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Brand Loyalty Versus Brand Convenience

Brand Loyalty Vs. Brand Convenience: Which Is More Important and Why?

Modern-day marketers are always looking to identify patterns that can give us useful insights into consumer behaviour. This allows them to identify the main reason why people buy from a brand, whether it is yours or competitors. It could be due to price, convenience, features and the list goes on and on. Once you know what really motivates customers into buying your products, you can build on it and turn them into your loyal customers.

What if both brand loyalty and convenience are influencing their purchase decisions? How can you differentiate between the two? More importantly, should you focus on building a loyal customer base or focus on delivering convenient shopping experiences? Let’s find out.

In this article, you will learn about brand loyalty and brand convenience, which one your brand should focus on and why?

What is Brand Loyalty?

If I ask you to define brand loyalty, you might come up with a different brand loyalty definition than I do. Brand loyalty can be defined as, “A pattern of consumer behaviour that shows consumer commitment to a specific brand or product and make repeat purchases overtime.” The customer perceives that brand as one that meets their expectations get associated with it.

Customers who are loyal to your brand will never buy products from other brands even if your products are not available in their nearest store. They will travel to faraway stores to buy your products and even if they don’t find your products there, they will delay the purchase until they find your products but will not buy from substitute brands. Brand loyalty is built upon the trust customer has over the brand that it will fulfill their needs on a consistent basis through their products and services.

Why Is Brand Loyalty Important?

Brand loyalty helps you build a loyal customer base, gives you a competitive advantage and assists you in beating the competition. Another advantage of having a loyal customer base is that even if you change the price of your products, your sales won’t go down. The best example of this is Apple and Nike. Even if Apple increases the price of its iPhones every year, their sales continue to grow, thanks to brand loyalty.

Your loyal customers can also serve as brand advocates and share their positive experiences with the world. This way, you don’t have to spend a penny on marketing and your brand awareness starts to increase automatically.  This gives your brand an opportunity to attract new customers who have not heard about your brand before. Additionally, your loyal customers are less likely to be impressed by the competitor’s marketing campaigns. This increases the probability that they will continue to buy your products and avail your service instead of your competitors.

What is Brand Convenience?

Brand convenience is determined by how easily a brand’s product and service is available. It is all about easy accessibility, speed and predictability, which is why most customers prefer to buy products from convenience brands. With the passage of time, the meaning of convenience has also changed. Today, delivering convenience is more about paying attention to the details and delivering a personalized shopping experience to each buyer at each touchpoint.

Shift in Buying Behavior

The tech-savvy millennials and Generation Z have grown up seeing the technology evolve in front of their eyes. They are used to on-demand services that can be accessed by pressing a button. This makes them tilt towards convenience brands. As a result, businesses are forced to open a convenience store.

Younger generations prefer to order products through mobile apps and get them delivered to their doorstep instead of going to a nearby brick and mortar store to buy things. This has led to a paradigm shift in consumer behaviour and how companies go about their business.

Brand Loyalty vs Brand Convenience

This brings us to the main question, should a business focus on building brand loyalty or portray themselves as a convenience brand? If you ask me, I would vote in favour of brand loyalty. A brand is much more powerful, as it helps customers establish a deeper and emotional connection with your brand.

Building a loyal customer base can help you survive and thrive in tough economic conditions and help you recover from a misstep. Toyota and Samsung are two of the best examples in this regard. Despite Note 7 exploding batteries and Toyota car recall drive, they have managed to make stronger comebacks.

Focusing on convenience might be a good strategy if most of your target audience consists of millennials and generation Z. You can also take the hybrid approach and blend brand loyalty with convenience. This will not only make your brand much more approachable for first-time buyers but also persuade your audience to buy from your brand.

Brand loyalty or brand convenience, which one is more important in your opinion? Share your opinion with us in the comments section below.

Muneeb Siddiqui

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