Customer loyalty can be measured in many ways. By transactions, brand engagement, advocacy, social media sharing, or through unique experiences.
But loyalty isn’t earned overnight, so it’s important for brands to nurture their best customer relationships through positive interactions.
And while we know that loyal customers transact more, what happens between purchases can have a huge impact.
Here are seven statistics from our 2022 Customer Loyalty Data Study that show how loyal customers are engaging.
1. Sixty-seven Percent of Consumers Say They Buy From Their Favorite Brands at Least Once a Month.
Making regular purchases is the most common action taken by loyal customers. This is because your most loyal customers shop with your brand more often than others, enjoy your products and services, and receive relevant, personalized communications.
Brands should do as much as they can to engage with their best customers as often as possible.
So, your loyal customers are clearly buying a lot, which means you have more opportunities to engage in ways beyond just transactions.
Now, you can offer them more incentivized engagement opportunities to help you collect more customer data. This can be done through more communication, using surveys and/or sweepstakes events where customers can earn chances to win some great prizes.
If you communicate more and enhance the customer experience, this number can grow.
2. Forty-eight Percent of Consumers Say They Tell Their Friends About Their Favorite Brands.
Friends and families are some of the biggest influences on consumers’ opinions about brands. Our study shows that 76% of consumers say opinions of family and friends impact their loyalty to brands.
If a significant percentage of your customers spreads the good news about various attributes of your brand, you will benefit overall. This is a big opportunity for brands to encourage consumers to share more.
Dove has empowered women everywhere through its #RealBeauty marketing campaign, which launched in 2004. The brands has created social media campaigns around its values of inclusivity, natural beauty, and positive body image.
It’s been highly successful and shared widely by many. After Dove found that 70% of women don’t feel represented in the media and advertising world, it partnered with Girlgaze, Getty Images, and women everywhere to create a photo library to truly show women and shatter beauty stereotypes.
Also, Patagonia connects with its customers to support causes they care about and that passion is shared with families and friends everywhere. The brand truly represents the activist spirit and related causes.
3. Thirty-two Percent of Consumers Say They Participate in Their Favorite Brands’ Loyalty Programs.
For brands, the reality is this statistical number should be much higher. More than one third of your best customers should be engaged members of your loyalty program.
This is when you ramp up your loyalty program advertising efforts and make sure your in-store associates are doing everything they can to properly explain it to customers.
Also ensure your program benefits are aligned with your members’ expectations.
Brands can start building “communities” by offering a loyalty program that offers true value. These programs can combine transactional and experiential benefits, along with enticing incentivized engagement, which drives positive customer behavior.
Here are some ways to ramp up your loyalty program enrollment:
- Make sure your in-store associates are educated about your program and explaining it well to customers.
- Get creative with your in-store real estate to promote your loyalty program.
- Offer loyalty program signup and referral incentives.
- Leverage social media to promote your loyalty program.
- Use your website to explain and promote your loyalty program.
Best Buy is a great example of an end-to-end loyalty solution that appeals to Best Buy’s entire customer base – the My Best Buy traditional program for casual shoppers and the Totaltech premium loyalty program for avid tech enthusiasts.
My Best Buy is a traditional tiered program that offers points, discounts, expedited or free shipping based on spend. More recently, Best Buy launched Totaltech, a premium loyalty program that carries an annual membership fee of $199.
Apparel and outdoor gear retailer The North Face incentivizes loyalty members to earn more and more rewards by offering flexibility in how they’re redeemed—with options tailored to match its customers’ lifestyles.
Customers earn points with the XPLR Pass program in the traditional way on every purchase, and in some unique ways, like attending The North Face events, checking in at certain locations, and downloading The North Face app. When it comes time to redeem rewards, customers can use points toward unique travel experiences, like a mountain climbing adventure in Nepal.
4. Twenty-four Percent of Consumers Say They Provide Feedback/Fill Out Surveys From Their Favorite Brands.
Again, this is a low figure that you should work toward improving. So, don’t ever be afraid to ask customers for feedback or to fill out brand surveys because their opinions are crucial to gaining insights that can be leveraged to benefit everyone.
Are you providing your customers with many opportunities to offer feedback? This is also where forms of incentivized engagement can ignite participation from customers.
