The word ‘fan’ conjures up images of screaming groupies at a rock concert.
And passionate sports lovers, crying for their team – win or lose. Pretty powerful stuff. Which is precisely why the process of turning customers into brand fans has become the prize many companies are searching for.
Psychologists haven’t quite figured out why people become so obsessed with their favourite sports team. It could be the need to feel connected to a community. Or the entertaining drama of competition. Or perhaps it’s an escape. The common thread is that of an emotional bond, which people find incredibly compelling. Creating rewarding experiences for your customers has a similar effect.
When examining the role that rewards play in creating brand fans, we can look to the likes of Nike. They send a select group of sneakerheads alerts about limited edition sneaker releases, so they don’t have to scuffle in line for hours with other hypebeasts. Or the Starbucks mobile app that made Starbucks money more popular than Apple or Google Pay. These brands are creating superfans by engaging with more than simple points or free vouchers. Theirs is a holistic, digitally-led approach. The kind that instils deep passion amongst the most loyal customers, which in turn spills over into the rest of the brand community, creating a cycle with exponential returns.
The power of brand fans
Within today’s hyper-connected landscape, each company has an opportunity to reach a global market. Finding people to buy your product is only the first step though. And as much as the worldwide web has expanded audience bases, competition is pretty steep too. You need brand fans.
More than people who buy your product, brand advocates (fans) are the ones who believe in your company so much that they want to tell others about it. They act as a beacon, displaying the value of joining your brand space. Highly engaged, your superfans are active participants in every step of your journey.
Here are some stats that further highlight the value of cultivating and nurturing a fan culture in your customer community:
- 90% of all purchases are subjected to social influences
- 67% of shoppers spend more money online after seeing recommendations
- 90% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and acquaintances
- Customers referred by advocates have a 37% higher retention rate
- Content shared by employees receives 8X more engagement than content shared by brand channels
- Brand messages are re-shared 24X more frequently when distributed by employees vs the brand
- Employee advocacy results in a 5X increase in web traffic and 25% more leads
- Advocates tell 2X as many people about their purchases than non-advocates
- Advocates recommend brands based on their own positive experiences (50%) and a desire to help other people (37%)
- Brand advocates spend 2X more money than average customers on their favourite brands
- Brand advocates are 75% more likely to share product information
Rewarding for brand advocacy
Not every customer has the potential to become a true brand fan. Some will buy and not become invested in the culture and community experiences you’ve created. And customers don’t become advocates without a reason.
That’s where rewards come in.
In order for brand fans to flourish, they need something to get behind. Creating a community grounded in rewards establishes a culture that they feel confident sharing with their network. What’s more, if your rewards showcase your own values as a business, you are able to turbocharge the experience for your advocates. Because then you start to form emotional bonds with your audience. And, as we’ve already acknowledged, an emotional connection is what being a fan is all about.
These rewards will build fans
Personalised rewards
Tailoring incentives that are geared to unique customer tastes and preferences is one of the best ways to grow a loyal community. For example, women’s fashion retailer, Simply Be, gives customers personalised rewards in return for engagement.
“In such a competitive market, we want our customers to feel like they’re part of something more personal and really interact with the brand. We have seen great results with Perks so far, which demonstrates that being part of something exclusive really resonates with our customers and in turn, increases loyalty”
– Ann Steer, chief customer officer at N Brown Group, parent company of Simply Be
Marks & Spencer’s Sparks program has also gained popularity by providing a selection of tailor-made offers to its most loyal customers. The reward is based on what those customers have been purchasing and browsing online. This tactic shows their customers that they are eager to add value. Another strong push towards creating advocates.
Participation rewards
Rewards can be used to leverage highly engaged fans who enjoy interacting with your content. The idea being, you use their interactions to gather data and further amplify customer experiences. This strategy is about rewarding things like online reviews and completed surveys. What’s more, when you combine tasks with a valuable incentive, you enlist everyone in your brand community to participate in your story. This offers a welcome doorway for ‘lukewarm’ customers to develop into fans.
Social rewards
These types of rewards are based on how much fans interact with you on social media. By making it easy and valuable for your fans to share your content or product offering online, you’re strengthening your relationship with them. You’re also leveraging social media influencer culture, which is a highly amplified peer-to-peer review scenario.
Tiered rewards
The best example of why tiered rewards create advocates is Sephora’s Beauty Insider loyalty program. Their strategy isn’t a new one. Customers gain access to incentives based on their spending habits. But Sephora has successfully tapped into the highly-charged, consumer culture surrounding the makeup industry. Top tier program members are quick to boast and share news of the special treatment and products that they receive, making the top tier a highly sought after position. Simply put, most Sephora customers long to gain access to what the superfans experience.
Authentic rewards
Rewards that express a unique brand ethos and value proposition are also a potent tool. These give customers an opportunity to join the brand story. Patagonia, which has found its roots in environmental activism, is a great example of this thinking. This year, the brand launched a platform that connects customers directly to environmental NGOs. While not a traditional rewards program, this exercise certainly adds value – rewarding people through the experience of giving back. What’s more, it has a very simple link back to Patagonia’s brand positioning and speaks to the hearts of a massive global audience, customers and non-customers alike. That is, even if you’ve never bought a Patagonia product, you could be considered a brand fan (I know I am).
Conclusion
We know that successful rewards create emotional bonds.
Superfans are the people who feel most connected to your brand, so it’s not hard to see that rewards play a massive role in creating and nurturing your advocate relationships.
When you’re ready to delve deeper into a reward program strategy that aims to do just that, ask yourself these 3 questions:
- If I were an advocate, would this incentive excite me?
- Does the incentive make sense as part of our branded program?
- Does its value (perceived or monetary) align with the actions I’m asking from my advocates?
And if you don’t find the answers, give us a call. We’re experts at creating and keeping brand advocates, with strategic rewards programs.
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