How Customer Brand Loyalty Will Help Your Bottom Line

In these times, it's surprising to come across businesses that operate as if they expect customers to magically show up at their stores or online. But I see it every day - and I'm sure you do too. What's worse is that many of these businesses do little or nothing to ensure that the customers they have will keep coming back.

With competition for new customers getting tougher every day, it certainly makes sense for companies that hope to survive and grow to start focusing on creating loyal customers. In fact, creating customers who are loyal to your brand is one of today's most important strategies for business sustainability and growth.

And here's why. When customers are highly loyal to your brand, they will:

• Give only slight consideration to similar brands when they're deciding what to buy.
• Request it by name.
• Recommend your brand to anyone who will listen to them talk about it.
• Accept only your brand.
• Be more open to your new product and service offerings.
• Travel farther and longer to get your brand.
• Pay more for it.

But the most important reason to develop customers who are loyal to your brand is also the simplest and most practical: it costs about five times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep one. If you're one of the businesses that isn't doing anything about customer loyalty, you might want to think about that.