If you’re wondering how to build long-term brand loyalty, here are a few of our favourite ways to do so. Tapping into these pillars of loyalty will create a strong relationship between you and your customer.

See things through a positive lens: Happiness is crucial to people’s wellbeing, sense of self and feeling towards brands, the report states. It suggests organisations that help customers achieve emotional well-being will be in a better position to build long-term bonds.

Understand the bigger picture: Marketers need to understand that everything a consumer does – from browsing a website to buying a drink – is part of a long-term life agenda so brands’ marketing activity should be aligned with this.

Create opportunities to help people achieve: In uncertain times consumers look for guidance, so marketers can encourage engagement by strengthening social bonds online or helping people celebrate important life moments.

Get to know the nuances: People of all ages have things in common to help achieve happiness but they may not all take the same route to get there. Marketers should, therefore, look to personalize content enabling them to connect on an individual basis.

Positive marketing starts from within: In order to make customers, happy business leaders must start by empowering employees. Happier employees become positive brand advocates which in turn impacts how customers view the business.

Focussing on the fifth point is something that often gets overlooked (and it shouldn’t be!). Brands must understand every aspect of consumers’ lives and strengthen social bonds if they want to secure loyal, happy customers. But first, they need to empower employees, which is why we believe the key to building long-term brand loyalty starts from within.  Incorporating a culture of positivity into the core of a business could be a way to ensure that customers feel safe and trusting of your brand. MarketingWeek found that low-quality product and poor customer service are the top two reasons people lost trust in a brand. These negative experiences can be turned into positive ones if companies start from within by investing in their employees. If you build a great internal culture, it gets talked about externally and becomes a part of your brand’s story, it can become a key part of your marketing. Being natural and human is an excellent way of encouraging your customers to find value in what you’re providing and the way you conduct yourself. If your team is happy and helpful, your customers will have no choice but love your brand. If you consider the health and beauty brand Lush as an example, they’ve illustrated how meaningful this really is. When you step into the store you are immediately greeted by friendly, helpful lovely staff – each and every employee seems genuinely happy to be there and happy to help you. Their ethical message is shared by staff as they are open and transparent on their brand mantra to the point where every employee falls in line. It has a level of consistency that makes it impossible for its consumers not to be happy and loyal to the Lush brand.