In today’s crowded marketplace, building brand loyalty is not just advantageous but it’s imperative for long term success.
So, how do you transform the way customers see your brand from just another seller to making your customer fall head over heels in love with your business?
Today, I’m sharing 3 simple ways to make your customers fall in love with your brand. Because when customers fall in love with your brand, they come back and buy time and time again.
And in a world where selling can so often feel uncomfortable, and as entrepreneurs we struggle to stand out in a crowded marketplace, we need to create brands that our consumers are falling in love with.
Be Personable: Create Authentic Connections for Brand Loyalty
So, the first strategy to make your customers fall in love with your brand is to be personable.
Being personable can mean a lot of different things, but when I say to be personable in your business, I mean that to be showing your face and building trust because people buy from people.
When you are the face of your brand, it naturally builds trust and connection with your customers.
And it helps you to show up in an authentic way when you share behind-the-scenes content, and show your personality.
If you are not a fan of showing up on social media, you can do this in emails or even with your product packaging, but it creates transparency, and it makes your brand relatable.
A brand that does this so well, whether you love them or not, I happen to love them, is Southwest Airlines.
When the flight attendants do the preflight announcements, they’re not boring. They do it in such an authentic, friendly, personality driven way, and it’s fun and lighthearted.
And I love that about Southwest. It’s no frills, and it’s definitely not a luxury airline, but they let their personality shine through, and that is part of their brand. And that’s what makes their customers be loyal to them and fall in love with Southwest Airlines.
Surprise and Delight: Going the Extra Mile for Brand Loyalty
The second simple strategy to create brand loyalty with your customers is to surprise and delight them.
That means to go above and beyond with the small unexpected details that create an unforgettable customer experience.
Some simple ways that you can do this are
- Handwritten thank you notes
- A bonus items when they make a purchase.
- You could celebrate their milestones.
- If they’re repeat buyers, you could send them a thank you email or reward them when they hit a milestone, maybe a gift for their fifth purchase.
- Celebrate their birthday with an exclusive discount. Everyone loves getting a happy birthday email with a 10% discount code.
- Feature them on your social media.
- Personalize their shopping experience. If they have ordered multiple times from you, send them a note or an email letting them know, we noticed that you love this product. Here’s something special just for you.
- Give them a surprise upgrade on their order. Maybe it’s faster shipping at no extra cost to them, or maybe you upgrade them to a larger size product than what they ordered, or maybe it’s an exclusive VIP list with early access to a sale or a secret member only coupon.
Those are easy ways to make a customer feel noticed and to elevate the customer experience.
A company that does this so well is Chewy. Chewy is a pet supply company, and I have been a long-time customer of Chewy.
When I have had medicine delivered for my pets from Chewy, they will also send a cat toy in the mail, which is so sweet.
They also have exceptional customer experience.
Chewy will donate pet food orders if a pet no longer needs them, or they’ll send handwritten holiday cards.
They do small, simple things that surprise and delight their customers, and I have long been a huge fan of that company because of the small and simple things they do to make the customer experience delightful.
Streamline the Buying Process: Remove Friction to Enhance Brand Loyalty
Our third and final easy way to build a brand that your customers will fall in love with is to make the buying process easy.
How often are you shopping or browsing on your phone and you get to the checkout, and they ask for your credit card, and they don’t have a PayPal option or something simple and easy.
And you have to actually get up to go find your credit card and, I’m just going to call it! We can all be lazy at times and you end up not making a purchase because you don’t feel like getting up right then and there.
You want to remove barriers and simplify the ordering process.
Customers are impatient, and if you make the buying process difficult, they will leave.
They may have every intention of coming back later and making that purchase, but we are forgetful creatures.
So, make sure that you remove any barriers to clicking that order button.
Here’s some other common barriers to making purchases:
- Confusing websites. Maybe it’s hard to navigate or it’s unclear, or maybe the pricing is hard to understand, or maybe it’s just a complicated checkout process in general. So, you can really create a frictionless purchasing process when you create clear, easy navigation on your website. Maybe you need to outsource that to someone to really streamline that process, and you will see the return on investment in dividends.
- Offer multiple payment options. Offer Apple Pay, PayPal, and Afterpay. There’s so many different payment options now. Make sure that you’re offering them so it’s easy for your customers to make that purchase.
- Make sure that your website is optimized for the mobile shopping experience. Over 50% of consumers are shopping on their phones, so make sure that that is easy to navigate.
- And then last but certainly not least, make sure you have a simple and easy return and exchange policy. A company that does this so well, and I’ve mentioned them before is Nordstrom. With Nordstrom, you can shop in store or online, you get free shipping, and their customer service is impeccable. I love that they make the purchasing process so easy and frictionless.
And they also do a great job of my second example, which was surprising and delighting their customers as well. So, Nordstrom is a great example of creating a brand that customers fall in love with.
So, there you have it, three ways to create brand loyalty with your customers.
- Be personable, show your face and build trust with your customers.
- Creating an unforgettable customer experience by surprising and delighting your customers.
- Remove the barriers and simplifying the purchasing process.
I want to challenge you to do one thing in your business this week to help build a brand that your customers will fall in love with.
You can post a live or a personal story on your social media. Or choose a simple way to surprise a customer and delight them this month. Perhaps you could do a self-audit of your website and your checkout process and how you can simplify that.
But choose one way that you can build a better brand that your customers will fall in love with. I’d love to hear how you make you customers fall in love with you! DM on Instagram @andeehart and let me know!
