It's important to keep your customers happy.
On the one hand, customers with an emotional attachment to a brand have higher lifetime value, but on the other, poor experiences may cause those same customers to churn.
This being the case, you should definitely invest in building brand loyalty, whether it's through a full-fledged customer loyalty program or using strategies like amazing customer service and optimized customer experiences.
In this article, we'll go over the importance of brand loyalty, benefits and examples, and some steps and tools for building brand loyalty for your business.
What Is Brand Loyalty?
Brand loyalty is when customers keep buying from the same brands rather than competitors.
Essentially, it's your customer's desire to stay your customer. Viewed from your end of the business, it's customer retention, your ability to keep customers coming back in the long run.
Several factors can drive brand loyalty.
Maybe your products have unbeatable quality. Maybe your customer service is impeccable, leaving them with a smile every time they interact with you. Maybe you closely align with their beliefs and values to the point that they see your brand as an extension of themselves.
When shoppers develop true devotion to your company, they often feel that their connection to your brand reflects who they are as individuals. This deep emotional bond means they're not simply looking for the best deal or most convenient option. They believe your offerings are genuinely superior in the marketplace.
But remember: Just because a customer makes more than one purchase doesn't necessarily mean they're loyal. You might just have a cheaper or more convenient offering, which can easily be scooped up by a competitor.
The key difference is that brand loyalty is deeply rooted in positive emotions: trust, comfort, relatability, and satisfaction chief among them.
Why Is Brand Loyalty Important?
Building brand loyalty helps keep your business afloat and thriving.
If you're not able to retain your customers, you're going to have to perpetually sink money into marketing and advertising techniques to find new ones. It can cost five to seven times more to win a new customer than to retain a current customer, so it’s not just about customer happiness for its own sake. It’s a financial imperative.
The Benefits of Brand Loyalty
Here are just a few of the many benefits of brand loyalty.
Higher Profit Margins
According to a SuperOffice survey, investing in customer retention is one of the biggest drivers of revenue.
One of the reasons for this is that returning customers spend more on average than new customers, giving your customer lifetime value (CLV), or total dollar value of each customer, a nice boost.
And as previously mentioned, being able to keep more customers means you can maintain your revenue and growth without needing to shell out loads of extra money on strategies like customer acquisition and customer conversions.
If enough of your customers are coming back on their own, you can theoretically earn the same amount of revenue without having to spend an extra dime on marketing.
Better Brand Recognition
When customers love you, it creates a ripple effect.
People start to talk about you. They recommend you to their friends and family, and even give you free marketing in the form of voluntary shoutouts on social media.
This free marketing can extend into the coveted realm of user-generated content, in which they're flaunting your product or service in action just to brag to their friends. (Which, by the way, is something you can add to your social media marketing plan, too.)
Ultimately, this good will and positive word of mouth makes you more popular and easy to recognize in your niche. This, in turn, makes it easier for you to convert prospects into new customers, whether through successful referrals from current customers or other discovery methods.
Protection Against Changing Market Conditions
There are many things that can go wrong while you're quietly minding your own business.
Here are a few examples of how conditions in your market can change and the potential importance of brand loyalty in protecting you from the aftershock:
- Say that a new competitor storms your niche. If customers are certain that you'll give them what they want with a consistently amazing experience, they won't even look twice at competitors.
- Say your main competitors suddenly drop their prices, but you can't keep up. Loyal customers know the premium price for premium experiences and won't jump ship so easily.
- Say there's an economic recession in your main market. Brand loyalty can actually bring revenue boosts despite hard times for customers and businesses.
- Protection against reputation blows. Chances are, if you're devoted to a brand, bad reviews and other negative reputation impactors will have less of an influence on your decision to stay with them. It takes a lot more than just a bad review to push those customers away, and trust us, you're going to get at least a couple of bad reviews.
- Room to innovate and test new ideas. Having devoted fans gives your company breathing room to try fresh approaches. When you're ready to introduce something innovative, your committed base will be eager to give it a shot and will likely view it favorably from the start.
If an experiment doesn't work out as planned, your solid foundation of excellent offerings and positive customer relationships means your business can bounce back more easily. This safety net allows you to take calculated risks that could lead to breakthrough growth.
How to Create a Brand Loyalty Program
One of the best brand loyalty strategies is to create a brand loyalty program, also called a customer loyalty program.
You've likely seen examples of them around: sign up with a brand to receive points, extra discounts, and other rewards when you make certain purchases, refer a friend, or otherwise engage with a brand.
