Let me plant a simple idea in your head: 81% of consumers need to trust a brand to consider buying from it. While I would have loved for it to be just an idea, it is the reality. With the shifting times and the constant increase in the saturation level of the industry, customers have become hostile towards most brands. Instead, they only want to buy from a brand when it is not overly promoted and they actually enjoy the product or service. Once that happens, they become loyalists to the said brand for life.

1. Build Trust

Customers remain loyal when they trust brands. However, this does not come automatically. For a brand to build that trust, they have to make sure to be consistent in catering to the audience’s needs. That is, be honest about their sourcing, have an original story and voice and overall, care more about people than their product. This is where most startup branding agency India lacks, but to make sure that doesn’t happen, one just needs to focus on their story.

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2. Create Emotional Connections

People tend to connect easier when something aligns with their values, beliefs, or personal identity. While it doesn’t take a genius to crack this, it does take some time to understand what the audience really resonates with. Most often, the best way to create such an emotional bond is through stories told: of the brand, by the brand. It has a history of appealing to the audience the most.

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3. Customer-First Approach

Every digital branding agency in India that you approach will tell you Indians truly believe in bond and care immensely about whether the bond is symbiotic in nature or not. A simple example would be, they buy your product, earning you revenue and you help them out by answering queries and making their experience smoother. This is the reason why customer service is such a widely sought-after service.

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4. Make The Customers “Yours Truly” Special

Over the years of analysing startup branding agencies India has, one thing that I have understood is how most brands fail to create a ‘yours truly’ or welcoming family like customers, thus forcing them to stay away from their close circle. The problem is not just that, it is that to retain customers and win their loyalty, alongside fostering this feeling, rewards become an important aspect. Whether it be repeat customer discounts or loyalty programs that customers can be a part of, it should be added. These make a huge difference as it inculcates a feeling of exclusivity and personal touch in the customers.

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However, that is just the tip of the iceberg and the first step to gaining somewhat customer loyalty. The main ingredient to long-term loyalty that a startup branding agency India swears by is actually something that very few people pay attention to.

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Let’s take the brand Swiggy. What makes them stand out are their “Knock, knock” messages as reminders and notifications and alongside that, having a community manager who looks over their community like a friendly hawk.

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Most brands fail to understand the importance of a community manager, but they are usually the ones who drive the brands the most. For example, Swiggy’s community manager takes care of all the comments, their engagement and such, helping them constantly stay in touch with their consumers. Swiggy does this really well and any digital branding agency in India would agree that they have harnessed the power of customer engagement and use it to its full potential.

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This does not just come from comments or likes, it’s about creating a personality and a story that makes the audience want to become customers and the customers to become loyal advocates.

A brand is not a people’s favourite unless it is able to give a voice to them; any startup branding agency India has understood this fact. However, very few are able to implement it.

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It’s rather simple: ‘Conversate’ instead of ‘Communicate’. Now this might appear tricky,but this is what the best brands use. A simple example is Duolingo and how they use their mascot and other characters to converse with the users. If you miss a lesson, it’s almost never a reminder, instead, it's a question like, ‘Did you get lost?’, ‘You can take the next lesson, or not, I mean you do you.’ etc. This makes the users engage better, in turn making the app more friendly and the users turn from customers to advocates.

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Overall, the best way to implement branding differs from brand to brand, however, one thing that is constant is how good branding affects customer loyalty and retention, and a great digital branding agency in India would understand that. It takes more than just a colour palette and 10 beautiful posts to get your brand to stand out and be able to make customers hear your voice. With great branding you can bring about a great presence that not just exists but speaks to your customers.