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Five steps to brand evangelism
Loyal Sparks readers know the power of a strong brand: a passionate
customer base willing to pay price premiums and stick with you through
thick and thin.
But how do you get there? By moving customers through five stages:
1. Awareness
2. Acceptance & understanding
3. Ready to defend
4. Utilize & internalize
5. Passionate advocacy
Brand awareness begins with a strong visual identity (logo, color
palette, typographic treatments, and more) that's communicated clearly
and consistently to your customer base. For small businesses, brand
awareness is often built through word of mouth rather than through
exhaustive marketing campaigns.
Once customers are aware of your brand, they engage with it in
some fashion, moving into acceptance and understanding. If their
brand experience meets your brand promise, they are ready to defend
their choice to others.
The more they utilize your brand (think of how many coffees you've
had at Starbucks or how many times you've found the perfect gift
at your favorite boutique), the more customers internalize your
brand's qualities and values. From there, they become passionate
advocates (what we call "brand evangelists"), ready to
actively encourage others to try your brand.
Brand-building is a marathon, not a sprint! It takes ongoing management
and commitment. It can take 18-24 months to turn an ailing brand
around, because your customers need multiple experiences of your
brand to internalize the changes. The more consistently you deliver
on your brand promise, the more quickly people will believe in you
and become a passionate advocate for your brand.
Reaching women on the web
Women are a key demographic for almost any company or organization
doing business online. Women influence 80% of household spending
and constitute 63% of online shoppers.
Women are highly savvy web users, viewing 40% fewer pages than
men and zeroing in on information and products that are targeted
to their health, family, and life. They're most likely to be online
around 9 pm, and 63% of them want web sites to be thoughtfully planned
and carefully designed.
While the typical approach to planning the architecture of the
site is to base it around the question "What's on this page?",
a more effective approach for reaching women is to ask, "What
can she do at this step of her experience?" Because women are
also looking to the web for connection, think about how your site
can help connect her to valuable information, products, or communities
at every step of that experience.
The bottom line is that if your site isn't relevant to women, they're
gone—and they're 30% less likely to buy from you
offline as well! Designing a rich, streamlined, relevant online
experience for women is essential to your success.
Learn
more about women's online habits
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