Brand Preference

Brand preference is a marketing metric that reflects the strength of a brand in the market. This indicator shows whether consumers prefer a particular brand over other brands from the same category.

Watch this video to find out about the three main components that drive brand preference, learn how to measure the success of your strategy, and how to become a preferred brand.

Why is it important to build brand preference?

Simply put, brand preference measures the level of consumer dedication to your company. If your clients don't consider any other brands to save money or break new ground, you've managed to build brand preference.

There are some other ways to measure this metric. For example, your store has run out of the top-selling product that your clients adore. Check whether they will look for the similar one among your competitors or wait until it's back in stock. Another option is to monitor your customers' reaction to a price increase. If it doesn't influence your sales volume, it means that clients believe your product is worth its price.

The formula is simple: the higher your brand preference, the higher your total sales. You know that your clients appreciate you if they don't leave you because of higher prices or temporarily unavailable items. You can achieve this with well-thought-out marketing campaigns, high-quality products, and excellent customer service. Brand preference is also crucial since it reveals your loyal clients and brand advocates.

Factors Influencing Brand Preference

Building brand preference is one of the goals each business tries to achieve because it goes hand in hand with brand marketing concepts. Brand marketing is a holistic approach that entails reaching several objectives to build long-lasting relationships and emotional connections with clients, resulting in high revenue.

Essential aspects that contribute significantly to building your brand preferences include brand awareness, advocacy, loyalty, equity, engagement, identity, and image. It may seem like a lot, but, again, this is a long-term game. As soon as you consider these factors while developing your brand marketing strategy, customers will have more reasons to choose your company.

High-level personalization, deep segmentation, and predicting customers' intentions based on their activities and engagement will eliminate the possibility of your clients' turning to your competitors. A thorough analysis of your clients' needs and preferences will provide you with the data necessary to create highly relevant and killer offers.

Now, let's take a look at practical tips that will help you build brand preference.

In the previous section, we've mentioned the factors that influence the process of building your brand preference. Here we'll share the tips to master some skills to increase the number of repeat buyers.

• Highlight your benefits. You should understand what makes your company stand out among competitors. Remember that clients don't usually look for brands or products — they look for solutions to their problems. Therefore, you need to define your unique value proposition and talk about the benefits you offer. To make this scheme work, you should research your clients' needs and preferences to grab some insights and see the whole picture. If you genuinely believe in the uniqueness and value of your product, so will your customers.
• Create customer profiles. They should include personal data about your customers that will help you understand them better. A customer profile usually consists of user gender, age, location, job, income level, and other important information. You can collect this data via subscription forms, CRM systems, surveys and polls, analytics tools, and email campaigns. You can tell the users that this data will help you craft the most relevant offers and improve customer service.
• Analyze your customer behavior. User behavior on your site and social media accounts can tell much about their preferences and shopping habits. If users add items to their shopping cart without buying, reconsider the design of your checkout because it may take too long to order. If customers contact your support team with the same questions every day, they probably fail to find the answers on your site. Consider paying particular attention to your site navigation, resources available, and FAQ section. If clients never return to you to purchase again, they may question your product quality. Contact them and ask for their feedback for you to improve your services.
• Increase customer engagement. People love brands that engage with their audience on socials which is the key to building a powerful emotional connection. Consider creating polls and surveys to discover your followers' opinions about your products or services and sharing some behind-the-scenes via Instagram Stories. You can also tell your brand story via a Facebook post or encourage customers to share their feedback with your hashtag to collect UGC. At least, you can just ask your audience which kind of content they prefer. They will appreciate this move.
• Support your clients at each stage of their buyer journey. Your leads won't buy your products immediately if they have difficulties with your service. Don't panic; it happens. Your task is to be one step ahead and predict these issues. Determine at which stage you lose leads, analyze the obstacles, and be proactive. A well-thought content marketing strategy will help your leads eliminate possible problems. Offer them how-tos, checklists, reminders, video guides, and demos to realize how things work. Let your sales manager or customer retention team consult clients individually to understand them better.
• Build customer loyalty. Loyal customers shop regularly, spend more on purchases than first-time buyers, and are a great source of word-of-mouth for your brand. They will definitely share their positive experience with friends and colleagues and, as a result, bring in new customers. To attract more devoted clients, you can hire more customer care agents, create a loyalty program, offer VIP tiers, collect customer feedback, optimize your efforts accordingly, send triggered emails, and segment your audience. Your efforts will pay off with high revenue and a strong brand reputation.

Now you know why building your brand preference is a must for each brand. Keep in mind the tips and make use of SendPulse marketing services to communicate with your audience effectively across almost every channel.

References

1. This article considers brand preference in market research and provides a comparison of brand preference and brand equity.
2. This article offers several tips to increase brand preference.
3. This article unveils three steps to influencing brand preference.

Last Updated: 21.03.2023