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The secret of retaining brand loyalty – always keep the customer in mind

Guest post by: Georgina Dunkley

Article Overview: Two news stories in recent months have reaffirmed to me, as a PR consultant, the importance of always keeping your target audience and customer in mind when handling a marketing campaign – failure to do so will not only be a massive waste of time doomed to failure but in some circumstances, could have a detrimental effect on your brand.

The secret of retaining brand loyalty – always keep the customer in mind

Two news stories in recent months have reaffirmed to me, as a PR consultant, the importance of always keeping your target audience and customer in mind when handling a marketing campaign - failure to do so will not only be a massive waste of time doomed to failure but in some circumstances, could have a detrimental effect on your brand. The two such stories I mention and which have been widely broadcast across news channels, have made consumers and viewers revolt in anger; the rebranding of fashion retailer Gap and the airing of Eastenders' controversial baby-snatching storyline.

Recognised the world over as a retailer of high-quality everyday clothes items, Gap's iconography has long been represented by a blue box and white writing, spelling out GAP. When the brand decided to refresh its look by presenting a new brand on its Facebook fan page, the negative backlash from consumers quickly encouraged Gap to return to its former glory. Thankfully, the brand could mask the rebrand as a consumer research exercise; a flexibility the Facebook platform allowed.

Eastenders has established itself as something of a national treasure, annually scooping British TV awards. The recent story over the Christmas period where Ronnie Branning swapped her baby boy with Kat and Alfie Moon's however caused a public outcry. The plot was questioned across the national media, on social networking sites and during conversations between friends and family, and the consensus was that Eastenders had overstepped the mark with this ‘challenging' storyline.

The BBC felt the full force of the publics' distaste and dissatisfaction and as a result bought forward the climaxing return of the baby to his true parents, a full eight months before the scenes were due to be aired.

It seems this response by the BBC certainly paid off. The Media Guardian reported that Eastenders took a 42.8 per cent share of all viewers for the episode with a staggering 10.97 million people watching the emotional reunion of baby Tommy with Kat and Alfie.

In this difficult economy, where price and value often dictate consumer preferences, retaining credibility and listening to the wants and needs of your customers is seemingly more important than ever before.

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Article Tags: PR brand loyalty customer retention



Related Forum Posts
Re: How Much Of Ourselves Should We Give Away...? - what a great topic david start here, it reminds me of a movie i watched resently called KUNFU PANDA. The movie is all about keeping secret. there were two secret kept: the secret of dragon scroll and secret of cooking, later the secret was revealed which was no secret kept. the reason am relating this movie with the topic is that, you can give out 90% for free and hold on to 10% secret which will make you have more customer and traffic. I know some marketers both the internet and offline that will give you 100% product for free but whenever they want to sell to you the little one you will be glad to respond because of their gesture. What I would like to say is that giving out most of the product is a great marketing strategy to win more buyers to your future products.
Re: Matching competitors prices - beware - While I agree that getting into a price war should be avoided if possible... on rare occasions, it's not a bad idea to match someone's price (or even beat it) if you're doing it "one time" to land a new customer. For instance, I was recently looking for the best price on a [u:2rhwa2wg]specific[/u:2rhwa2wg] flight to NY and a customer service rep from Flight Centre ended up taking zero commission to help me book my flight. In fact, she even beat the price by $5 in the hopes of creating brand loyalty for the future.
a legacy - sounds like your grandfather left a real legacy. It reminds me of Dale Carnegies famous quote, 'people dont care how much you know, until they know how much you care' An interesting side bar is the idea of customer loyalty. I recently worked with a large bank on their new 'loyalty' program. I called it like I saw it, they didnt have loyal customers....they had hostages. If anyone reading wants to learn more about delivering great customer service, they should read "Raving Fans' by Ken Blanchard and "how to win friends and influence people' by Dale Carnegie Two of my favourite resources... The third resource I can always count on was my dad. Although he died almost 18 years ago, he raised me and my 5 brothers and sisters with a strong work ethic, a respect for people of all backgrounds and a healthy respect for time. In fact, I am often teased for always being early or at least very punctual and I find it sad that in today's world, we seem to have lost a lot of the basic tenets of common sense and courtesy.
Re: What's in a Name? - It is extremely important... it can either take you to the top or drag you to the bottom. Though clearly the "branding" is not solely responsible in any case a business fails. But admittedly it can be a contributing factor. Basically I think the most important quality of every company name are simple; 1. retaining factor 2. reflects your business. Be creative, think unique but not complicated. Never settle for pretty generic brands like Joey's Bakery or any of that sort. There are some people that suggest a phone test; If you try to mention the name of a company over the phone and the other person understand you completely without having to spell it... then most likely your company name has the retaining and simplicity factor.
Re: a legacy - [quote="TheRainmaker":36ce5c3z]sounds like your grandfather left a real legacy. It reminds me of Dale Carnegies famous quote, 'people dont care how much you know, until they know how much you care' An interesting side bar is the idea of customer loyalty. I recently worked with a large bank on their new 'loyalty' program. I called it like I saw it, they didnt have loyal customers....they had hostages. If anyone reading wants to learn more about delivering great customer service, they should read "Raving Fans' by Ken Blanchard and "how to win friends and influence people' by Dale Carnegie Two of my favourite resources... The third resource I can always count on was my dad. Although he died almost 18 years ago, he raised me and my 5 brothers and sisters with a strong work ethic, a respect for people of all backgrounds and a healthy respect for time. In fact, I am often teased for always being early or at least very punctual and I find it sad that in today's world, we seem to have lost a lot of the basic tenets of common sense and courtesy.[/quote:36ce5c3z] Very true - its important to create loyal customers and I've always felt that great customer service is a great way to start that process. If I deal with a company and its clear they don't care about my business and they don't support me, I look around for someone who does. Why support a business that won't support me? Chris


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