Customer loyalty and advocacy is the difference between someone occasionally buying your product and someone who will always buy your product, no matter what your competitors are offering, and let everyone know how great they think you are. It is immensely valuable, but it isn’t something you are automatically granted just because a customer tried your purchase once and really liked it. Instead, you have to earn it.

During last week’s #SEMrushchat, expert Samantha Noble joined us to discuss how you can build loyalty and advocacy with paid media. Noble is the founder of Biddable Moments and DigitalFemales, and shed some light on both the importance of this task and how to tackle it. Thanks to both Samantha and the help of our other chat participants and industry experts, this is one recap that you won’t want to miss.

Q1. What are the most important elements in building customer loyalty?

There are several crucial elements that are essential to build true customer loyalty, but the most important one is trust. Long gone are the days where businesses could hide behind closed doors; consumers are too smart for that, and, quite frankly, they have too many other options out there. If your brand isn’t perceived as being trustworthy, it will be almost impossible to build loyalty and even harder to find success with your business long term.

A1 I believe it is truth and honesty alongside stunning customer service. But in this day and age it may be all smoke and mirrors, as so many politicians the world over are proving.#SEMRushChat — Simon Cox (@simoncox) December 6, 2017

A1. I find that listening to customers is a great way to show you care. And in turn, customers may reward you with loyalty #SEMrushchat — Matthew Young (@MatthewAYoung) December 6, 2017

Showing your customers that you care is an important part of building trust. Listen to them and address their pain points without aggressively trying to sell them something they don’t need. Be generous with advice, and as transparent as possible. This will help you build the type of personal connection that is often so important to building trust.

A1: Building as personal a relationship as you can. Provide value, outstanding customer service and give back to the customer whenever you can.#SEMrushchat — Heather Harvey (@Fizzle_Up) December 6, 2017

A1: Integrity, humility, and community service. These are more personal to me specifically #semrushchat — Kyle Whigham (@Whigsy) December 6, 2017

a1 Building customer loyalty is a blend of Expertise, your Authority on the Subject & Trust. Once you've shown that, get them results & they're loyal. #semrushchat — Debi Norton (@BRAVOMedia1) December 6, 2017

Immediately after trust comes importance to building loyalty as a perceived value. What can your brand offer that others can’t? How valuable is your product to customers?

There are a million different options for women looking to purchase flats in every color, after all, and at least half of them will cost less than $50, and yet Tieks is an exceptionally popular brand of flats for women that cost $175 a pair thanks to their superb quality. People pay again and again and again because they perceive the value to be worth it.

A1 Building Customer Loyalty means communicating effectively, asking the right questions, knowing their audience well; making a difference to the bottom line. #SEMRushChat — Bill Slawski (@bill_slawski) December 6, 2017

There are several other factors that help drive customer loyalty, but they predominantly contribute to either trust or perceived value (or both). Consistency, for example, shows that you are reliable-- this increases both trust and perceived value because customers know they can rely on you. Your expertise boosts perceived value and trustworthiness, too. Excellent customer service also helps build trust by establishing a better rapport with customers and letting them know that no matter what happens, you will make it right. Positive reviews boost both trust and perceived value, as user-generated content is far and away the most trusted form of media anywhere. And finally, the brand messaging you choose tells the world who you want to be - make sure that your actions and products match that message.

A1. Trust, Consistency, Perceived Value, Customer Service, Brand Messaging, Positive Reviews and Transparency #semrushchat — Samantha Noble (@SamJaneNoble) December 6, 2017

If you are able to hone in on establishing trust and high perceived value of your product with several different strategies, you have a much better chance of your customers being loyal advocates for life.

Q2. How can someone use paid social media to increase their brand loyalty and advocacy?

When using paid social media campaigns to build brand advocacy, whether that’s paid influencer content or PPC campaigns, the focus shouldn’t be on selling directly. These customers likely already like your product, so instead of trying to drive immediate conversions, focus on relationship building. Using storytelling to build brand awareness and develop trust is a good strategy to start with.

A2: For advocacy, aim to promote brand awareness and community. Don't necessarily push products, but maybe promote a feel-good story in the community. Draw potential consumers interest in who you are, not what you sell #semrushchat — Kyle Whigham (@Whigsy) December 6, 2017

You should also use the right messaging in your ads and focus on providing as much value as possible to your target audience. In order to do this, you should understand what they want and go out of your way to deliver it. This can be in the form of content, offers, and deals.

