A Brand’s Love Story: How Customers Fall in Love with a Brand (5/5)
By Levina Kusumadjaja
Final Chapter: Advocacy
Welcome to the final stage of customer journey!
Just in case you’re wondering what this is all about, let’s recap before we go into “advocacy”. For the past few articles, we have been taking a closer look at each stage of the customer journey. Customer journey talks about the phases in a relationship between a brand and its customer. A customer journey can be seen as a customer’s relationship journey with the brand.
The first stage is called “awareness”. This is where a customer meets the brand for the first time. Once the brand catches the customer’s attention, they can move forward to the next stage, which is “consideration”. Customers now consider whether they want to purchase the brand, be associated with the brand and commit to the brand. If their gut feeling about the brand is good, chances they will go to “conversion”, which is the point where the customer purchases a product from the brand. But, one purchase doesn’t mean loyalty and commitment to the brand. Customers are officially in a “relationship” with the brand once they decide to stick to the brand and buy from the brand over and over again. At this stage, customers are committed to the brand for a long time. And then here we are. We’re about to see the customers move from “relationship” to “advocacy”, the final stage.
What happens in advocacy? Advocacy looks like having children in a human relationship. Having children means multiplication, and in the case of brands multiplication means referrals and reviews. In this stage, customers will advocate for the brand, not because they are forced to or because it is their job, but because they believe in the brand so much that they can’t help themselves. Advocacy means extending the value that the brand has brought for the customers beyond the customers themselves.
Advocacy looks like customers that cannot stop talking about the brand. This is both because customers are in love with the brand that they want to tell everyone about the brand, and because the brand also intentionally gives incentives for customers to advocate the brand to others.
Glossier is a great example. They made stickers that you could put on basically anything and they asked customers to join the fun and share about them on their social media. Because the stickers were so cute, people would put it on their tumblers, makeup boxes, on their phone cases... and customers weren’t shy about sharing the photos on their socials. The stickers were everywhere! Glossier took the time to design the stickers and communicate the hype, that it was easy for customers to to buy-in and start advocating for Glossier. This is what advocacy looks like. Customers willingly use their experiences and their stories to represent the brand to the general public.
They don’t become a passive customer anymore, but they become an active campaigner of your brand.
For strategists, your role at this stage is to help brands connect with their customers in such a powerful way that not only the customers will be loyal by faithfully purchasing from the brand, but loyal by telling every single person they meet about the brand. If all the stages did their job, this will become a natural step for the customers. They don’t become a passive customer anymore, but they become an active campaigner of your brand. In fact, you want the customers to not feel satisfied until they have convinced their family and friends to use the brand as well. That’s one of the greatest hallmarks of a successful brand, and that marks a successful final stage in a customer journey.
Epilogue
From the first meeting, to dating, to getting engaged, then marrying, and eventually having children. Can you see the connection from the first stage of customer journey to the final one, from awareness, to consideration, to conversion, to relationship, and finally to advocacy? Branding has a bird’s eye view over this entire relationship journey and it’s so important for any brand strategist to understand this, because your strategy should maximize the resources that the brand has according to the customer’s stage in the journey. What for? So the brand will be able to communicate more effectively and connect more powerfully to customers.
Final stage complete.
The end.
Cheers!
Levina
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About the author:
Levina is a writer based in Indonesia. Because of Melinda Livsey, she recognized the power of brand strategy for every creative. She is sharing about her learnings as she goes to help creatives have fun in their growth and journey of building brands. Connect with her on LinkedIn and say hi!