Your guide on how to build loyal customers essentially starts with effort. You read that correctly – as effort is the main way you will acquire customers. Why? Because without effort, your business might risk failure.
But what kind of effort does it take to build loyal customers? That is the kind of question (among others) that we will be examining in detail in this article.
Loyal customer is a bit of a tricky term, so I will define it here. A loyal customer is one that keeps coming back. This means that this customer, despite observing all competitors’ products or services, keeps coming back to your business for whatever reason. And it is then your job to figure out what drives them back to your business. If you do not figure out what drives them back to your business again and again, you risk losing that customer (or that type or subtype of customer).
So, the first tip in the guide to build loyal customers is to identify your target market. If you are a legal translation services company, for example, identify which type of law you would like to translate for. Which companies would you like to work with? Which people at those companies would you like to connect with? Is there a specific type of law you would like to work with – i.e., securities law, corporate law, etc.? All of these questions will determine to a certain extent which route your business will take.
Once you identify your target market, it is time to conduct some market research. This was alluded to in the previous paragraph, which described a few questions you could ask yourself in identifying your target market. However, researching the target market is a different game. Researching the target market involves taking physical or digital data and analyzing it to view trends that might help your business succeed in the future or in current endeavors.
An example might be that your business is seeking new customers, as you are trying to sell a service to consumers (rather than to businesses). Thus, your marketing strategy would involve seeing what kind of customer exists out there (I have news, and it is that you cannot “create” your ideal customer). You have to cater to customers for them to use your product/service. You must ensure adequate target market research before this can happen. As a result, your business may be successful, or may make a profit, but it cannot accomplish this without the adequate market research.
Thirdly, I believe the next logical step is to see which customers (through data analysis and other metrics) stick around. This is crucial because you ought to be interested in what it is about your business that causes people (your customers) to come back for a second or even third time to your business rather than to the competition. Then, it is your job to analyze why this happens. This is truly how you can discover your business’s competitive advantage. Identifying your company’s competitive advantage can pay large dividends in the short and long-term.
Notice that I have not mentioned that your business must have a quality product or service yet. This is important, of course. But it is not the most important thing in making sure customers stay loyal. Take certain examples in which companies have competitive advantages that are not based on the quality of a certain aspect of their product. This means that their competitive advantage stems from somewhere else. Take Starbucks for example. Many would say their coffee is not the “best of the best,” but there is practically a Starbucks on every block (in the USA at least, where I live). They obviously have some way of treating their customers that is creating a competitive advantage for them in the coffee sales marketplace (or really, the retail coffee sales business).
I mention that example because it illuminates a truth about business in general. Your business likely will not succeed without a competitive advantage. So it is easier then to make sure your business/company has a competitive advantage now than to try to create it later. I say this because it is only logical that creating that competitive edge over your competitors now should be the most important priority on your to-do list.
So your checklist should definitely include how to create that competitive advantage over other businesses that offer similar products or services. That will assist in building a loyal customer base.
Once you have that loyal customer base, then it is up to you to retain them. That is the key, really, to a successful enterprise. You have drawn customers in with a catchy slogan or whatever marketing techniques you have employed. You have sold something to them through your sales processes that have been steadily refined. And now it is time to complete the business cycle again, i.e., make another sale.
The sale cannot be made without effort, as I said in the beginning of this article. It may seem like an effortless process when viewed from the outside (e.g., how does that business keep getting loyal customers?). But it is really about putting in that same effort yourself to identify which customers are likely to become repeat customers, which are already repeat customers, and trying to come up with a plan that will cater to those who you want to become repeat customers.
Then, we have sort of a strategy here.
We have a strategy but it is out of order intentionally. The order really does not matter (in my view).
So, of the steps we have identified in this article, one is to create a competitive advantage. This can be developed over time or instantaneously, though it is much easier to develop this over time, because it is very rare for a business to develop a competitive advantage on the flip of a hat.
Another step is to market to customers and potential new customers. This is key because you will need to get the word out somehow. Ensuring that the word gets out on appropriate channels will ensure you have a steady flow of potential new customers coming into your business, whether it is a brick-and-mortar shop or an online marketplace. A step that is somewhat similar to this one is the whole purpose of this article, i.e., to create loyal customers.
This is a difficult question to answer, as there are multiple ways you may arrive at this conclusion, but it is the most important in terms of creating a new business venture.
Lastly, you will need to find a way to replicate this business success and show others how to do it. This is sometimes called scalability. First things first, you must make the business run on a small scale.
Then you must (if so desired) make the business scalable so the processes that operate this business, whatever your field may be, can be performed by anyone. The competitive advantage is still very important here, perhaps more so than before. I say that it might be more important than before because in the evolution of a business, competitive advantage tends not to stay stagnant.
That means that it has to evolve for the business to survive. That is why many companies put their best minds to work on how the business can become scalable. It is their way of saying that the business can maintain its competitive advantage on larger and larger scales. This ensures their bottom line stays in the green, as well, to a certain degree.
Of course, there are certain unpredictable events that can take a margin out of a company’s cash flow. However, if these techniques are followed and attempted, they will at least generate the possibility of a business being successful, especially when attempting to build a loyal customer base.
Future Group can help with these business challenges. They can help design a plan and provide other services that will allow your business to thrive in today’s global marketplace.
In this article, I hope to have shown that the business cycle can be viewed in one of two ways. One is that the business cycle is infinite, which is of little use other than that it shows that businesses have endless potential, theoretically speaking.
The second definition of the business cycle is almost the opposite, meaning that the business cycle has something about it which requires businesses to maintain their competitive advantages. Thus, it follows from this that if a business cannot or will not maintain a competitive advantage, it is likely to wither and fail.
This should not discourage you or any others from attempting to build a loyal customer base, however. I hope this article has shed light on how to acquire and keep customers on a global level. I also hope it satisfied its aim in explaining the different competitive advantages that a business may have in this day and age and in this marketplace.