Being a marketer in the modern world is a great challenge, one that’s full of uncertainties where wins are much harder to come by than they were only a couple of decades ago. While we have technology on our side to help us automate and speed up things, there’s one element of marketing that can never be rushed – brand loyalty.
With our attention spans shortened and our news feeds filled with quick fixes and demands to buy, buy, buy, building a brand that invests in customer loyalty will always stand out. To do it well, it’s essential to understand how brand personality and brand identification play into it and what you can do to leverage their power. Let’s take a closer look at how these elements are connected and how they could help you elevate your approach to customer loyalty.
Brand Personality, Brand Identification, Brand Loyalty – Why are they important?
Brand personality and identification are deeply interconnected, and you cannot have loyalty without the two of them. You can look at them as stepping stones to earning your audience’s trust over time, which will have them coming back to your business over and over. For starters, let’s define the two.
Brand Personality
The best way to develop your brand personality is to imagine your business as a person and decide on what its main characteristics are. Is your brand transparent, reliable, and imaginative? Or is it prestigious, bold, and dependable?
It’s up to you to understand what traits best suit the niche you’re in and what your customers are looking for. You need to:
- Develop Your Brand’s Mission and Core Values – These are the foundation for your tone of voice and visual identity, as you want to send a clear message to your customers.
- Know Who Your Target Audience Is – You want your brand personality to be relatable to your potential customers, so it’s crucial to understand your audience’s demographics, preferences, and aspirations.
- Analyze Your Competitors – So that you can understand their approach, what are some things you can learn from them, and what you can do better.
- Create a Brand Persona – This goes in the vein of what we mentioned in the beginning – imagining your brand as a human being could help you translate abstract traits into tangible characteristics that will inform your marketing initiatives.
- Check-In with the Stakeholders – Having a defined brand personality affects everyone in your company, which is why it’s important to share your ideas with stakeholders, marketing-dependant teams, and even loyal customers for valuable feedback.
Once you’ve decided and agreed on your brand’s personality, you know your core values, and your tone of voice, and you have your visual identity sorted, you have set a strong foundation. Now, let’s talk about brand identification.
Brand Identification
Brand identification is the other side of the coin of brand personality. When you have a clear vision of your brand personality and your target audience, once your product reaches potential customers, their identification with your brand can begin.
In short, brand identification is what happens when your customer develops a deep emotional connection with your brand (not just the products) and starts seeing it as an extension of their identity.
We see this happen all the time – people who exclusively use Apple products, drink only Coca-Cola or Pepsi, or who will only wear a particular clothing brand. This is brand personality done right and then spilling into the world to invoke brand identification. The goal is for consumers to develop a bond with the brand because the brand mirrors their own values and aspirations, creating a sense of belonging in the process.
How Loyalty Fits within This Narrative
Where there’s a strong brand personality, brand identification follows, and right after it comes the sense of loyalty to the brand. Having a robust and ever-growing pool of loyal clients is the ultimate goal of most marketers, as this is the way to support the continual growth of your business.
Customer loyalty goes beyond repeat purchases of your product. In a loyal customer, you get someone who trusts you, who can become an unofficial promoter of your brand, and someone who’s also willing to forgive occasional inevitable missteps.
What can you do to foster customer loyalty?
Nurturing and deepening customer loyalty isn’t a project you’ll complete once and be done with it, but rather an ongoing endeavor that will only become bigger and more nuanced over time. Here’s what you can do:
- Cater to your audience. Having a brand personality is all good and well, but how do you make it known in the world? How do you create a unique tone of voice that your customers will recognize immediately? Do your research to understand your audience’s values and behaviors, then deliver content that will help them address and overcome their pain points.
- Leverage Multi-Channel Strategies. You want to have a uniform presence across all channels of communication, be it customer support or social media. The latter is particularly important for cementing your brand personality, so use comprehensive media activation solutions to amplify your brand’s personality across emails, ads, and social media channels.
- Have a unique and authentic personality. If there’s one thing that people will always respond to it’s originality and authenticity. It’s paramount that you have a unique voice that sets you apart from your competitors and that everything you do and offer is in line with your brand personality. Originality and authenticity build and nurture trust and loyalty.
- Storytelling is the way to go. Stories are an intrinsic part of all of us, which is why we respond so well when brands nail their storytelling. Create your own narratives to connect with your customers and showcase your brand personality from different sides.
Conclusion
As you can see, the relationship between your brand personality, identification, and customer loyalty is deeply intertwined. To successfully create meaningful connections with your clients, having a strong brand personality is a must.
When you successfully align your brand’s personality traits with your audience’s identities, you can foster deep emotional connections, which will over time transform into customer loyalty. While each of these steps will take time and dedication, the results you can get are well worth the effort and could earn you a spotlight in the lives of millions of customers all over the world.