Is Brand Loyalty Immune From Economic Downturns?

The economic climate in the U.S. is changing. We all know it. Even though it hasn’t been dubbed an official recession yet, consumers already have. Let’s be honest, that’s all that matters because their perceptions determine how they purchase. 70% of the American population think that the recession is already here, according to an article in Media Post. However, according to a study done by Brand Keys, 38% of industry categories have reported decreases in loyalty whereas, 44% have seen it grow. Why is this? Does this indicate that brand loyalty may be “recession proof” depending on the field? While we don’t have the answer, it does indicate that consumers will have to adjust their spending, but it may not affect their loyalty to brands that they love. Industries that are tied to economics seem to take more of a hit than others when it comes to loyalty. This depends almost entirely on how the brand’s marketing deals with economic issues during downturns in economy. Loyalty can actually be strengthened during economic downturns since customers will concentrate spending with companies that they trust. Brands who focus on protecting and growing loyalties during these times of unrest can sustain loyalties and revenues. It can be difficult but it’s not impossible. You need to know your core audience and how they’re being affected. What changes will they have to make and how can you appeal to their needs during these tough times? Although, we cannot give you the answers to these questions because they will be very different for each industry and audience group, we can give you a couple of tips that may help your brand keep its loyal customers. That being said, according to Bain & Co., there are three distinct characteristics that can make a brand stand out as a loyalty leader during economic crisis. One, they don’t try to discount too aggressively. It can be hard to keep customers once the downturn is over when prices increase again. Two, they apply practical means to keep their most important audience before others. Keep that core group at the front of your mind when making marketing decisions. Lastly, they identify critical moments that positively impact their customers most. This can be done through a simple “rate your purchase or experience” questionnaire. In the end, we all know it’s easier and cheaper to keep customers than to gain new ones. Customer satisfaction will keep loyalties high while spending is low.

Importance of Mobile Optimization

We assume that your brand wants to reach every consumer that it can! If this is true, then your business must adopt a mindset that has the mobile experience in the forefront. In our previous article we talked about how different generations require different marketing techniques. Many of these reasons are due to technological preferences across generations. According to the HubSpot State of U.S. Consumer Trends, 56% of people surveyed stated that they use their mobile phones for searches and 44% of those people discover new products through these mobile searches. You’re probably reading this article on your phone right now aren’t you? It’s important that whatever your brand is putting out there not only looks great on desktop format but also on a smartphone. The more user-friendly things are the more likely they are to stay and discover what your brand has to offer them. It should be noted that mobile optimization and mobile friendly are not the same. Mobile friendly will display on smaller screens but mobile optimization will actually reformat itself for a mobile device. Websites should not only be clean but simple to navigate as well. Improving your brands mobile optimization of its website, newsletters, etc. will get you higher search engine rankings, increased positive audience experiences and in turn, more business.

Email Marketing: Avoiding the Spam Folder

Spam filters are a great invention! It saves you from looking at unwanted emails constantly. However, as a brand or business owner, it can be a tough challenge to bypass in order to make sure your newsletters and other forms of email marketing are getting through. Spam filters work by using certain methods to identify potential red flags, such as checking the IP address against a black list of known spammers, deceptive subject lines and content within the email. These are all good things but when it comes to your marketing campaigns not so much. So, what are some solid ways to keep your emails out of the spam folders? Here are some of our tips.

1. Avoid spam triggers by:

   1. Always using an unsubscribe button

   2. Avoiding subject lines with all caps or exclamation points

   3. Staying away from attachments

   4. Adding too many images

2. Proof read people! Phishing emails tend to be laden with grammatical errors and can send your email to the spam folder if it contains to many typos.

3. Always get permission. This one goes without saying but let us reiterate. Make sure that your newsletter email list is full of people who have consented to receive them.

4. Email your subscribers regularly. This will help the spam checker to weed you out as a real person and not spam since your regularly sending emails to their addresses.

5. Whitelist your emails. All this means is that your recipients will add your email address to their contact list. Then, the spam checker will tell your emails to go into their inbox instead of the graveyard.

6. Use spam checkers. This system helps assist you in checking your emails for potential spam-like content. GlockApps and Mailmeteor are two great systems.

We hope this helps you on your email marketing journey. “41.5% of brands state that email marketing is critical to business success,” according to Litmus and we couldn’t agree more. Here at Locomotive we are always looking for more ways to improve our marketing and grateful to share our findings.

Consumer Attitudes Toward Brands

Consumer attitudes play a large role in consumer behavior and their decision-making processes. Consumer attitudes are a composite of their beliefs, feelings and behavioral intentions toward your business. Beliefs are composed of past experiences to develop an attitude toward something. Sometimes feelings are based on beliefs people have, but can also be independent of it. Lastly, intention is what the consumer intends to do with respect to your product or service. Of course, all brands want consumers to have a positive attitude for their business. Some studies showed that consumers may change their attributes toward an existing product/service if exposed to new ones that reinforce positivity. Measuring consumer attitudes can be difficult because they can have conflicting beliefs and feelings about one thing at the same time. However, surveys can be done in order to get an idea of consumer’s attitudes for your brand. It can help your brand make future decisions on products and/or services and improve attitudes toward your brand.

Friday Fun Fave 7/15/22

This week we turn to a print ad campaign that is nostalgic in its own way. This ad was illustrated by Aspire Doors, UK and showcases the first products of certain brands, such as Nintendo. It was shared on Media Samosa’s Instagram feed. It was surprising to see what many firsts that every day household name brands created first. Sony’s was a rice cooker created in Japan in 1946. Nokia created toilet paper in Finland in 1865. Take a quick look to see how these iconic brands began.

Top Reasons to Adopt UGC Into Your Advertising Strategy

It’s no secret that we love user generated content pieces. We’ll scream it to the mountain tops and swear by its effectiveness. We’ve written articles on the cost effectiveness of UGC, building brand trust with UGC and overall UGC statistics for making our case. But…just in case you aren’t sold yet, we’ve decided to put a list together to show you just why you should incorporate it into your advertising if you haven’t already.

1.     Increased customer engagement. People are more likely to share content created with UGC. Millennials share more UGC as well. There is a “28% increased engagement rate when UGC and product videos merge” (Comscore). 

2.     Brands are focusing on UGC. 16% of brands have an effective UGC marketing strategy already and 86% of companies understand the importance of it according to an article in Taggbox.

3.     Increases return visitors. Digital Information World Brands claims that brands featuring UGC on their sites have a 20% return rate.

4.     High impact. People spend more time watching UGC than produced content and it has a higher impact on the viewers.

Do you believe us now? We hope we’ve made you a believer as we fully trust what UGC has to offer in the advertising space. Contact us now for your consultation to get started!