Customer loyalty programs are so effective because they make your customers feel special. Also, who doesn't love a good deal or free perks?
Here are a few types of brand loyalty programs and examples of companies that use them well.
Points-Based Brand Loyalty Programs
True to the name, these brand loyalty programs award you points for certain actions, which you can then redeem for rewards.
Beauty brand Sephora is an example of a company that generates impressive revenues from its rewards program. As of 2025, the brand has more than 17 million members, and its members are responsible for as much as 80 percent of the company's revenue.
Their program gives you points in the dollar amount of your purchases. If you spend $57, that's 57 points.
Customers can then redeem their points for all kinds of goodies, like makeup, skincare products, and even exceptional rewards for true VIPs, like facials, a beauty benefit, or a house call to touch up your brows.
Tiered Brand Loyalty Programs
Tiered brand loyalty programs are typically points-based, too, but they also divide members into tiers based on their participation and engagement. The higher the tier a customer is in, the more perks they get.
Examples of loyalty program rewards include early access to sales, sneak peeks at new products, annual gifts, and being featured in social media campaigns.
SheFit does this beautifully, with a program that earns "crowns" (or fancy-looking points) for actions like signing up, sharing or following on Facebook and Instagram, and celebrating their birthday, in addition to crowns per dollar spent.
VIP Brand Loyalty Programs
A VIP brand loyalty program takes the tiers to a whole new level by offering outstanding perks for the highest tiers.
These programs have a clever strategy of identifying and absolutely pampering their most loyal customers.
Neiman Marcus calls its brand loyalty program InCircle. If that doesn't appeal to a lavish sense of exclusivity and specialness, we don't know what does. The InCircle program has five circles (or tiers). But here's the cool part: Starting at Circle Three, customers are mailed a physical card called The Perk Card.
This card gets them unique benefits like in-store dining, valet parking, alterations, salons, and upkeep of valuable items like jewelry, handbags, and shoes.
As you can see, Neiman Marcus really knows its target audience, and how they prefer luxury items that need special attention like furs and high-quality jewelry. The brand uses this as leverage to become more involved in its customers' lives.
While a dedicated program can work wonders for building brand loyalty, it's not the only way.
How to Build Brand Loyalty: 5 Additional Tips
There are several loyalty strategies that you can build into every part of your brand strategy and marketing tactics. We take a look at a few actionable ones below.
1. Never Compromise on Product Quality
Your product or service needs to deliver excellence consistently. This is the foundation that everything else is built on. When shoppers buy from you and have a disappointing experience, there's virtually no chance they'll return as devoted fans.
Maintaining standards is especially critical for your existing base. Though committed shoppers might pay extra or search harder for what they believe in, they won't accept declining standards.
This becomes tricky when your business grows rapidly. The pressure to expand can alter how you create and deliver what you sell. If demand exceeds your capacity, consider using a waitlist rather than sacrificing excellence for speed.
2. Shift Your Customer Service Into High Gear
One positive interaction can make a customer's fears and doubts over doing business with you slip away. You can gain a lasting appreciation and word of mouth that generates referrals for your brand.
Outstanding support experiences can shape how shoppers feel about your company and encourage them to return. Think about tracking satisfaction metrics like Net Promoter Score so you can monitor performance and spot potential issues. Make sure rapid growth doesn't hurt the experience you provide.
However, canned responses aren't going to win you any brownie points. If you want to win customers over, you're going to need to take things up a notch. You can do this by:
- Listening to your customers. Get feedback through post-purchase surveys, social listening, and other means.
- Be responsive. Respond to your customers’ questions, complaints, and comments proactively.
- Anticipate customer needs. For example, if you're selling high-ticket items, offer an insurance policy to give them peace of mind.
Some businesses take proactive steps with their support. For instance, if a customer's order gets delayed by weather, you might call to apologize and ask if they needed it for something specific. If it was meant for a child's party, you could send a gift card to a nearby ice cream parlor. If timing wasn't critical, maybe offer complimentary shipping next time.
3. Create a Distinctive Brand Identity
Devotion needs something to attach to. When shoppers feel devoted, they're devoted "to" something specific, and that something could be your brand.
To encourage this attachment, develop a unique brand identity that genuinely represents your company's character and principles while setting you apart in your market. After establishing this identity, make sure all your marketing and communications consistently reinforce who you are.
