Loyalty is a powerful emotion that leads to positive reviews, referrals and, of course, repeat business.
Loyalty is a fundamentally shared emotion, and it’s reciprocal. If you give me something, I feel compelled to return the favor – and with customers that means they’ll return to your business to support you.
Many businesses do this by giving away a free item, rewards points, bonus points, or a tangible gift like a mug, insignia sports wear for the fave local team, chocolates, or any other premium you can come up with.
Loyalty is a powerful emotion that leads to positive reviews, referrals and, of course, repeat business.
Ivan Wicksteed, CMO at Old Navy, said,
“It’s the emotional connections that a brand makes; the emotional memories, the emotional triggers that you spark that last the longest and go the deepest.”
Studies have shown that 60% of businesses have lost a customer because they feel the business is indifferent to them. (Customer Experience Insight).
Your business needs to be communicating regularly to your best customers, those that come most often and spend the most money, using offers and building a relationship encouraging and enticing them to return again and again.
Unfortunately, customers have so many choices, they have busy lives and quite often, they forget about you. Not because of indifference or dislike, but they just do not spend their day thinking about you. You need to enter into their mind intentionally. You need to make it happen.
A general rule of thumb is that you want to connect AT LEAST weekly with your customers in some form or another. That means they need to have read an email, get something in the mail, make a purchase and earn points, get a text message from you, or read a social media post.
There are endless reasons to communicate with your customers. Special events in their lives like birthdays and anniversaries, seasonal holidays, celebrations in the community you’re connected to, or any number of national days.
What matters is you take action and enter into the conversations they are having in their mind. Remember, you are building a relationship that builds loyalty, and in turn causes more repeat visits.
Some of the Business Owners we work with have built such a solid relationship that they email their list DAILY! And the response they get is overwhelmingly positive.