Customer Expectations
Brands are an integral part of our life today. As said by the marketing gurus that people want to identify themselves and their personalities with the brands they use. From Mobile phones we use to the clothes we wear, we buy them because we can relate to them.
This way customers tend to develop a relationship and love for all the things and brands they own. The point I am trying to make here is that it is a basic human tendency to expect something from our loved ones and a brand is not an exception to that.
Hence, knowingly or unknowingly customers expect something more from the brands. And if they get this something more they are happy. And obviously happy customers tend to stick longer to the brand and stay loyal. This is where loyalty marketing comes into the picture.
What is Loyalty Marketing?
Loyalty marketing involves strategies which make customers loyal and which reward them for being loyal. It’s not just the reward but the customers want the brands to make them feel special for using their services or products. This feeling of being special is the key to loyalty.
This can be done in many ways, one of the straight forward ways is to make your product so different and so good that customers fall in love with them and cannot think of a life without them. An example of this is Apple, Facebook etc.; they made products/services which are irreplaceable for most of their customers.
Another way is to run some loyalty marketing program for the brand. One of the best examples that I came across was Decathlon.
Decathlon keeps organizing various training programs like Zumba, Yoga, Basketball training, Skating, etc. Many of them are free of cost and few are available for a minimal cost. All these training sessions are conducted at their facility, they also provide the required facilities and equipment like a football ground and football for football training.
This makes the customers feel special as Decathlon ensures that customers not only purchase products, they also use it or learn to use it. This adds great value for all the customers as they are taking something more than just Decathlon products from there. This is a great example of loyalty marketing.
The old school way of Loyalty Marketing
We have also seen the common loyalty marketing at retail stores which issue cards or membership to their customers. And there are perks associated with the cards like access to sale items before others, reward points, special discounts etc. This is what I like to call old school loyalty marketing programs as they have been in the industry for a long time. Today nobody thinks of this as value addition.
Conclusion
Brands need to think out of the box because making someone feel special is not that easy. It looks like a difficult task, but it won’t be if you try to see the picture from the customer's point of view.
So, just put yourself into the customer's shoes and then go ahead and make a strategy for your brand's loyalty marketing.
Loyalty Marketing is one of the advantages of creating Facebook Community. Click here to read my blog on Facebook Community.