Brand loyalty: It needs to start from within

Regular reviews and mentoring will help to ensure a steady flow of feedback from the team, creating an open environment where grievances and concerns can be aired and resolved. Over time, a happy workforce will instil a strong sense of brand loyalty from within.

What do you stand for?

However, what is actually more important in the mission to create brand loyalty from within is to work out what your brand stands for in the market. Only then can you establish this within the company and expect your employees to reflect it.

If you aim to be perceived as a premium brand, then ensuring employees “feel” this is vital. From uniforms through to company vehicles, a premium brand must carry the perception throughout for the employees to buy into it and then reflect it. 

Similarly, if the brand aim is value for money, then a chief executive turning up in a Rolls Royce might seem at odds, and therefore would affect brand loyalty among staff. Most brands fail because they don’t behave in the way of the values.

Once this is achieved, you will cultivate a team that feels a real sense of pride in the organisation and will sincerely communicate brand loyalty and messages to audiences.

Incentives

What is also important is providing a nurturing and inclusive environment where employees are offered a clear incentivised progression path. This will help to create a team that has an honest enthusiasm for the company they work for, making them all the more driven and determined to spread the word and promote the brand. 

Working with the team to ensure that they are privy to decisions, which affect the direction of the business, will create real team- players that believe in the management and also for the company and what it stands for.

Read more about brand loyalty:

• How to measure customer loyalty
• Businesses aim for 2015 growth by betting on customer loyalty
• Businesses need to understand how customers interact with their brand

Brand loyalty is becoming more than a fashionable marketing strategy, it’s a new mind-set which I’m seeing being adopted across a number of industries. 

Our relationship with brands is evolving as they explore the opportunities to communicate with audiences through various digital and social platforms, so cultivating brand loyalty can help to cut through the abundance of choice and engage target audiences.

Try these few simple steps to help establish a real sense of brand loyalty within your team:

1. Consult

It’s not always practical to involve everyone in each and every decision but consulting the team on the big stuff and ensuring everyone has a platform to contribute will help to grow a team that works with you as opposed to for you.

2. Motivate

Incentivise your team, make sure they are aware that passion and hard work will be rewarded. Whether it’s a pay rise, promotion or just a thank you email to the team.

3. Engage

I’ve always found that a happy, motivated team are far more likely to share and engage with company content on social media platforms. Spreading the word in a positive and natural way to encourage brand loyalty.

 Richard Close is a business turnaround specialist with more than 30 years’ experience.

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