What makes one of your favorite brands or businesses so great that you’re ready to sing their praises from the rooftops? Maybe you have found a brand that you just can’t live without, or feel like you’re betraying them if you walk into their competition's establishment (I may or may not get this feeling every time I can’t find a Starbucks Coffee Shop). Every brand or business wants to be the next big hit for their customers, but how do we beat out the competition? If you’re just starting out you may also be wondering, how do I even get people to like me?
Well, to get started – 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. How can we successfully develop an image that turns our customers into brand ambassadors? In today's post we will show you how in 5 simple steps!
Turn Lust into Love with Consistency
Let's talk about brand love vs. lust.
Brand lust is when a business delivers a product or service that gets you excited. Maybe this feeling lasts a week, two, maybe three… But eventually it will fade. When you love a brand, you’re attached, you feel like this is it and nobody will ever replace it. See the difference is when you’re in ‘lust’ with a brand, it’s because they managed to catch your attention and make you feel something. However, it never went beyond the initial 'lust' phase because that feeling eventually faded away, and the brand didn't work to make it last.
When you truly ‘love’ a brand, it’s because they caught your attention, delivered you something that made you feel great and continued to stroke your ego. We, like everyone else, want our customers to truly love us and fall in love with our brand. A great way to accomplish this is through consistency. From blog posts, content offers, 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 ambassadors, you need to work for it and prove your worth.
Deliver Amazing Customer Service
Have you ever gone into an establishment or called a ‘support’ line only to find that the customer service was absolutely terrible? We have, too many times. Unfortunately for some brands, what some of their staff call ‘customer service,’ isn’t customer service at all. In fact, not only are they hurting the relationships with your customers, but now you have a group of people out there who aren’t afraid to share that negative experience they had. And remember, things like this can spread like wildfire.
Obviously, we all want to avoid this disaster, and in order to do that we need to educate and delight our employees on customer service, what it means to our organization and what we expect from each of them. Customer service is the single most important thing you can do for customer retention.
Before we wrap this section up, we want to make one more clarifying point: customer service and great customer service are two very different things. To become ‘great’ at providing service to your customers, you need to take each interaction as an opportunity to connect with them, solve their problem and most importantly make them feel special.
Differentiate Yourself from the Competition
From this point on you should stop trying to emulate the competition. It’s healthy to research other companies for inspiration or to see what they’re doing right and wrong, but straight up copying will get you no where. Especially in the eyes of your customers. Finding unique ways to set yourself apart from your competitors is the key to turning your customers from followers into brand ambassadors.
Find Unique Ways to Differentiate Yourself
We are a B2B inbound marketing and sales company, and while we know we aren’t the only ones in the business, we feel very confident in our solutions and know that what we offer is unique from others in our space. Our customers know it too, which is why they continue to come back to us. Once you find your niche, we encourage you to embrace what makes you unique and try to prove to your customers that even though you're different, your organization is the right one to choose. From there, 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 mean brand ambassador in time.
Give Them Something to Talk About
Let me ask you a question, if you’re not excited about your brand why should your customers (or anyone for that matter) be excited about your brand? Successful brands love what they do and they want everyone to know it. If you want your brand to start illuminating passion, you need to fill your office with passionate people who love, not only what they do, but what you do and stand for as an organization.
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 ambassador. Your customers will be able to see right through you if you can’t back your products and services. Circling back to the beginning of this step, if you don't love what your brand has to offer, why should anyone else?
Go Beyond the Sale
It’s no secret that inbound marketing is winning hearts over traditional marketing. If you’re new to the power of inbound marketing, the methodology is centered around the idea of attracting visitors to your company / website, converting them into leads, closing them into customers and engaging with them so they continue coming back for more. But you know that already, because you read our blog, right?
The main point here is the final stage; 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, but they are an ever-lasting relationship. Now, we're not trying to sound cheesy here, but it’s true; we want our customers to know that they are important, that we will work around-the-clock to meet their needs, and provide them with a product and service that will deliver results.
If you can successfully delight / engage your customers overtime they will feel closer to your company and of course feel more apt sharing their experiences with their networks, ultimately becoming your brand ambassador.
Tag(s):
Demand Generation
