Be Mine: How Brands are Courting Their Customers
By ANA Staff
Getting customers to fall in love and stay in love with your brand can be challenging in a highly-competitive market. Gone are the days of frequent buyer punch cards. To truly stand out with consumers, brands have had to step outside of the more traditional methods of garnering loyalty. Here are five ways brands can woo their customers and keep them coming back for more.
- Cut out the confusion: The Wyndham Hotel Group wanted to differentiate itself from its competition by transforming its loyalty program. The brand recognized that reward programs were too complex and made it too difficult to earn rewards. In 2015, Wyndham launched a simplified loyalty program where customers could earn and accrue points for every dollar spent and created member status levels to give its guests more immediate benefits.
- Listen to your customers: Mary Kay has 3.5 million independent beauty consultants who are already lovers of the brand, but it wanted to leverage them more to better understand what its customers were saying. It used insights from social listening to build campaigns that reflected its customers’ wants and needs. From celebrity Snapchat takeovers to inspirational hashtags, the makeup company built brand love that was more than skin deep.
- Spread the love across multiple channels: In 2012, Dunkin’ Donuts launched its Perks mobile app, allowing customers to earn free beverages with each purchase. The company knew it needed to extend beyond the app to keep customers engaged and incentivized. It launched a curbside pickup service and partnered with Waze to let customers order en route to work. In addition, Dunkin’ Donuts experimented with sports partnerships and customer-journey mapping to build loyalty for its brand.
- Be transparent: Southwest Airlines was determined to differentiate itself from competitors and give the brand a chance to “own” low ticket fares. It introduced “Transfarency,” a philosophy in which customers are treated honestly and fairly, and low fares actually stay low. Southwest developed a social activation around its philosophy, reimbursing travel fees and giving free tickets to travelers who were stranded by other airlines. As a result of its efforts, Southwest brought in record profits and record loyalty.
- Build a branded community: Brand loyalty can be complicated. According to studies, more than 70 percent of all consumers admit they now retract their loyalty more quickly than they did three years ago. Seventh Generation leveraged this key insight and its core mission to consider society’s impact on the next seven generations to establish an online community called Generation Good. The company has retained its 350,000 members by creating emotionally relevant content that drives a two-way relationship between the brand and consumers.
For more information about what other brands are doing to build more emotional connections with their consumers, check out the ANA Insight Brief on relationship marketing.
Source
"Be Mine: How Brands are Courting Their Customers." ANA, 2018.