It’s all too easy to be blinded by the hunt for customers. There’s nothing wrong with putting in the money, time, and energy into building a customer base and attracting new revenue if it pays off. There is a problem if that’s your sole focus when it comes to your market, however. A customer is one thing, but a fan can be much more valuable. Not only are they more likely to keep coming back, but they’re more likely to shout the virtues of your brand so that others join in, too. Here, we’re going to look at how you can start building fans, not just customers.
Brand to and for them
Having a fan implies a much more emotional connection than simply having a customer. Emotional engagement like that means that there needs to be a personal connection. It’s not possible to foster that connection with every customer through the sales team alone, but your brand can do the heavy lifting for you. Building a brand that is more specific to a niche or target audience is all about building the ideal customer profile. By aiming your message at a specific kind of customer (ensuring that they have enough representation within your market itself), you are more likely to foster that emotional connection from the get-go.
Champion their success
Providing the support that helps them effectively purchase and make use of the product or service you sold to them is the bare-bones minimum it takes to help your market. Customer service isn’t enough, you should also look at customer success. This means taking a closer look at how they engage with the brand, products, and services, and finding the barriers between them and getting the best possible outcome with it. By defining their success objectives and creating metrics to measure that success, you can make sure that you’re not just selling to your customers, but that they are getting what they need out of your products and services. This, in turn, fosters loyalty and brand connection much more effectively, increasing customer retention as well as the chances of referral.
Become a pillar of the community
Customer fandom isn’t as rare as it once was. You can see examples of it all over social media. Brands that have fan bases prioritize customer success above all else, but they also know how to capitalize on it. It’s about building a community with your customers, most often done through social media. By engaging with them, sharing content, acknowledging concerns and questions in real-time, you create a connection with them that feels a lot more human. In turn, this encourages more people to join that community, fosters better reviews, and creates the positive social proof that keeps more customers joining without the need for an actual referral program.
By championing their success, engaging with them in real time, and ensuring your message is as specific to them as possible, you can create the brand advocates that can be much more effective than any advertising campaign.
