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Loyalty doesn't exist
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Brand loyalty. Customer loyalty. They're a nice couple of terms, but they don't actually exist. Are your customers loyal to your brand? If they find a choice that works better, do they stay with you? If they find a choice that is cheaper, do they stay with you? If they find a choice that improves their lives, do they stay with you? The harsh answer is no. And that's ok. Loyalty goes both ways. If your customers are not profitable anymore, do you stay with them? If your customers aren't a great fit anymore, do you stay with them? If your customers don't represent an impact anymore, do you stay with them? If you get to a financial stretch, will they all fund you? While customer loyalty sounds like a fine concept, it's not reality. When you're loyal, you put yourself out there for them. Whatever it takes. And it goes both ways. However, if you choose, they can be meaningful to you. And when they mean something to you, you'll do your best to help them thrive. And that's when, despite whatever you have around, they'll build your brand. |
Rod Aparicio
Finding The Gap
Get one tip, question, or belief-challenge that just might change the way you market yourself, so that your customers buy. A *daily* email for indie consultants and creators —without the bullshit.
Strategy is about the future. Uncertain, risky, unknown. And at the same time, to bring you to an advantage. Strategy is an idea and approach to a goal, that leads to, with the most impactful effort, a position of advantage. While data can help you frame it, it can't be what drives it. It's about what could be. It's about what could the future hold for your customers.
Decision-making advice for business tends to be "your strategy needs to be driven by data". But data is built in the past. It's certain. It's factual. Forecasts, trends, models. They all take data and build a projection into the future with a certain sense of reliability, confidence, or pure imagination. They're informed by, but not driven by data. Based in the past. Strategy, it's about the future. Uncertain. Non-factual.
After yesterday's message (on the response from Samsung to Apple re: their new tablets), this reply by fellow daily emailer Wes Wheless from The Lightbulb summarized the feeling: "It feels like two rich cousins fighting in public" Spot on. Besides the comms and whether or not the message went through in their ads, the overall feeling is the same: it's all about them. And when you (and your business) focus and react to what the competition is doing right or wrong, you're missing the mark. It's...