on? Can you trace it back to specific moment in your life? Let us know! Share your thoughts with us below or on our Facebook page!