The customer-purchasing process is a very long and winding road. There are multiple touchpoints on a number of different channels interweave in order to form a buyer’s journey which is difficult to predict as well as influence to make a sale.
Even for the experienced marker, marketing to draw in new customers and clients is challenging. However, assuming you already have a roster of customers or clients on your books, you are able to focus less on acquisition and then focus more on keeping current customers happy and coming back for more of what you offer. The associated costs will also be less as opposed to the costs associated with customer acquisition. To achieve this, you can look to build brand loyalty and reward your current customers.
The Behaviour Of Modern Customers
Modern customers comb websites and research products that they’re thinking of buying prior to making their actual purchase. When customers are 60 – 80% of the way down the sales funnel before they speak to anyone at your business, you aren’t able to rely on traditional methods in order to generate loyalty. At the same time, less and less clients remain loyal to one particular brand.
Loyal customers are lucrative customers: repeat customers are much cheaper to market to spend more as well as make more frequent purchases. However, only 27% of initial sales go on to become repeat customers. Organisations need to invest in building loyalty among their customers.
Subliminally, consumers remember feeling linked to a brand even if they don’t remember the brand name or advertisement. So, branding and marketing may help in the struggle for a loyal customer base. However, they have to be done right.
What Is Brand Loyalty? Why Is It Important?
Brand loyalty is when individuals strongly favour a specific brand over all the others. They don’t need to be persuaded or heavily marketed to as they already enjoy your products and choose them even over competitors with similar offerings.
Almost 80% of consumers say that it takes at least three purchases before they considered themselves brand loyal. Noteworthy reasons for claiming brand loyalty included great deals, sales and above and beyond customer service. They also said that they’re more likely to become brand loyal sooner if they get access to exclusive discounts through a loyalty programme.
