Your customers are your buyers. As brand evangelists, they advocate for the items they buy. Maybe you have found a brand you just can’t live without, or wouldn't think to switch to their competitor. Brand evangelists are customers who stay loyal to a brand and make it recognized to the public on social media or word of mouth. Every brand or business wants to be the next big thing for its customers, but how do you top the competition? How do you get people to genuinely like you?
Make People Believe in Your Brand. But How?
For starters, your brand isn’t just a reflection of your marketing efforts. In fact, a brand is what you make others feel, believe and think of you. So, how can you successfully develop an image that turns your customers into brand evangelists?
Here are five simple steps that illustrate the journey from customer to brand evangelist to increasing brand loyalty.
1. Turn lust into love with consistency.
When was the last time you were excited about purchasing something? Brand lust is when a business delivers a product or service that gets you fired up. Obviously, this feeling doesn’t last forever, but when you love a brand, you can get attached.
The lust phase
The difference is when you’re in lust with a brand it means they've managed to catch your attention and make you feel something. But if it never passes the lust phase, that feeling will eventually fade away because the brand didn't work to make it last.
The love phase
When you truly love a brand, it’s because it caught your attention, delivered you something that made you feel great, and continued to stroke your ego. A great way to make your customers truly fall in love with your brand is through consistency:
- Blog posts
- Content offers
- Social media engagement (reply to and comment on their messages)
- Nurture emails
- Even a phone call to check in on how they’re feeling about your efforts
Consistency is key. If you want your customers to become brand evangelists, you need to work for it and prove your worth.
2. Deliver quality customer service
McKinsey found that 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels that they are being treated.
This is where quality customer service must come in. If your brand hosts a negative experience for someone, there is a high chance they won't support you much less refer you to others. And, these things can spread like wildfire.
Shape the attitudes of your employees
To avoid disaster, you need to educate and delight your employees on customer service, what it means to your organization, and what you expect from each of them. Customer service is the single most important thing you can do for customer retention and loyalty. However, to become great at providing customer service, you need to take each interaction as an opportunity to connect with them, solve their problems, and, most importantly, make them feel special.
Get feedback
Moreover, gaining useful customer feedback is important for your brand growth and marketing intelligence. Ask your current customers to provide your with their comments and thoughts about your brand - either by email or phone - and you'll know which areas in your business need tweaking.
3. Stand out from the competition
Finding unique ways to set yourself apart from your competitors is the key to turning your customers from followers into brand evangelists.
Once you find your niche, embrace what makes you unique. Then prove to your customers that your organization is their best choice. From there on, it will be up to your team to deliver on those promises, which will create a stronger sense of loyalty with your customers. And, loyalty will lead to brand evangelist in time. As mentioned, it's important to take feedback from customers seriously and implement it into your marketing strategies.
4. Give them something to talk about
If you’re not excited about your brand, why should your customers be?
Successful brands love what they do and they want everyone to know it. If you want your brand to start exuding passion, you need to fill your office with passionate people who love not only what they do, but what your organizations stands for. If your customers can feel and see your passion, they will have something to talk about. Better yet, you’ll give them even more reason to become a brand evangelist.
5. Go beyond the sale
This final stage is the engage stage. The underlying premise of inbound marketing is that it never stops delighting customers. You want your customers to feel special and know that they aren’t just a sale to you. If you can successfully delight and engage your customers overtime, they will feel closer to your company and, of course, feel more apt to share their experiences with their networks.
The 4 Pillars of Inbound Marketing:
Ready to turn your customers into brand evangelists?
When people truly love what you offer them and what you stand for, they’re happy to spread the good news. People trust the genuine feelings of their peers and there’s really no better way to enhance your brand than with the support of your brand evangelists. Treat your customers right, follow up, instill meaningfulness, and they will notice. The feeling will be mutual in time.
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