It takes five purchases for a customer to become loyal

Chart of the Day: Brand loyalty is alive, but customers have expectations

Everyone wants to create brand loyalty with their customers. It means that you’ve become a go-to brand for their needs and that customers will choose your products over competitive offers and sometimes technically-superior models from other brands.

Nintendo is one of the biggest companies that rely on brand loyalty. They’ve rarely had the most powerful games consoles on the market (Sony and Microsoft constantly duelling for that honour), but Nintendo fans know that Mario and Zelda titles are only available on Nintendo consoles, so they remain loyal. I will personally ride for Nintendo to the end of my days thanks to their great games I have enjoyed throughout my life (even if they also made the Wii U).

While brand loyalty is a goal for many retailers, it can be tough to know just how many purchases it takes from a customer to become a ‘loyal’ one.

Marketing cloud platform Yopto conducted a national survey of American shoppers’ attitudes towards customer loyalty and found that it takes most shoppers (37%) five purchases to consider themselves brand loyal.

Diving into what motivates them to make a purchase, the biggest factors were fair pricing (65%), free shipping (61%), and online reviews (57%). Of course, customers also want their brand loyalty to be rewarded, with more frequent discounts (71%) and free shipping (58%) being note-worthy expectations.

Of course, there are ways you can facilitate customers reaching the five-purchase milestone, such as offering a discount on future purchases or closely associating multiple products together (a common tactic in cosmetics). But brand loyalty is not a sign that you can rest on your laurels – each one of your competitors is trying to sway potential customers with introductory offers and rewards. Keep rewarding loyal customers with exclusive offers and content they stay with your brand for the months, or even years, to come.

• Source: Yotpo
• Sample: 2,000 US adults
• Recommended resource: Customer retention planning guide