{"id":1262,"date":"2020-02-25T11:16:45","date_gmt":"2020-02-25T16:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/referralrock.com\/hub\/?page_id=1262"},"modified":"2024-07-08T01:46:51","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T05:46:51","slug":"how-to-create-brand-affinity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/referralrock.com\/blog\/how-to-create-brand-affinity\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Create Brand Affinity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most business owners assume that having loyal customers is as good as it gets. If consumers and business partners are purchasing your company’s products or services, what’s better than that?<\/p>\n

These relationships become even stronger when your company focuses on building brand affinity. To stand out from the competition, it’s time to learn more about brand affinity and how to build it with your customers.<\/p>\n

What is brand affinity marketing and why is it so important?<\/h2>\n

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Before building brand affinity, it’s helpful to have a deeper understanding of this term. Oxford defines affinity<\/a>\u00a0as either a “natural liking” or a “similarity of characteristics suggesting a relationship.”<\/p>\n

Whichever definition you prefer, it’s impossible to deny how important brand affinity marketing is for your business.<\/p>\n

Here are three specific reasons why building brand affinity is so important for your business.<\/p>\n

1. Customers rationalize purchasing decisions later<\/h3>\n

By building brand affinity, customers develop a sort of personal relationship with your company. As almost anyone will tell you, relationships can sometimes cloud one’s judgment. Let’s say that you’re about to purchase a new car.<\/p>\n

If you don’t have a brand affinity for any automobile company, you’ll likely spend lots of time rationalizing your purchase beforehand. Someone with a brand affinity for Ford’s Mustang will go out of their way to purchase this exact make and model, rationalizing this purchase later, if at all.<\/p>\n

2. It’s harder for other companies to sway your customers<\/h3>\n

Almost every company has to deal with the threat of competition. While it’s almost impossible to avoid competitors, your business can minimize this threat by building brand affinity.<\/p>\n

Imagine that your favorite soft drink is Coca-Cola. Despite there being plenty of less-expensive alternatives, you\u2019ll pay more for this beverage every time. This might happen because you associate treasured memories with this beverage or you\u2019ve always had great customer experiences with this company.<\/p>\n

Regardless of your reasoning, you feel a brand affinity towards Coca-Cola’s signature soft drink that\u2019s unshakeable.<\/p>\n

3. You create lots of brand advocates<\/h3>\n

Another advantage of being a brand that people have an affinity for is that it creates lots of brand advocates<\/a>. Brand advocates are some of the best forms of advertisements for a business. These people will go above and beyond to let others know about your company, especially by word-of-mouth marketing<\/a>\u00a0and on social media platforms.<\/p>\n

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Affinity vs. brand loyalty and brand equity<\/h2>\n

It’s easy to confuse brand affinity with\u00a0<\/strong>having loyal customers<\/a>. If a customer is loyal to a brand<\/a>, they’ll regularly purchase its products and services. With that said, not every customer practices the same type of loyalty. You might be surprised to learn that there are actually seven types of loyal customers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As you know, even the strongest of habits can be broken. Your company’s customers might find that their loyalty is tested after a competitor releases a new product, drop their prices, or makes a similar type of change.<\/p>\n

You’ll also want to understand the differences between brand affinity and brand equity<\/strong>. Brand equity<\/a>\u00a0is the value that your company’s products or services generate. If a company has lots of brand equity, it often sets higher prices for their products that most consumers are willing to pay.<\/p>\n

To sum it up:<\/strong>\u00a0Most companies need to have brand equity before they’re able to achieve brand loyalty or affinity. With brand loyalty<\/a>, consumers make purchases out of habit. Brand affinity causes consumers to make purchases based on deeper, emotional connections.<\/p>\n

6 tips for creating affinity for your brand<\/h2>\n

(Hint: It\u2019s about emotional connections)<\/em><\/p>\n

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After learning how affinity differs from loyalty and equity, you’re probably ready to start increasing your brand’s affinity. Unfortunately, there’s no push-button solution towards creating brand affinity.<\/p>\n

However, you can begin to build this feeling within your audience by creating emotional connections. Here are a few great ways to begin achieving this goal.<\/p>\n

1. Use affinity tools to your advantage<\/h3>\n

If you don’t know who makes up your company’s target audience, it’s almost impossible to create an emotional connection because you don’t know whose emotions to appeal to.<\/p>\n

You might think your company can solve this problem by appealing to everyone. Unfortunately, this is a lot more difficult than it sounds. When companies try to appeal to everyone, they often lose that unique, emotional connection brand affinity is built upon.<\/p>\n

With that said, many tools can help your business hone down its target audience.<\/p>\n

Many website owners use Google Analytics to learn about a wide range of audience demographics<\/a>\u00a0including:<\/p>\n