Brand and customer loyalty are two of the most important concepts you can prioritize as a business owner or leader in 2022. Brand loyalty and customer loyalty are closely related to one another but are distinct concepts as well.

Despite the distinctions, both impact retention, and repurchase rates.

Customer loyalty relates primarily to consumers’ overall spending power. Customer loyalty is about what you offer in terms of your regular prices as well as deals. Basically, to put it in even simpler terms, customer loyalty is things you can do to keep people coming back to you for products and services.

If you have lower prices, this is a key tenant of customer loyalty.

Brand loyalty is more conceptual. It’s about how customers perceive your brand. A consumer will be loyal to a brand because of more than prices. They believe that you have a great reputation, or they believe what you offer is better than what they can get elsewhere.

When you have a customer loyal to your brand, they’re more likely to try your other products or services. They’ll also probably keep buying from you even if they have to pay a little more.

The following are specific things to know about building brand loyalty in 2022.

Make Your Brand Memorable

For people to be loyal to your brand, they have to recognize it and remember. They need to associate it with positive things. One way that you can make this happen is by building out your physical brand and making sure you’re always using it. For example, the term swag has many meanings, but consider investing in branded swag that you can give to your customers.

It’s simply putting your name front and center because without that, you’re not going to be able to develop that true loyalty to your brand.

You can also position yourself as a business leader and a presence in your local community. Maybe you participate in fundraisers, volunteer, or serve on a local board.

This is important even if your business is primarily online.

You want people not just to recognize your brand but to associate it with positive things, which you can cultivate through community involvement.

Always Deliver on Both Quality and Value

For brand loyalty, unlike simply focusing only on customer loyalty, you have to deliver a combination of quality and value consistently. If you promise something, you have to deliver. You need to make sure that you’re consistently focused on creating a great customer experience along the way.

Know what is most compelling to your customers and what they prioritize most, so you can focus on delivering these things. A satisfied customer isn’t going to feel the need to look elsewhere.

Be Responsive

Even when you’re always trying your best to deliver quality and value, and an impeccable overall experience, things are going to go wrong, and customers are going to be unhappy. It’s inevitable, and that’s when how you respond becomes important.

In general, be highly responsive. The longer you wait to respond to someone, particularly when they have a question or negative feedback, the more frustrated they’re going to get.

If a customer feels like you’re always going to be available and responsive, even if something happens that frustrates them, they’re still going to view your brand favorably overall.

Along with dealing with concerns or negative feedback, make sure people have the information they need to make a purchase as fast as possible. The longer it takes to get information or the more steps they have to take, the less likely people are to make a purchase or at least to make it with you.

Be a Creative Problem-Solver

Businesses and consumers are facing plenty of problems right now. If you want to set yourself apart during difficult times and create loyalty to your brand in the process, you need to think of yourself and your team as problem-solvers.

You aren’t saying you can eliminate problems, but you can think outside the box and find solutions to whatever they might be.

Put Customer Data and Analytics to Use

If you aren’t already gathering customer data and getting insight from it, then you are missing enormous opportunities. The only real way to connect with your customers on a long-term, loyalty-driven basis is to understand them.

Data and analytics help you do that.

You can drill down to the specifics and find out all the details about your customers, making sure you’re delivering in a way that will keep them loyal to you.

Stop Selling, Start Educating

First, consumers like the idea of brands that listen to them in general. For example, customers seem to like when brands on social media are responsive to them on those platforms because they’re monitoring conversations and taking feedback into account.

Along with that, rather than focusing all your efforts on selling to your audience, you want to think about how you can provide them information and value.

They’re more likely to become a long-term customer whenever you create value for someone. No one wants to hear a tired sales message.

Instead, this year, think about what your audience most needs or wants to know about and how you can deliver information and resources in a way that’s unique from everyone else out there.

You’re showing that you’re not just in it for the sale. You’re there to be a helpful, authoritative resource.

That’s important to modern consumers.