4. Personalize the Customer Experience
Another great way to build customer loyalty is to make your customers feel like you not only understand their needs, but also care about them on an individual level. This can be done with the help of personalization.
If you're new to the concept of personalization, start small. This can mean sending personalized cards and emails to your customers. Below is an example from ProFlowers. The company uses two personalization tokens, including the customer's first name and a request for feedback.
The above email is simple enough to replicate in your own branding, and it makes the customer feel like they're your one and only audience.
Consider leveraging automation technology to streamline your personalization efforts. Modern email platforms, for instance, enable you to insert individual recipient names and tailor messaging according to their shopping patterns and preferences.
Shoppers don't typically expect this kind of individualized attention, and providing it can set you apart from competitors and generate devoted fans.
5. Leverage User-Generated Content
Sharing UGC (user-generated content) in the shape of customer success stories, testimonials, reviews and other content is a great way to increase brand loyalty. Instagram is a key place for finding customer images and brand mentions that you can boast about to the rest of your fans.
For instance, brands such as Luxy Hair regularly share and repost content that talks about the satisfactory experience their product or service delivered from their customers' Instagram profiles.
Simply put, user-generated content allows you to acknowledge your existing customers while also impressing new ones. So, dig into your social media profiles to find UGC that you can use to build and improve brand loyalty.
Brand Loyalty Tools and Apps
1. Smile: Rewards & Loyalty
This tool lets you create three programs: a loyalty points program, referral program, and VIP program. You can reward your customers in ten-plus ways, like account registrations, purchases, referrals, social shares, and more.
If you're hesitant about making the investment, you can customize your programs using the free version to take it for a test run.
2. Yotpo: Loyalty Rewards Program
Used by some of the biggest Shopify stores, Yotpo's app lets you use VIP tiers and gamification techniques to give your customers a sense of exclusivity and ultimately garner more engagement.
Reward your customers with actions like referrals, higher order values (spend $X, get $Y), making more purchases (make X purchases, get $Y), writing reviews, reading or viewing specific content, and more.
3. Rise.ai: Gift Cards & Loyalty
This app from Rise.ai focuses on using gift cards and store credit for building brand loyalty. Customers can send branded vouchers and gift cards via email and instant message, and they're usable across multiple stores.
You can send bulk gift card campaigns and offer credit, loyalty points, and discounts to incentivize purchases.
4. Marsello: Loyalty, Email, SMS
Marsello specializes in marketing automation, with features that aid in your quest of building brand loyalty. You can automatically segment your customers into relevant groups, sending them targeted emails for every stage of the sales funnel.
The app's loyalty program automatically rewards loyalty points to your customers based on factors like spend, product reviews, referrals, social media engagement, and more.
Meet and Exceed Your Goals With Brand Loyalty
Having an online store, especially a dropshipping store, isn't getting any less competitive.
To plow their competition and secure their share of the market in the long run, savvy brands are building brand loyalty strategies into virtually every aspect of their businesses.
From targeted brand loyalty programs to better customer service to more personalized experiences, brand loyalty gives your company a highly significant boost. Not to mention, you'll also have a much better chance of meeting and sprinting past your business goals.
Brand Loyalty FAQ
What Is Brand Loyalty?
Brand loyalty is when customers keep buying from the same brands rather than competitors. It’s what keeps customers in your brand’s ecosystem, rather than having them flock to competing businesses. Think of it as customer retention, bolstered by an emotional connection to your brand that translates into value and repeat business.
How Do You Build Brand Loyalty?
One of the key ways to build brand loyalty is to always be consistent with your quality, messaging, service, and values. How you communicate with customers should stay constant, helping people identify with your brand and keep them from leaving for a better experience. Also, make sure to have amazing customer service or, at the very least, clear information that answers potential customer questions.
What Are Some Best Practices for Better Brand Loyalty?
Think about it from a customer’s perspective. What will their first impressions be? Do you highlight what makes you unique and valuable at every initial interaction point? That helps build loyalty from the first time someone lands on any of your channels. Once you have that baseline set, create space for visible customer reviews and partner up with influencers in your niche. Also, add rewards along your customers’ journeys through your brand and shopping experience.
How Do You Measure Brand Loyalty?
You can measure brand loyalty in a variety of ways, though some of the best metrics to track are your retention rates, lifetime value of your customers, satisfaction surveys, and net promoter scores. Getting more detailed customer feedback also gives you a qualitative look at how people see your brand.