The Best Ways to Turn Customers Into Brand Promoters

The fact is, you have about 100 days after the sale to solidify your customer’s opinion of your business. The first several days are crucial; the customer may experience buyer’s remorse and is forming an opinion of your brand as they experience your post-sales customer service and product.

What are you doing to promote loyalty?

Focusing on the First 100 Days

If too much focus is put on pre-sale activity, then the potential to retain loyal customers is neglected. Are you considering the customer experience after the conversion? Companies need to consider how the customer feels about the support and value of the company after the sale. What is making them come back? What is making them spread the word to their friends and family?

Turning the Customer into the Brand Promoter

Ever notice how Starbucks customers love to carry around their cups and show off their purchase as they shop, walk, work or do just about anything? Starbucks is a prime example of a company who has taken a target audience and made their brand worth promoting. Word-of-mouth promotion is an extremely effective way to build new leads and retain customer loyalty. Starbucks has harnessed this word-of-mouth promotion by making their brand desirable post-purchase.

How does a company achieve post-sale loyalty?

Effective Branding

A company like Starbucks focuses on branding throughout their products and marketing campaigns. Your company needs to understand your audience completely in order to realize what kind of branding will appeal to them and keep them intrigued with your company.

Reminders and Post-Marketing Efforts

There are companies, like Amazon or Crazy8, that work hard at their post-marketing efforts in an attempt to bring customers back for more. Some companies use predictive marketing to guess which products will interest you most. Amazon utilizes predictive design to offer segments on their website, like “Recommendations for You” or “Inspired by Your Shopping Trends.” The company also sends out emails on similar topics, as well as shopping cart reminders.

Abandoned cart emails generate an average of over $36 in revenue per click, which is higher than any other predictive email campaign, but only 15% of marketers sent out abandoned cart emails in 2014. (Salesforce, 2014 Predictive Intelligence Benchmark Report)

Re-Marketing

Companies can use responsive design ads that re-market to customers who have already been to their site. Footlocker, Natural Force and Blinq are a few of the companies that use re-marketing to target customers who have viewed products and then left the page. These ads are prominently displayed beside Google search results or at the top of another page, tempting the customer with product images specifically geared towards products they showed interest in.

Special Deals

Pizza Hut and other companies focus on offering their email subscribers exclusive offers. In order to get VIP deals from the company, a person has to subscribe to the emailing list. This benefits Pizza Hut by keeping their company in the forefront of the customers mind, but also benefits Pizza Hut when the customer is excited about receiving the frequent exclusive deal emails.

Supportive Content

Customers who can go to a company for support are more likely to continue purchasing from them whenever they need something in that industry. Lowes offers blog articles on creative ideas for the home and garden, while Home Depot offers DIY articles with helpful guides for home improvement projects, like installing a washing machine. The magazine Cooking Light offers helpful cooking tips, including videos, on their site. These attempts bring in new customers searching for help and retain previous customers who continue to turn to their brand for excellent resources and valuable content.

Another form of supportive content includes training videos or articles that teach your customers how to use your product. By showing customers how to get the most out of your product, you can benefit twofold with an advertisement for those interested in the type of product you offer, as well as by retaining your customers’ loyalty with valuable support.

When a company does what is best for its customers, then the customers will continue to come back for more. Look for ways to turn your customers into your biggest fans and brand promoters.