It’s that time of year when love is in the air. Or at least when everyone is scrambling to get a last-minute reservation on OpenTable for an over-priced prix fixe dinner. Reflecting on my own relationship, not long after my girlfriend and I first started dating, after an evening of dinner and dancing, we exchanged “I love yous” for the first time. I was over the moon. I couldn’t be happier to be in a committed relationship. Two weeks later, after another wonderful dinner, she casually mentioned she was going on a date with someone else. It turns out I completely misunderstood where we were, and at the time, she wasn’t quite ready to be exclusive.
While this story turned out to have a happy ending (we now share a house, a dog, and three kids), many brands find themselves in my shoes, guessing where their relationship with their customer stands. Do they love my brand and would never switch to a competitor? Are they uninterested in trying me out, happy to stick with their current brand? Do they even know who I am? This Valentine’s Day, every brand should take stock of where their brand sits on the “Brand Love Curve.”
According to consulting firm Beloved Brands, the Brand Love Curve is a way to think about where the majority of your customers reside in the brand funnel. The typical funnel would look at awareness, consideration, purchase, repeat, and loyal, whose stages map to the points on the Brand Love Curve. An indifferent brand would be skinny throughout the funnel, with low awareness and purchase, and little in the way of repeat or loyal customers. A liked brand would be full at the top of the funnel, with plenty of purchases, but lack real loyalty. A beloved brand would be full all the way through, with strong emotional attachment driving loyal customers to never go elsewhere, and to recommend to their friends.
Here at Brown Bag, an Atlanta brand development agency specializing in integrated marketing and B2B digital marketing, we help clients figure out where their brands sit on the Brand Love Curve by analyzing every stage of their brand funnel.
We recommend you do the same. Mapping your brand’s position on the curve can uncover the right strategies to move customers from awareness to loyalty.
If your audience feels indifferent, it’s time to capture attention and clarify your brand’s position. That might mean changing your message or launching something fresh.
If your brand is liked, motivate customers to try more of your services. With the right branding strategy, you can avoid hearing a client tell you over crème brûlée that they’ve moved on.
Where does your brand sit on the Brand Love Curve? What have you tried to move your customers from indifferent to like, or from like to love?