Building Loyal Customers Is So Passe: Now It’s All About Magnetic Branding

A lot of tech companies are wondering whether there really is such a thing as customer loyalty anymore. With so many great deals at the click of a button, and with so little improvements in wages, brand loyalty is down. People just can’t afford to not go with the best deals.

This has meant that we’ve seen a shift away from the idea of brand loyalty and towards something called brand magnetism. The idea now is to try to create great moments, or triggers, for customers, that will keep them coming back to your brand over and over.

Here’s what to do.

Piggy-Back On Popular Content

Back when the first Anchorman film came out, Paramount Pictures approached Dodge, the motor company. They wanted to use Will Ferrell to advertise Dodge cars alongside the new Anchorman movie in an ad slot. Most marketers would have thought that getting Will Ferrell to advertise cars was a bad idea. After all, Ferrell is a buffoon. And he had said publicly that Dodge cars were complete junk.

But Dodge went with Ferrell anyway. Why? Because Ferrell is extremely popular and, people go out of their way to pay attention to him. Even seeing him next to a product, like a car, can have an enormous impact on sales. In fact, it did. Dodge sales boomed by over 35 percent in the following weeks and months.

The lesson for marketers here is simple. If you want to boost sales of a product that is good but otherwise flagging, do some piggybacking.

Meet Important Needs In Novel Ways

Market research shows that women customers are attracted to images of unrealistically beautiful women. Men are too. And that’s why so many products are sold featuring beautiful women, often digitally enhanced.

Unilever decided that it was time to commission a study on women’s self-image back in 2002. The study found that a mere 2 percent of women considered themselves to be beautiful. Unilever found that images of beautiful women were intimidating and didn’t help them feel that beauty was achievable.

As a result, Unilever decided to turn its marketing strategy on its head. In 2004, it launched a new marketing campaign for its Dove line of products. This time the adverts featured unedited, real women with regular bodies. The campaign struck a chord with women, and immediately Dove sales increased. Unilever managed to boost sales of Dove by more than 20 percent. And the ad that they used, featuring regular women, went viral.

Create A Belief System

Companies love to blow their own horns and go on about how good their products are. But the truth is that they often imagine them to be a lot better than they actually are. It’s a bad idea in general to make grandiose claims about your product. In the age of social media, you’ll get called out for it. People on Facebook and Twitter will broadcast to the world the way that your product differs from the advertising.

You need to focus on creating a belief system that reinforces your brand quality. Be truthful about your products, and your customers will love you for it.