News & Insights

Loyalty Marketing: Building a Relationship with Consumers

The goal of marketing is to better advertise the products or services of your business. However, we all know as marketers how difficult of a task that can be. Consumers are naturally very wary of our attempts to court them, and rightfully so. We all experience the barrage of marketing facing us each day. We don’t trust the opinions or statements made by these marketers because it comes from a bias source. That’s why loyalty marketing is so important. It creates an army of undercover marketers, and they don’t even know it.

Building Loyalty

Loyalty marketing is traditionally the loyalty programs you see in stores. The saying that “Loyalty is earned not owned” is true. However, this is business, it can also be bought. You see so many loyalty programs because they work. The goal is to retain the customers you do have. Often businesses will focus on acquiring new customers, taking for granted the ones they already have. Just because they buy from your business now, doesn’t mean they will tomorrow.  

This highlights the reason you want to instill brand loyalty in your current customers. Make sure your core base of consumers is taken care of and satisfied before you go off to find more. Rewarding them for sticking by you helps build a relationship between them and the brand, and now more than ever, that’s what consumers are looking for. As the bond strengthens between the two, the return on your investment in existing customers will come back tenfold.

Word of Mouth Marketing

Why is loyalty marketing so powerful? The simple power of human nature. People want to feel connected to a brand and become easily attached to it once they are a frequent user. Consumers attach themselves to a brand for many different reasons. It could be that a brand’s corporate responsibility aligns with their own values or as simple as their mom bought that brand.

Regardless of the reason, this is what marketers should be aiming to accomplish with loyalty marketing. The longer you can retain a customer, the more likely they are to recommend you. This is what it all comes down to, word of mouth marketing. We’ve already established that people don’t trust us, but who they do trust are their friends and families. They’ll even trust the advice of a random person at a store all because it’s coming from someone who has nothing to gain from their recommendation. With an army of loyal customers and a good product or service, your reputation and reach will explode.