A2. I’m still learning about paid social media but I take it that sponsored posts help get the brand out there to new people and remind brand followers about the services available. Looking forward to learning the answer to this one! #semrushchat — Lisandranette Rios (@lisandranette) December 6, 2017

Tailor your messaging and your campaigns to your audiences’ exact needs. If, for example, you check and see that an existing customer is searching for a competitor’s brand, shoot them an ad with a loyalty deal to keep them with you. When retargeting, using your knowledge of the exact audience you are reaching out to in order to craft the most relevant messages possible.

A2: Well - creating remarketing or creating a customer audience are ways to start. What matters most in all paid social media activities, is that the target group is segmented, the message is relevant +the frequency cap is Ok, if not: customers may be upset and leave #semrushchat — Fanny Heuck (@FannyHeuck) December 6, 2017

A2: As most social media services limit your organic reach algorithmically you have to buy back access to your friends and followers. Don't advertise to them like they're strangers. Follow up on existing knowledge #semrushchat https://t.co/KvcLr8I4UN — Tadeusz Szewczyk (Tad Chef) (@onreact_com) December 6, 2017

You can use organic social media engagement audiences and loyalty CRM value to create retargeting campaigns that focus on providing exclusive loyalty discount codes and early access windows to shop for new and exclusive products.

To build advocacy, you can run campaigns promoting your official referral programs, incentivizing advocates to invite their friends to try their brand in exchange for a free product or discount.

A2: for advocacy, simplifying the message to "if you do "small thing x" - then "big thing will happen" - make a very clear point of value. #SEMrushchat — JP Sherman (@jpsherman) December 6, 2017

You can show ads to existing customers to encourage them to leave reviews on certain platforms and/or to tag their friends in the comments, or encourage them to invite friends to see you in store. This allows you to start to build a community and generate discussion with your brand advocates doing all the selling for you, and in a very public way that other users will be sure to take note of.

A2. For advocacy, upload customer email addresses and show ads encouraging them to leave reviews on your chosen review platform #semrushchat https://t.co/AyP8ozNRUL — Samantha Noble (@SamJaneNoble) December 6, 2017

Q3. What are some of your top techniques that brands can use to increase the loyalty of their customer base, and get their happy customer base recommending them to others?

Customer loyalty isn’t just something that you can achieve once and then forget about; instead, it requires conscious effort to maintain. It is more like a romantic relationship than a friendship where you can lose touch and then jump right back into things.

There are too many competitors to just be complacent. You need to be actively working to increase loyalty and advocacy, especially if you want them to be referring new customers to you. Customers may not just leave reviews on their own, for example; you may need to encourage them to do so. You can do this through referral programs or with the chance to win a prize in a contest or giveaway. When in doubt, affiliate networks always work.

A3 IMO contests are the best way to engage customers. Have them create their own content and share it via video or photo. People love to share their ideas. #semrushchat https://t.co/gL4575WWps — Jade Alberts Consult (@Jade_A_Consult) December 6, 2017

A3: Offer freebies and small affiliate network programs always work. If I like a product and I can get a free month of service if I recommend to a friend, of course I will. #SEMrushchat — Youness Bermime (@YounessBermime) December 6, 2017

Consistently reward loyal customers however you can. Offer them discounts, exclusive access to shop new products or collections first, or top-tier treatment with free advice if applicable. Even small, branded gifts like swag or giveaway items can go a long way in helping customers feel valued. You can even use customer match or RLSA with countdown ads to offer discounts on subsequent purchases after a recent purchase.

A3: Reward them. @mackweldon has a good model. After your first purchase, they offer you $20 to give to any friends. If your friend buys, you get $20 towards your next purchase. Everybody wins, including the brand. #semrushchat — Tim Welsh (@Twel5) December 6, 2017

A3: Have a good product and offer quality service and care. Encourage those who have had a positive experience to leave reviews. #semrushchat — Netvantage Marketing (@netvantage) December 6, 2017

Be real and approachable, and make sure that every employee associated with your business is the same. This goes for high-level executives and business owners all the way down to entry level employees. You can do this by being generous with your time, and by teaching your customer service team to immediately do whatever they can to resolve customer problems. Recovered customer experiences can actually make customers more loyal to your brand than they were before the incident ever happened, so that’s something to keep in mind.

