Bringing in new customers to your business costs up to 25 times more than keeping the customers you have happy. It’s essential for any business to focus on ways to persuade customers to work with them over the long-term.
You can retain your customers by nurturing customer loyalty. The goal of building customer loyalty is to not only have customers buy from you, but also to support your business in other ways.
Loyal customers will help your business by buying from you often. They also trust your company and are willing to tell others about it. Customers who identify with your business values are more likely to support your brand. They’ll follow you on social media, engage with your content, and share that content with their peers. Loyal customers will act as your brand advocates and build good news around your business.
It’s clear that building customer loyalty benefits your business and it’s smart to foster it from day one. But how do you nurture customers into feeling invested in your brand?
A practical way to build loyalty is to set up a membership platform for your customers. A membership platform is an exclusive space where you can bring together content and customers.
Belonging to a membership site can create loyalty the same way being part of a group does. Think back to a time where you belonged to a group in your school, college, or community. Being part of a sports team, a club, or any other group kindles a feeling of loyalty. You’re invested in your group and want to promote its interest while being involved in its activities.
Membership sites can create this same feeling by creating a space where customers can share content and experiences. It’s a powerful way for a business to get customers invested in a brand. Let’s take a deeper look into different ways you can leverage membership sites to foster customer loyalty.
Build an online brand community
Brands like LEGO and Apple have thriving online brand communities. People discuss topics and share ideas, and even participate in shaping products. A brand community grows from customers sharing in the values of your business. Your products, services, and content also shape the building of a brand community.
An online brand community based on a membership site creates many benefits for a business.
- It becomes a helpful resource base for product or domain information. You can develop your membership site into a hub for discussing industry information.
- An online community can give people a place to voice their ideas and share information. You’ll create a space where your customers can be creative, which will foster loyalty
- Customers can answer each others’ questions and pose queries of their own. By sharing information and experiences people will interact with each other and the brand. When you have users giving each other helpful answers you free up time to work on problems that need real solutions
- Online communities produce user-generated content. You can use such content for content marketing. User-generated content featured in ads, as testimonials, and on your site will build social proof.
Online communities create a sense of belonging to a group that’s centered around your brand. It’s a way to link people’s identities to the values your business espouses. Your membership site can develop loyalty by enabling peer interactions and hosting content.
Offer access to content
Membership sites make it easier for you to leverage content and boost customer loyalty. People will value their membership with a company or a site that provides access to exclusive information. Content like industry reports, market projections, and even “how-to” content that’s not available anywhere else can make your membership site attractive to customers.
People are more willing to sign up and stay connected to your brand when they know they are getting valuable content. Such content can take different forms. You can start a blog that only members can access. It’s a good idea to also offer content like videos, newsletters, and emails. Exclusive content can include promotions and offers for members. You can launch email campaigns that give your members information about discounts. Around 60% of consumers sign up to an email list just to access deals and promotions.
You can also build an online course only for your customers. For example, if you have an SEO tool, then you can create an online course in SEO exclusively to train your customers. Your clients can learn to use your product better and will need less customer support for minor issues.
Use exclusive content to drive up engagement, traffic, and boost loyalty.
Create exclusive experiences
Another way you can leverage your membership site to boost customer loyalty is to offer exclusive experiences from your site. You can showcase and promote events on a membership platform. Live events, webinars, product demonstrations are popular ways to engage with customers in a real way.
You can set up an event registration form on your membership site for people to get information about upcoming events. You can augment your marketing by using a drip-email campaign to send automated emails with relevant information.
Creating events and email campaigns will help build a relationship with customers. By offering an exclusive event, you generate excitement and make your brand more memorable.
Disney Movie Insider is a great example of a company offering exclusive experiences to its members. The website gives its insiders a chance to win a private screening of upcoming movies; it also has other rewards that are only for its members.
You can also answer questions and provide supporting material on a membership site platform. People will be more interested in being a member on your site to access experiences and get information.
Start a loyalty program
A loyalty program is a form of membership where customers are rewarded for the purchases they make. You can give users points, badges and other awards that customers can redeem.
Sephora is an example of a company that gives its customers rewards for buying from its stores. Customers accumulate points that they can redeem for products or a discount.
Loyalty programs give customers a definite benefit for buying from a brand. They are motivated to make more frequent purchases and won’t find it beneficial to move to your competition.
Build loyalty with membership sites
To build customer loyalty, you need to build a connection with your audience. Membership sites are platforms that let you build customer loyalty with content and peer interactions. They have features that enable you to protect your content and build forums. You can easily set up your own membership site with a plugin if you have a WordPress site.
Membership sites also give you insights into your members’ activities which will help you improve your processes. You can automate repetitive user activities such as managing new subscriptions or cancellations. Automation lets you provide consistently good quality services that customers can rely on.
Membership sites are a way of showing customers that you’re willing to extra steps to engage with them. Providing your audience with content and giving them a space to speak their minds shows that you value their opinions. You’ll be able to drive traffic, boost conversions, and make money online for your business. Now that you’ve looked at the benefits, go ahead and build your own membership site to grow a loyal customer base.
