Does Brand Loyalty Have a Future?

The evolution of technology is shaping consumer lifestyle and affecting brand loyalty.

Woven into the fabric of everyday living, changing how we communicate, how we absorb media, interact with our friends, and how we perceive technology itself. Time is not as readily spent on learning new gadgets simply because it looks fun, consumers question the benefits the gadget brings to the table before investing the time. Consumers are more interested in time-value and how it enhances their lives, not just tech for the sake of tech.

As lifestyle brands increase the use of technology, lines are blurring and the same thought process has edged its way into brand loyalty. Successful brands know where their audience is headed and when it’s time to unbundle and evolve media or product to appeal to today’s changing consumer.

Creating Legacy Brands

The legacy brand will focus on digital plans that enhance the customer experience. Such as implementing improvements to drive down costs like delivery services through mobile channels. Offering that anytime, anywhere service that enhances the customer experience through simplicity, ease, transparency, and utility. The goal of the legacy brand is to enhance the customer value proposition and increase brand loyalty.

Blending Brand and Culture

Blending brand reputation into the fabric of company culture with the new millennial workforce. With unemployment dropping to the lowest since the post-recession era, the war for top talent has intensified. With millennials now the dominant generation in the workplace, the conversation has gone to questions about diversity, ethics, and company effects on the world. Today’s engaged employee wants more than just creating great products and enjoying profits; the purpose and values of the company have come into play and now provide the cultural glue for its workforce.

Focus on Experience

The focus will be on the overall work experience and how it affects humanity. With the advancement of technology, the focus is threaded throughout the human experience. Technology has jumped from gadgets that simply do things or make our lives easier, to a human digital experience with a focus on empathy. This shift is already being seen with artificial intelligence, chat bots, and virtual experiences. But the change yet to come is how that focus switches from newness of the delivery platforms to the actual emotional impact from the interaction such as in employee training, onboarding a new-hire or client, and other techniques empowering employees to be brand ambassadors.

Brand Analytics and Insight

Emerging disruptive brands have sidestepped traditional industry processes and shifted power to the consumer. As brands like Uber, Lyft, and Juno continue to grow and differentiate, they have found that innovation alone does not translate to maintainable long-term advantages. Effective brand management will ultimately be the deciding factor in the quest to earn lasting customer loyalty. Calling on disruptive brands to steer their focus toward brand valuation.

Naming Practices

Brands attempt to reconnect on a human level as we continue to see names that feel “human.” But this ongoing trend will be tested in that is a name alone enough to humanize a brand? Brands and consumers may have to face a more fundamental question of how human or artificial do we want future technologies to be.

Simplification of Communication

Minimizing the cutter in inboxes is being addressed with an increase in the use of real-time messaging platforms. Messaging allows quick partnership and sharing of ideas across collaborative groups throughout multiple locations. Messaging products facilitate clearer communication and provide efficient, real-time collaboration while reducing the need to misuse email.

Brand Activation

Effective brand activation with the purpose of growing in importance is about creating learning opportunities for employees to facilitate their own personal growth. Implementing and using tools that allow them to seamlessly absorb the most amount of information is becoming increasingly important. Employees expect to have the tools to effectively do their jobs. Those same tools should also be of a level that they expect from the products that engage them as consumers. Tools that increase awareness and engage them such as experiences, sampling products, or some other level of brand experience.

Keep these ideas in mind when creating or revising your brand story to influence brand loyalty:

• Keep the human element in mind at every touchpoint.
• Put benefits of your brand and product first, not just the technical specs.
• When talking tech, tell your customers how it will help them, not just what it is designed to do.

Using experiential methods in every aspect of your marketing plan to create an emotional connection with your customers is key to staying relevant. The more you create a consistent story connecting your brand to people, the more success you will have with brand loyalty.

If you are thinking about taking your business online, LuxePros Find a Pro can help take it to the next level.

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