Not every digital engagement campaign needs to include a competition element to build brand loyalty — in fact, there’s an argument that incentives build brand following, but brand loyalty is an entirely different (and more valuable) thing.
Building brand loyalty in the digital age also means sustaining it — and there are several pillars that can help brands meet both of those needs.
Purpose and authenticity
Brands endure when they build emotional connections with their customers through purpose and authenticity. Storytelling on social platforms using real people, employees, customers and communities trades on relevance and delivers resonance. That also means delivering authentic content — your customers want to see people who look, work, live, think and feel like them interacting with your brand and featuring in the stories you tell. By capitalising on your understanding of your audience, you can meet their needs.
Personalised, seamless digital experiences
The great benefit of digital is the data it delivers about your audience — or people who have paused to give your digital brand presence a glance. It’s easy to scrape data and bombard people with advertising; it’s harder to use it more cleverly, on the understanding that people see their social media platforms as personal spaces where they curate what they want to see, hear and talk about. Use the data — but use it smartly to deliver beneficial, relevant content to them.
People don’t want to be talked at — they want to help co-create the brand to help it meet their needs
Omnichannel consistency is important — the way your brand shows up on digital (and across the marketing space) needs to be consistent. Use the data you have access to to understand how your customers use different channels and tailor your messaging and frequency to that. Remember them — if they want to be recognised — across platforms and engage with them in ways that are meaningful to them.
Two-way engagement is a must in a digital-led campaign. Social media is not a broadcast platform — it’s at its best when it operates as a conversation-enabling mechanism. People want to hear from the brand — but they also want to be heard. This can be done through polls, comments and engaging via DMs, with humanity.
Chatbots are getting less unwieldy by the day, and they can offer predictive support and messaging to your audience by cutting down the time it takes for people to get the information they’re looking for. Do your best to make the interaction feel easy, human, supportive — and fast.
Because conversations and feedback are such important parts of digital marketing, people don’t want to be talked at — they want to help co-create the brand to help it meet their needs. Listen to them — having an audience that wants to get involved is a massive win.
Create value through service, trust and community
South Africa is an incredibly data-sensitive country, which is one of the reasons that WhatsApp is flying as an engagement mechanism. It’s easy to build digital communities there cost-effectively, while maintaining that human connection that attracted your customers to your brand in the first place.
The leading cause of digital unrest is a lack of transparency from a brand. When people feel like they’ve had information withheld from them, they lose trust — and aren’t afraid to say so on social media. Communicate honestly and transparently – and admit it when you get it wrong.
Meaningful brand loyalty is earned through empathy, accessibility, reliability and relevance — not relentless incentivisation.
Genna Hansen is head of digital at Boomtown.
The big take-out: The leading cause of digital unrest is a lack of transparency from a brand.
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