1. How Relationships Build Brand Loyalty Marketing
2. How Relationships Build Brand Loyalty Strategy
3. How Relationships Build Brand Loyalty Definition
4. How Relationships Build Brand Loyalty Examples

Brand Loyalty Campaigns. Marketing departments follow consumer buying trends closely and work to build relationships with their customers through active customer service. But in this social age, brands are the relationships. By defining a brand’s particular kind of relationship, companies can create greater engagement, differentiation, and loyalty.

The explosion of direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands over the past few years marks a radical shift in the way products are sold.

This revolution is disrupting established industries and creating a fundamental change in the ways brands engage with consumers.

Born in the online world, these trailblazing D2C brands are transforming how we buy everything, from grooming and health and wellness products to mattresses, contact lenses, and clothing.

By leveraging social listening and customer-experience data insights, they’re developing strong direct to consumer relationships, new subscription models, and products that truly resonate with consumers.

They’re also demonstrating how building direct relationships with customers makes it possible to control each engagement moment—learning about customer motivations and behaviors at every step of the journey.

Scoping the opportunity of direct to consumer relationships

Research shows that today’s consumers increasingly value specialism, are more discerning about what they purchase, crave more authentic brand experiences, and will gravitate towards brands that know who they are. And younger consumers are proving particularly receptive to new disruptor D2C brands that directly connect with them through digital channels.

By placing data-driven tailored customer experiences at the core of their offering, these pioneering independent D2C brands have achieved some impressive market growth. Little wonder, then, that many mainstream manufacturers and brands are now eagerly looking to make D2C part of their revenue mix.

In 2017, D2C sales grew by an impressive 34 percent to represent 13 percent of all e-commerce sales. Meanwhile, big brand names like Nike have gotten in on the game. The company forecasts its D2C sales will hit $16 billion by 2020—a substantial increase on the $6.6 billion generated by its direct brand channel in 2015.

How Relationships Build Brand Loyalty Marketing

Market experts estimate that while D2C represents just 5 percent of total CP sales revenues, it’s responsible for 50 percent of total industry growth. With more players in the sector preparing to incorporate D2C models into their strategies, expect this momentum to get even stronger.

But capturing these brand opportunities and building direct to consumer relationships all depends on achieving a deep mastery of customer experience (CX) management.

Maximizing new D2C possibilities: The benefits of direct to consumer

There are multiple benefits to be gained by taking the direct-to-consumer route—improved margins, opportunities to develop brand advocacy and loyalty, increased control over brand packaging, product and market reputation, and the freedom to innovate to name a few.

For example, the D2C model enables brands to experiment with new distribution models—everything from shipping direct to consumers, to partnerships with physical retailers, and pop-up shops. Or initiate new D2C marketing initiatives that improve brand awareness and boost leads for themselves and their channel partners.

Regardless of the D2C model that’s adopted, success depends on companies successfully leveraging data-driven customer intelligence to make better business decisions, tailor more convenient and personalized shopping experiences, or adapt at speed to changing customer needs and preferences.

By understanding the why behind customer behaviors, companies can use these insights to accurately align experiences with identified customer values across all channels to:

• better serve customers and forge deeper relationships
• differentiate individual brands
• fine tune product/packaging development, marketing and channel strategies.

Check out how P&G is using customer listening while restaging the Pantene Brand:

Selling direct to consumers makes it easier to acquire and harvest this customer experience data, but making sense of these data goldmines is no easy task.

What’s more, in order to orchestrate frictionless end-to-end customer journeys and truly understand customers’ wants and needs, companies also need to be able to integrate this experience data with transactional and operational data (O-data) from every channel.

Today’s leading experience management solutions make it easy to collect experience data (X-data) at every meaningful touchpoint, and intelligently integrate this with operational data to gain the actionable insights needed to close identified experience gaps.

A world of possibilities: Unlock brand loyalty

Armed with X+O data, brands can put customers at the center of their business and engage more effectively on all channels.

Let’s take a look at just some of the ways in which companies are using data-driven insights to sell more products, perfect brand propositions, build exceptional customer experiences, and forge direct to consumer relationships:

Go to market with new product innovations faster: By embracing customer experience feedback and incorporating it into the product development process, companies can:

• Identify new product opportunities and validate concepts faster
• Ensure a better problem-feature solution fit for their target demographic, and
• Scale go-to-market strategies at speed

For example, by undertaking social listening, brands are able to identify unmet consumer needs and develop new product or service initiatives (such as subscription or customization services) that deliver increased customer lifetime value or powerfully differentiate their brand for customers.

