Each company wants consumers of its products to remain as such for as long as possible, and their purchases will increase steadily. As a rule, this is quite difficult to achieve - you have to fight to ensure that out of all the goods and brands existing on the market, the consumer not only chooses yours, but remains faithful to her for many years. In this article we will tell you what consumer loyalty is and how to fight for it.
In a broad sense, loyalty is, of course, a positive and friendly attitude towards someone or something. Most often, this term is used in the context of the population’s commitment to a particular government, political party, regime, and so on. For the concept of "consumer loyalty" the definition will be slightly different. Most modern marketers agree that the term refers to the established commitment of consumers to the same product or brand that has been formed and maintained over many years. Thus, consumer loyalty is not just a momentary preference, it is a rejection of any available alternative, and, most often, immunity to changing prices.
To make readers better understand what loyalty is, we give an example. Suppose a consumer can choose from several brands of soap that exist on the market. In fact, all available types of these products perform the same function - cleansing the skin of dirt, and they perform it with approximately the same quality.
But ask any of your acquaintances, do they buy a different brand of soap every time? Most likely, for many years they have been using the same Safeguard, Duru or Camay, and even if the price of a bar with the usual smell increases, they still will not give preference to another look.
Another good example is the same seller on the market. If you are confident in the quality of the goods offered by him (especially when it comes to dairy and perishable products), you will never go for the next counter - on the contrary, you will even pay extra to leave the best pieces for you. But he will answer the same thing to you sometimes - to make gifts like a free little stick of butter or fruit from a personal dacha, which he plucked and brought "especially for you."
The example of a seller on the market is a primitive illustration of such a marketing technique as a loyalty program - this is a whole range of measures aimed at ensuring that the consumer remains faithful to the brand and makes repeated purchases in the foreseeable future. Such programs may include a system of cumulative discounts provided after shopping for a certain amount, as well as the distribution of various gifts and prizes. If you notice that flyers with attractive offers from manufacturers of goods you buy appear in your inbox, you should know that they understand what loyalty is and understand that keeping an existing customer is much easier and more profitable than attracting a new one. This principle can be attributed to the "golden rules" of marketing, since it is universal and works in all areas of activity.
Scientists with a worldwide reputation constantly write about what loyalty is and how to increase it. On this topic, they defend candidate and doctoral dissertations in economics. It was the pursuit of her that led modern marketing to the form in which it is now - selling not a product or service, not profit, but customer care, which, as it turned out, is valued above all else, even if the consumer understands that it is another marketing trick and manifests itself in order to obtain additional profit.