How to Build A Loyal Tribe Around Your Brand

Building a loyal tribe around your brand is an opportunity every company should take. Specifically, you need to create opportunities for consumers to connect with your brand on a deeper level.

Consumers want to buy from brands that they identify with. Brands should make it easy for consumers to identify with them.

Imagine This

Imagine a company who creates innovative product after innovative product. Consumers are immensely loyal to the company. They wait overnight and in long lines just to get their hands on the product.

They are willing to fork over thousands for their product, which is way more than their competitors. This has, in return, driven huge profits for the company to nearly one trillion in value.

Sounds like a fictional company? It’s not. That company is Apple. They are an expert in creating a loyal tribe around their company.

Relating to Tribes

In ancient times tribes were created over territory. Most common, they were groups of people that bonded and had pride over a common goal – survive, thrive and raise the next generation.  

Today, tribes are created in our hearts and minds, linked by common social interests. You unknowingly participate in tribes in your day-to-day.

Say you start the morning with a workout. The gym and people working out with you is your tribe. Say after that workout you go to a smoothie place. The health nuts that drink there are also your tribe.

Tribes in the Digital World

Tribes are not just formed in the physical world, they are formed in the digital world. More than ever before, many tribes are competing for our attention. Over social media we follow people who are similar to us. Not only that, algorithms curate a feed that is most similar to the worldview that we present and identify with. Most of the interactions we have are ones with whom we are similar to.

Why we buy from brands

We don’t buy from brands for what the product can do. We buy from brands because they help identify and clarify who we are. They are an extension of us.

Walk into the toothpaste aisle and you are suddenly overwhelmed with choices. All essentially serve the same function but each brand had dozens of iterations of different flavors, different sizes, and different functions. Most often than not, we buy from the brand that we most identify with

How You Can Do It

To create an immensely loyal tribe around your brand you need to find a group waiting for its leader. This is your opportunity. Building a loyal tribe is what differentiates repeat business into loyal customers.

As Simon Sinek in ‘Start With Why”, mentions the differentiation of loyalty versus repeat business is “Loyalty is when people are willing to turn down a better product or a better price to continue doing business with you … [they] don’t even bother to research competition to entertain other options.”

There are several notable brands who have turned created a loyal tribe into an art.

Apple’s Tribe

Consider Apple, they are known for their die-hard fans who pay for their products despite rising costs. Some are willing to wait in long lines or overnight at Apple stores just to be one of the first ones to get their hands on their products.

Tesla’s Tribe

Now consider Tesla. Despite recent financial troubles and missing production targets with the Model 3, they have created a community of enthusiastic, tech-forward, like-minded individuals who love electric cars. They believe in the mission of Tesla – to lower carbon emissions and to create a more sustainable future. Those followers, often referred to as “Musketeers.”

Tesla has the ability to get people to pay for a car without them having to make it. When they announced the release of the Model 3 vehicle in 2017, they had more than 300,000 people put in a deposit for the vehicle. Not to mention they had to fork over a $1,000 deposit, not even see the car roll into their driveway for another 2 or more years, and they hadn’t even seen or driven the car in person. Talk about brand loyalty.

Nike’s Tribe

Consider Nike. Their shoes are branded for athletes but the majority of the people who wear them are not athletes. Consumers wear Nike because they like the promise of the brand and are happy to publicly associate with it as a part of their own style identity.

Research and Identify Your Tribe

With the examples of greats like Apple, Tesla, and Nike, how can you build a loyal tribe as they did?

Identify Your Value Proposition

A value proposition is defined as a “believable collection of most persuasive reasons your target customers should do what you’re hoping they will do.” People need to have good reasons to buy from you otherwise they won’t buy from you.

Start Engaging With Your Tribe

It is equally as important to engage and build relationships with your tribe. Listen to what they have to say. Learn what they have to say about your business. Use this information to improve your business and inform your growth strategy.

Create an emotional connection with your tribe or risk losing them to your competition. In an age where customers attention is being divided in many directions, your content needs to be targeted directly at their hearts.

The Takeaway

Creating a brand is one of the essential elements of a business that turns prospects or repeat business into loyal tribe members. Your Tribe will spread the message of your company, product or service in a unique way, and consider your brand as one of their friends/family members.

Would you like to create a loyal tribe around your brand? Have Tribu do it for you. Contact us today!

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