Finally, work on creating an emotional attachment between your brand and your customers. You can do this in different ways but start by building out a consistent mission statement and purpose. You want to let people know not just what you do but how and why. When you do this, you’re creating an image of your brand that goes beyond your words or even your products and services.

It’s something customers can value beyond making a purchase, and they feel more connected to you.

Currently, Hollywood’s entertainment industry offers several initiatives to foster inclusion. The first one to name is RespectAbility, a foundation dedicated entirely to tearing down stigmas and advancing opportunities for disabled people. Recently, they came up with an annual summer lab providing workshops, networking opportunities, and mentorship for emerging (and also mid-career) professionals with disabilities. As a result, some of them have gone to work for Paramount, Disney, and Netflix. Plus, the organization’s Hollywood Disability Inclusion Toolkit is a great source of information about terminology, etiquette, and the law. These last items are crucial for the North Hollywood theater scene in which etiquette needs to be followed by attendants and organizers to foster inclusion.

CCP Disruptors Fellowship & Ford and Mellon 
Another great initiative is that of the Center for Cultural Power’s Disruptors Fellowship which aims to disrupt Hollywood’s persistent lack of diverse narratives by allowing unique, diverse voices to be represented on the big screens and theaters. This initiative not only focuses on disabled people but also on non-binary, trans, undocumented, and formerly undocumented migrants too.
Finally, the Ford and Mellon foundations’ Disability Futures is a $6 million program to provide unrestricted $50,000 grants to journalists and filmmakers with disabilities. According to recent news, the foundations will add another $5 million to stretch this initiative’s scope until 2025.
What About North Hollywood’s Live Theater Scene?
Going back to the first example, Danielle Perez, who is a stand-up comedian and actress, regular to North Hollywood’s stages, stated to the media recently that, as a nation-wide touring artist, she often finds problems with the bare minimum disabled people needs: appropriate facilities. In this vein, she speaks about ramps and access as a metaphor for invisibility and the empowerment of a minority.
Speaking of which, actress, dramaturg, and blogger Kate Langdorf, speaks about her adventures going to North Hollywood theaters after moving from Washington as a bittersweet experience. On one hand, she could access a virtually limitless catalog of amazing plays. On the other hand, very few theaters had the needed improvements to make them disabled-friendly, and thus, accessible for her.
Echoing cases like this, the American Theater Organization recently published a post by Alie B. Gorrie, a disabled actress, and disability inclusion consultant that states that most venues speak of “too costly and complicated” plans to turn their facilities into inclusive locations where every theater-lover in the world and disabled actor could enjoy that one-of-a-kind experience. She addresses this issue by saying that it can’t be thought of as an extra but needs to be woven into the fabric of the theater scene.
A great example of how this can be implemented by a theater venue is El Portal in North Hollywood. The facilities within this historic theater include not only disability-friendly accommodation for viewers, but also for actors and actresses. Indeed, it features disability-friendly showers and a lift that goes from the green area and the dressing rooms to the stage. Although there’s still a lot to be done, raising awareness is, for most consultants, the first step of a long road.
How Can Inclusion Initiatives Improve?
Although all of the above is celebrated as good news, there is a lot more to be done according to an open letter presented recently and signed by more than 80 Hollywood personalities. In the letter, the participants highlight the urgency of acting on the inclusion of disabilities such as different cerebral palsy types, blindness, and hearing impairment among others.
Among the numerous facts presented under the #DontDismissDis campaign, the fact that at the 2019 Oscars, 27 winners received the award for playing characters with a disability but only two of them were portrayed by disabled actors can be highlighted. In the light of these stats, what these industry professionals demand from Hollywood are fundamental changes rather than isolated initiatives. For example, some of these demands were as simple as access for actors with reduced mobility in studios and castings. These same principles can be applied to the aforementioned needs of the North Hollywood theater scene as well.
The world is rapidly changing toward a narrative that can include all voices. In this vein, Hollywood, the biggest entertainment industry on the planet, needs to take action in that direction. Although much is being done to support that effort, what professionals and aspirants demand is structural, fundamental changes rather than isolated initiatives.