For example, filling out a survey for a chance to win a product or to earn more points is very enticing for customers.
Your loyal customers should be rewarded every time they engage with your brand, whether that’s through a purchase, providing a review, joining an online group, reading a piece of content, or referring a friend.
And with third-party data going away for brands in less than two years, the time is now to cultivate customer data and key insights from your best customers.
Your most loyal customers want to engage with your brand as long as there’s value in it for them. They want to provide any feedback you wish on products, service, and anything else. When you ask for their feedback, they feel important and special.
This all goes toward establishing two-way trust and emotional connections. By doing this, you’re telling your customers you value their opinions.
5. Nineteen Percent of Consumers Say They Share Personal Data With Their Favorite Brands.
Too often consumers don’t understand why brands are asking them for various types of personal data, so it’s up to the brands to explain exactly why they need it.
As brands prepare for third-party cookies to disappear by the end of 2023, collecting customer data and insights will become even more important.
Zero-party data, when customers willingly give brands opinions on various parts of the customer experience, will help brands gain key customer insights.
This stat number is quite low in a time when customer data is so important to brands.
Brands must be transparent with their most loyal customers and show them the value derived from the data they share. To have customers share more personal data with your brand, you must provide attractive incentives.
For example, we helped 19 Crimes (an Australian wine brand) with its Infamous Insider Rewards loyalty program that offers many great ways to engage. Members complete tasks mapped out in the dashboard to accrue points.
Then they can use their points to receive prizes such as swag, VIP perks, and chances to win exclusive prizes. And the more they play, the better chance they must win various new prizes.
6. Seventeen Percent of Consumers Say They Post About Their Favorite Brands Using Their Hashtags/Handles.
This statistic shows brands that they can do much more when it comes to sparking consumers to use social media as part of their brand advocacy.
When done correctly, brands that encourage social media sharing create brand communities for their best and most loyal customers.
So, this stat begs the question: “Why aren’t your loyal customers engaging on social media about your brand?”
Maybe they don’t have a reason to post something?
Sharing on social media is a great way for your best customers to engage with your brand and with other customers.
Brands can spur interest in social media sharing by using hashtags that resonate with their most loyal customers.
Starbucks has a long history of heavy social media participation among its best customers.
In 2014 and 2015 Starbucks introduced a holiday #redcupcontest on Instagram. Users shared and tagged photos of their red cups for chances to win one of five prizes and included #redcupcontest hashtag.
The fact that this contest was during the holiday season made it even more engaging for customers.
Social media raises brand awareness and is a great place for your customers to talk about you. Social media goes a long way toward shaping your brand personality to the world.
7. Eight Percent of Consumers Attended an Event Hosted or Sponsored By Their Favorite Brands.
The pandemic played a crucial role in keeping this percentage low, but many brands offer online events that are very engaging to many customers.
Consumers want reasons to engage with your brand. If you’re not giving them reasons to, or enough of them, think about in-store or online events that instill brand advocacy and a sense of community.
Consumers love events in general. So, brands should think long and hard about ramping up their efforts in this area because they are incredibly engaging.
For example, Sephora hosts in-store classes that usually focus on makeup techniques or skincare at many of its locations.
You Can Make Your Best Customers Better
Your most loyal customers live and breathe your brand and want to engage. Give them outlets to do this and they will gladly participate.
It’s important for brands to think holistically about their loyalty and engagement strategies and try to offer something for their different customer groups.
You can make your best customers more loyal by offering more incentives to engage with your brand, whether that’s through in-store events, email, experiential benefits, or social media sharing.
Every brand has customers with different motivations. Some will be motivated by transactional elements like price, and some will be motivated by brand values. At the end of the day, they share one thing in common: They love your brand.
Be loyal to your best customers.
The more your brand keeps your best customers top of mind, the more they’ll keep you top-of-mind.
To download the 2022 Customer Loyalty Data Study, click here.
If your brand needs help in any of these areas, feel free to contact us here.
ebbo
ebbo helps brands achieve their customer loyalty goals with full-service, end-to-end solutions and also creates original educational content straight from the experts to help loyalty marketers stay on the cutting edge of customer engagement.