Getting emotional: the three Cs of customer loyalty

Marketing is all about evoking specific emotions in your target audience. And we’re not talking about doing evil emotional manipulation marketing so don’t worry if it sounds a little icky. (If you’re considering using the advice in this blog post for evil, please see yourself out now.) Now that we’ve got those guys out of the way… what you’re selling is a product or service that improves lives so it’s ok to use emotional marketing to help your target audience realize what you can do for them.

The emotional building blocks that most brands use are things like trust, belonging, desire, excitement, inspiration, and confidence but depending on your brand, there are many different emotions you might want your customers to feel. Maybe you want them to feel empowered, sexy, intelligent, magical.

In this blog, we’re looking at the emotions of customer loyalty so we’re really going to focus on the emotions of trust and belonging. And in order to grow a base of loyal customers by building trust and belonging, you need to be consistent, make emotional connections, and create a sense of community.

Connection: all the feelings

There must be an emotional connection between your brand and your target audience. The first basic step to achieving this is defining your brand personality. If you’re a soloprenuer like me, infusing your own personality is key, especially in more causal/off the cuff marketing channels like social media.

Your brand personality doesn’t have to be a mirror of your own personality. It can and should be specifically curated to connect better with your ideal customers. Working with a brand strategist (like me, hi!) can help you nail down a personality that you can use to form a connection with your target audience.

Community: a feeling of belonging

It’s not just about the emotional connection between your brand and your customer, but the connection and feeling of belonging they feel when they are part of your brand’s customer base. This doesn’t mean you need to have an intentional community space like a Facebook group, but rather that you can use your website and social media to create a sense of community.

Some questions for thought about how you can create community: What do your customers have in common with each other? What does it mean for them personally when they purchase your products or use your services? Can you use your platform to highlight customer stories and photos?

Consistency: a feeling of trust

Not going to waste a bunch of words on this one because you know what I’m talking about: maintain momentum and do the things you say you’re going to do. Consistency builds trust.

Get emotional

No need to cry on TikTok to connect with your customers. Instead, to get customers and more importantly, keep those customers, you need to build a true emotional connection with them which involves evoking the feelings of trust and belonging.

Brand strategy makes all of this so easier because it gives you guidelines and a plan for how to make that connection. If you’re interested in how brand strategy can help your small business, check out my website for more information on how to work with me.