Loyalty To Lead Future Marketing Strategies

Indian marketers must tackle the customer loyalty challenge head-on.

- Shubhranshu Singh

The presentations made in the board room are always rightly worded. To turn ‘available yet disinterested prospects’ into ‘acceptor enthusiasts’ or better still ‘evangelical advocates’ has been enshrined as a consecrated objective. Yet, it doesn’t quite translate from lip service to on ground action. Where attempted, too many conceptual errors or last mile execution fractures lead to a breakdown. The time has come for Indian marketers to tackle the customer loyalty challenge head-on. The market has become Darwinian. Without customers there is no business.

Since all customers were, at some point in time, unconcerned and brand-agnostic, how did this journey from ignorance to awareness, evoked need, purchase, satisfaction, delight and eventually evangelism happen?

I note four crucial stages that can be mapped in the loyalty journey:

1. Reaching ‘available’ prospects

2. Pulling them in with ‘total’ communication

3. Turning the ‘acceptors’ into ‘shoppers’ and ensuring conversion to ‘brand owners’

4. Delighting owners into advocacy and making them part of a community