A3: Be real, be approachable. If there are problems, fix them. If you've got good customers, reward them.#semrushchat https://t.co/OGynCBvFvQ — ThinkSEM (@ThinkSEM) December 6, 2017

A3. 1. Have best Customer Support system. People feel frustrated when they are ignored or not answered after making a purchase.

2. Give loyalty bonus or discounts to repeat customers.

3. Value their opinions. #SEMrushchat — Praveen Sharma (@i_praveensharma) December 6, 2017

In addition to actively wooing your customers, you should be making sure that someone else isn’t wooing them more effectively. You should also be constantly monitoring what your competitors are doing. If they are offering great discounts and lower pricing at a similar perceived value, it is only natural to expect customers to jump ship. If appropriate, consider offer price matching, or do what you can to match other offers on the market.

A3. Always monitor what your competitors are doing and ensure your offering and pricing is in line #semrushchat Use one review platform (that is recognised by Google) and encourage customers to leave reviews #semrushchat https://t.co/MEfNkFdeqo — Samantha Noble (@SamJaneNoble) December 6, 2017

Q4. When it comes to customer retention, how is marketing segmentation used? How does this improve brand loyalty?

Marketing segmentation should be a cornerstone of building loyalty and advocacy with paid media. Marketing segmentation and retargeting campaigns allow you to deliver the most relevant- and therefore effective- messages and offers to sections of your target audience. Since you already have plenty of information about the customers you already have, use that to your advantage.

You don’t want to just hit customers with ads for things they have just bought, after all. Instead, you can use custom audiences to present them with offers for similar or complementary products for future purposes. Utilize segmentation based on past purchase history and on-site activity to improve retargeting campaigns.

A4. Stop showing brand ads to existing customers, why pay for brand traffic when these people are already embedded with you. #SEMrushchat — Samantha Noble (@SamJaneNoble) December 6, 2017

A4: Marketing Segmentation can be used to drive sales, take repeat visitors no sales, re-targeting using sm, display, ect. Or visiting competitors have a campaign in place for these segments,The crux its more precise to customers triggers needs #SEMrushchat @samjanenoble @semrush — Alexis Huddart (@Flexoid) December 6, 2017

You can also drive engagement on Facebook or Instagram on specific posts talking about products, services, or loyalty programs, and then use custom audiences to target these individuals with re-engagement campaigns. Utilizing strategies to engage with customers on the same platforms they engaged with you will also increase your likelihood of success. This can include webinars, email campaigns, and gated content.

A4 Create engagements on social media and in email that engage with them how they last engaged with you. The longer it's been, the stronger the incentive for them to re-engage. You lost them somewhere. Remind them why you're awesome. #semrushchat — Tim Welsh (@Twel5) December 6, 2017

A4: You can segment according to activity. I started segmenting visitors into categories like true fans, supporters, engagers, heroic readers based on their onsite actions. You can reward true fans etc. for brand loyalty #semrushchat https://t.co/vbMDYRjZmt — Tadeusz Szewczyk (Tad Chef) (@onreact_com) December 6, 2017

A4: Inbound strategies like webinars, emailers, offers and gated content focused to specific segment can help in customer retention. This focused approach will automatically help improve brand loyalty #semrushchat — Khushboo Chhatbar (@khush_chhatbar) December 6, 2017

You can also segment not only by interest but by the length of time it has been since certain customers engaged with you. The longer it has been, after all, the stronger the incentive it is for you to get them to re-engage. You lost them somewhere, so you want to scoop them back up before it is too late by reminding them that your brand is great and that you care about them. Use re-engagement campaigns to target audiences who haven’t connected with you in awhile, offering them too-good-to-miss deals and copy that utilizes storytelling and feature-benefit selling.

Take advantage of paid media platforms. They allow you to upload your customers’ email information and gain insights on the audience as a whole. Use this information to create buyer personas and develop strong, highly targeted ad messaging. Once you do this, you can use this data to not only reach your current audience but also to use your targeting criteria to reach cold traffic that is similar to your most high-value audiences.

