How Direct to Consumer Brands Can Nurture Loyalty

Brand loyalty is when a customer continues to purchase from your company, not because you’re the only option, but because they trust your company.

In the age of online commerce where Amazon sets the bar, anyone can import products from countries all around the globe and slap a brand name on them – diluting the authenticity of the original brand in the process. On the other hand, there are brands with cult-like followings they’ve amassed over the years.

Why People leave Brands? We tend to grow out of brands, not just because of our age but for other reasons, too. Maybe you want to try something new, or what you’re wearing is suddenly out of style. Maybe you had a negative store experience, or a brand just stopped meeting your needs.

Examples of Exceptional Brand Loyalty

1. Apple is the epitome of a cult brand. Since the beginning, they've built machines that are designed around their customers needs. They're constantly seeking feedback and engaging in conversations with customers about new products. As a result, Apple provides users with the features they want and has built a loyal community.

2.IKEA designs products based on deep understanding of their customers needs. They visit people's homes to see how they live. For example, after visiting customers in Italy and the U.S., IKEA saw that U.S. customers rely on drawers for clothing storage more than in Italy. The result? They designed deeper drawers in their American products.

When thinking about how your online brand store can stand out from the crowd of millions of other stores, look into the digital user experience or journey for inspiration. Here are the steps we use in building user experience at Gret:

1. Understand the the psychological needs and emotional triggers that dictate how to get into positive engagement with our target audience

2. Understand how they decide to purchase products or services they need.

3. What are our business key performance measures. List out desired actions.

4. Prioritize desired actions

5. Design gamification elements to motivate these desired actions.

Finally, above UX design and a feedback loop to learn from this. Today AI/ML allow brands do this in a much better way. When all this is put together, works very well for the users - delivering increased user engagement to the direct to consumer brands.