Do you want to build a loyal base of customers for your business? If so, you'll need to make people feel like they're wanted. Let's talk about how.
What does it take to attract customers who will love your brand and stick with it for the long haul? Ask most entrepreneurs this question, and you'll probably get a mixed bag of responses. Some will cite a superior product, a competitive price or maybe a seamless user experience on your website or app. The truth, though, is there's an emotional component separate from all of the above.
"What people really want from their favourite brands is a feeling that they're wanted."
What people really want from their favourite brands is a feeling that they're wanted. No one likes to be treated like they're just a number on a spreadsheet; customers are people, and they want the companies they patronise to respect them and show that they care.
Unlike a different factor, like your price structure, this intangible quality is much more difficult to measure with a number. Nonetheless, it's important. If your people don't feel valued, they're probably going to leave for another establishment where they do.
There's real value in "wantedness"
As you're exploring all the possibilities for sales incentives you can offer your customers, it's best to set aside the statistical measurements sometimes. You might be fixated on app downloads, site visits and metrics like that - but according to a new study by digital agency Wunderman, what really matters is that people feel wanted by their brands.
"The big takeaway was how much people want brands to make them feel special," Wunderman global CMO Jamie Gutfreund said in an interview with CMO.com. "The majority - 79 per cent - of consumers said that brands have to actually demonstrate that they understand and care about me before they are going to consider purchasing."
Customers today are choosy, especially because it's so easy for them to reconsider if they don't like a brand. Online and mobile technology have created a simple process for finding someone else. For this reason, people surveyed have said they want their brands to be like Amazon and Uber - easy to use, and communicative if there are ever problems they need to work out.
Communicate and build trusting relationships
If you want to build strong, trusting relationships with your customer base, the first step is to improve in the area of communications. Forbes advises that there's no such thing as over-communicating - people count on you to keep them informed, so it's best to go out of your way to make yourself a useful resource. Don't just badger people with sales pitches - give them useful advice that can improve their daily lives, and the sales will come as a byproduct.
"The best brands are both easy to use and highly communicative."
Of course, if you want to go one step further with relationship building, it can't hurt to have tangible ways of measuring people's engagement and giving them extra value to reward them for their business. You can achieve both by drawing up a sales incentive program that motivates people to keep coming back.
Roll out a loyalty program that works
One of the best ways to keep people in the fold is with a customer loyalty program. Rolling out a program that rewards your buyers is likely to encourage repeat business, and the impact will snowball from there. The only problem is that crafting such programs can be difficult. The challenge is three-fold: to influence, motivate and engage people.
At Power 2 Motivate, we're happy to help with all three. We can also give you comprehensive real-time reports on how your programs are doing, which means you can measure your ROI and understand exactly what drives your customers. Talk to us today about how you can get started.