A4. The paid media platforms allow you to upload customer email data and see audience insights for those customers. Knowing insights into customers allows us to target more people who look like those customers #semrushchat https://t.co/JYwei0O5QE — Samantha Noble (@SamJaneNoble) December 6, 2017

A4. You can also do LTV lookalike audiences where you take lifetime revenue for your customers and target people who look like your highest value customers #semrushchat https://t.co/JYwei0O5QE — Samantha Noble (@SamJaneNoble) December 6, 2017

A4 it is all about knowing your customer. The ideal is the corner shop where the owner knows their regulars. Very difficult to scale that but segmentation goes some of the way.#SEMRushChat — Simon Cox (@simoncox) December 6, 2017

Q5. What are some of the techniques you use to identify your most loyal clients online?

Building a loyal client following and raving fans is exceptional, but it’s also important to make sure that you can identify them online to keep them engaged and advocating for you. Fortunately, there are several ways to do this. For best results, consider using a combination of them to monitor user engagement across multiple platforms.

A5 In a B2B application I gave them a shout out and promote their business. This goes a long way. In retail we have shared their stories about how the product has impacted their lives #semrushchat https://t.co/drVKVNskOh — Jade Alberts Consult (@Jade_A_Consult) December 6, 2017

Ideally, you should be keeping track of user engagements across all channels, including the brand engagements discussing you but not involving you directly. You should also be tracking the lifetime value of your customers (LTV) to determine how much the average loyal customer will spend in their entire relationship with your business. Fortunately, to make this a little easier, you can actually track LTV with a Facebook integration.

A5. You need to be able to track the lifetime value and upsell value of your customers in order to work out the most valuable ones #semrushchat Use paid social and PPC channel insights to find out more about your highest value customers and go find more like them #semrushchat https://t.co/1Ams53Gk8Q — Samantha Noble (@SamJaneNoble) December 6, 2017

During this process, upsell value to your customers and see which ones bite-- these will be your most high-value customers, which are often likely to be the most loyal or the strongest advocates.

You can also use paid social and PPC channel insights to learn more about these high-value customers, along with social listening and brand monitoring tools like what we provide at SEMrush. If possible, you can see what they are saying and get involved in the conversation. From there, you can use lookalike audiences or the data to assemble targeting criteria to help reach cold traffic most like your high-value customers.

A5: social listening. It allows you to pinpoint the influencers and the People who consistently talk about a certain topic. #SEMrushchat — Maria Marchewka (@_MariaMarchewka) December 6, 2017

A5: Engagement insights and Buzzsumo and Semrush mentions alerts. Always great to see what your customers are saying about you. Also great to quickly solve problems and issues they have. #semrushchat — Youness Bermime (@YounessBermime) December 6, 2017

A5 - Listen online… See who is raving about you. They are most likely very happy customers. Engage to make them loyal customers #SEMrushchat — Hilary St Jonn (@HilaryStJonn) December 6, 2017

Use all methods of analytics and tracking possible. Use cookies even if customers aren’t signed into your site to be able to pull valuable data from their activity, and install both Google Analytics and Facebook’s tracking pixel on your site to get as much data and retargeting capabilities as possible. Beacon tracking, after all, helps with segmentation. When you can see where customers have been, what pages they are visiting on your site, and what actions they are taking, you can segment them based on product use case, on-site activity, the stage of the buyer’s journey they are in, and more.

A5: Integration of a persistent ID on the website that can be tied back into CRM systems i.e. by making use of Google Analytics' User-ID, and interfacing this with back-end systems, then you can see true LTV etc. #semrushchat — Neil Yeomans (@neil_yeomans) December 6, 2017

Use your analytics to determine what types of audience segments spend the most money, both in terms of high purchase value and frequency. Once you’ve established this, utilized segmented marketing to keep them engaged, purchasing, and referring new clients just like them your way.

A5: To get to know your most loyal clients, you have to analyze and combine your data from Google Analytics with your the data from your CRM system. This is - as far as I am concerned - the analytical and most reliable method . #semrushchat — Fanny Heuck (@FannyHeuck) December 6, 2017

That is all! Make sure to join us on the next #SEMrushchat with special guest, Michelle Held to discuss "The ROI of Social Media Marketing!"