Refine direct-to-consumer brand journeys: Benchmarking the customer experience across every channel is just the start. By understanding individual customer preferences and activities as they progress along the path to purchase, brands can take action to eliminate identified friction hot spots.

Whether that’s introducing one click payment options, incorporating how to product videos in online channels, or contextual self-service support options for customers seeking information and help.

Listen, understand and act to optimize every interaction: From understanding how demographic preferences impact product design, marketing, and packaging to identifying the optimal formats and channels for delivering brand messages to consumers, using data driven insights enables companies to initiate personalized conversations that create positive brand associations for consumers.

By understanding which messages and offers work best for which customers, brands can optimize interactions to ensure that relevance increases over time.

For many CPG firms, D2C channels represent an opportunity to maintain complete control over the brand—from initial engagement to the moment a product is purchased and beyond.

Using data-driven experience insights are the key to ensuring brands can consistently achieve the personal touch and connect with the specific needs and values of customers in more meaningful ways.

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With the rise of social media, 'humanizing business” has been a buzz phrase that represents the ultimate consumer company goal of creating a sustainable relationship that endures beyond a single transaction.

Companies that build authentic relationships with their customers are not only rapidly gaining market share, they’re gobbling up mind and heart share by putting buyers in control and enabling them to make better, more appropriate choices.

Many early-stage consumer companies focus on product and lead with functionality. While this is undeniably important, the brands investing in building relationships with consumers that are finding more success in the long- and short-term.

Brand loyalty is the foundation of every successful consumer business. Large players are actively acquiring early-stage brands that have figured this out. Consumer startups can learn a lot from them.

Related: Transparency: How Whole Foods Is Doing It Right (And You Can, Too)

Empowerment. With the advent of the Internet, consumers have gone from making choices from a limited pool of big brands to the era of endless alternatives and abundant information. No longer limited by what is available on local store shelves, consumers are more selective about want they want and how they want it.

Finding companies like Madecasse or Bhakti Chai that keep trade fair and help the communities from which they source ingredients is now easier than ever. Brand honesty and transparency empower the consumer to take control of their buying decisions unlike ever before.

How Relationships Build Brand Loyalty Strategy

When brands make it easy to acquire information about their products, it tells consumers they have nothing to hide while sending the message that they care about the needs and wants of their customers.

Trust. Truly caring about the consumer is an important component in building and sustaining an authentic brand-consumer relationship.

Michelle Higdon, principal and CEO of Solid Gold Pet explains, 'Trusting your pet food brand is important to today’s pet parent. To earn their trust, you need to be completely transparent every step of the way from sourcing ingredients to quality control standards.”

When buyers make purchases, they want to know their decisions are good for their family and align with personal or charitable interests. Trust can’t be bought. It must be earned. Consumers want to understand exactly what they are buying, and rightly deserve the knowledge they seek.

Related: Five-Step Guide to Marketing a Business As Green

How Relationships Build Brand Loyalty Definition

Loyalty. Brand loyalty can be extremely difficult to earn when most products have been commoditized by the Internet. Companies that inspire advocacy amongst consumers have established a shared and genuine emotional connection with their customers.

Buyers are yearning for a connection and the companies doing things right empower people at every turn. Whole Foods not only sources local products, allowing a consumer to invest directly in their own community, they also have a timeline for full labeling transparency which will enable their customers to make more informed decisions about what they purchase.

Despite clear evidence that consumers want a stronger, more transparent relationship with the brands they support, the trend toward consumer empowerment is a very small ripple in an extremely large pond. Proactive consumer education, accessibility to product information and brand openness are still rare in the consumer world.

How Relationships Build Brand Loyalty Examples

While there is a growing number of companies, particularly in the natural and organic space, that have made names for themselves based on openness and honesty, the recent POM vs. Coca-Cola Supreme Court decision suggests we still have a very long way to go.

When greater honesty equals greater success, it shouldn’t be something to fear or avoid. Consumers and buying trends are speaking volumes about what people want. Help your customer become the hero of their household. Empower them to make better choices. They will thank you for it.

Related: How to Humanize Your E-commerce Business With Personalized Messages