Digital marketing helps businesses build brands and communicate their products to customers. However, despite its great assistance, it also exposes the tough reality of running a business: similarities and oversaturation of an industry.
With the wild competition against brands that offer similar goods or services, gaining loyal customers isn’t easy. But, if you realise the key to creating a strong bond with your customers (which gets overlooked by many brands), these “loyalists” will come on their own.
“Attractive” is Not Enough
In an era that’s filled with a ton of options, being attractive isn’t good enough. Sure, you may attract some customers in the beginning, but soon, they may leave your brand because they are looking for alternatives.
Since digital marketing has been used by a lot of brands, customers can compare offers and benefits from your competitors easily on the Internet. If this isn’t anticipated, you may lose the market soon.
That’s why turning customers into loyalists is extremely important, to not just maintain but also grow your brand. However, loyal customers will not exist without a great level of connection between your brand and them.
How to Grow Customers’ Loyalty?
This great level of connection is built from trust, satisfaction, and care. Therefore, the basic key is: understanding them.
While it sounds pretty straightforward, the truth is many businesses neglect to do so. A lot of brands tend to oversell and glorify their products, without giving attention to customers’ needs.
In the world of digital marketing, there’s a famous saying by a Harvard professor named Theodore Levitt. He stated, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!“.
This quote means that we should understand what customers actually desire instead of what we try to sell. The focus should be on what customers’ problems are, and what solutions they get from our products.
Do Customers Feel Your Understanding?
Understanding customers’ ever-changing needs is only the first half. The other half is to genuinely express that you know and care about it.
Excellent service and top-quality products are obvious and fundamental ways to convey it. But before that, your marketing activities should also address their needs.
Remember that these “needs” aren’t just about your products, but also the treatment and attention that you give. Whether uploading posts or sending emails, mix your promotion with content that provides value and builds deep connection, such as:
- Acknowledging their presence
- Asking for their responses and reviews
- Giving them sincere tips and information
- Responding to their questions and complaints
When you show genuine attention, customers can sense it and feel appreciated. Then, a strong bond will be born naturally. If this connection is well maintained, a queue of repeat orders will always be incoming.
Challenges & Steps to Grow Customers’ Loyalty
On paper, this idea sounds simple. But in reality, it’s easy to forget it since competitors’ actions and trends on social media can lead to losing focus and riding the wave. Not to mention the lack of communication planning may rub customers the wrong way instead.
That’s why before jumping into promotion, it’s important to create a thorough digital marketing strategy first. This step is important to ensure that your brand has a cornerstone for conveying and sending attention.
The overall steps of setting up a digital marketing strategy to gain loyal customers are:
- Determining an effective communication to express attention
- Analysing the true needs of the potential customers or the industry
- Assessing how your brands can be different from the competitors
To Wrap up
Sometimes it feels difficult to stand out from the crowded competition and generate loyalists. But you should remember that understanding and taking care of your customers is the only way to build a long-lasting relationship.
Although digital marketing makes it easier to reach customers, taking the wrong approaches to treating them may ruin your brand and even damage the bond that has been created. That’s why establishing a powerful digital marketing strategy is vital.
So your business can have a complete grasp of the customers’ needs and build a strong connection with them in each campaign. Which ultimately is the key to cultivating and retaining customers who won’t run to other brands.
Give us a holler now to understand what your customers actually need.