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Becoming a Coveted Brand - Create Loyalty Beyond Reason
September 28, 2009
When is the last time you dug, not just asked, but really got dirty and dug into what your customers and clients love/hate about your industry? What kinds of emotional connections have been made? Are they good? Great? Beautiful? Painful? Until you have started your excavation, you will never know.
Some special brands are so far out in front that they seem to have evolved into something else. They have created a loyalty that goes beyond reason. Loyalty is created through mystery, sensuality, intimacy and creativity; those that can put these ideas into action will become truly coveted brands.
Left brain thinking doesn’t cut it anymore.
Rationale; features; benefits – what a steaming pantload. In order for your clients and customers to be loyal to you they have to love you! As in any relationship, without loyalty and trust there is no love, without love there is no loyalty and trust. They go hand in hand. Rationale is not enough!
Do you read the newspaper – front to back, word for word?
Do you watch the 6 o’clock newscast for the entire hour?
Have you ever had a telemarketer puke all over you for 15 minutes (as you watch your dinner get cold), and you eat up every word of it? Not a chance!
People don’t have time for information.
You eat on the run, you drive your kids to football and dance, you work, you workout, you do it all! We do not have the time, nor do we really care to be convinced that what company X has to sell us is intellectually the best choice. Information isn’t a competitive advantage any more; we are way past that age – and thank God. How boring. What a crappy time to have been a part of – best this, finest that, fastest this, strongest that. BORING!
In my opinion we are in the beginnings of one of the most fantastic times ever. We are re-establishing an age of old, some might even dare to say an age of new.
The age of discovery.
The age of the idea.
The age of hope.
The age of dreams.
The age of emotion.
Where’s the emotion?
Doesn’t it seem like emotion has been taken out of the equation of most purchases? Deep down, don’t we all just want to find an emotional connection to something? Take real estate for example – we aren’t buying into the realtor’s knowledge of real estate, or because he has “the guaranteed home selling system” – features and benefits like this are transparent. What we are buying is their integrity and belief that they actually give a damn about us; that they actually care about the type of house we want to build our hopes, dreams and memories in. All we want as consumers is to feel the world through all 5 of our senses. Brands that can take us to that fantastic place; brands that can move us from logical reasoning to emotional responses will in all likelihood create loyalty beyond reason.
The goal of any entrepreneur, business owner, manager or marketer shouldn’t be to make tons of money. The focus is skewed and therefore the end result will be too. The focus should be to create loyalty beyond reason. Why? Because that means you can appeal to your customers and clients in a much deeper way; forever. And forever is where success lies. Isn’t it true that if you look at your best customers, the ones whom you love, the ones whom you laugh with, the ones whom you go for a coffee or a pint with, the ones that bring you the most money; are the same ones that are committed to you and have been with you forever?
You want “lifetime” customers and you want them to have a love affair with you, so that no matter what the competition does, no matter what a A-Buck-or-Two or Wal-Mart (commodities) are offering cheaper, they will stay with you and they will pay a premium price to do so. Just as you will stay with your husband or your wife over 30 years because you have loyalty towards them beyond reason; a force that is bigger than a feature and much larger than a benefit is at work.
Now go make some love with your customers. Create loyalty beyond reason!
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