There are numerous ways to win a customer’s business for a single sale.
In some cases, the trick is offering the lowest price for the item they’re looking to buy. However, chasing bargain shoppers isn’t the best strategy for building a loyal customer base with a high customer lifetime value. To build meaningful relationships with your customer community, it’s best to establish a strong emotional connection. That’s what building brand affinity is all about.
It takes time and effort to build brand affinity, but your work can pay for itself in the form of customer loyalty and repeat purchases.
What is brand affinity?
Brand affinity is the connection customers feel with a particular brand based on a sense of shared values. If a person has positive emotional connections with a company, they have an affinity for the brand. For instance, if a person associates an electronics brand with the television that broadcasts their favorite childhood movies, they may have a strong emotional bond and, thus, a strong affinity for the whole brand based on those early experiences.
Brand affinity goes beyond standard brand awareness. A customer with affinity has a deeper connection because of their sense that the brand is, in some way, aligned with their identity. Perhaps they enjoy the brand’s personality. Perhaps they received great customer service. Regardless, they have some reason to love the brand and want to purchase from it again, thanks to their strong connection.
Brand affinity vs. brand loyalty
Brand affinity and brand loyalty both deal with customer engagement. However, the two are not synonyms. Brand affinity is a measure of emotional connection, while brand loyalty is a measure of tangible customer behavior. Here’s an overview of both terms:
Brand loyalty
Brand loyalty is a customer’s commitment to repeatedly buy from a particular brand. Loyal customers stick with the brand even when alternatives are available, making repeat purchases because they trust the product or service.
People might exhibit brand loyalty for many reasons, including attractive prices, product selection, convenience, or the existence of loyalty programs. However, brand loyalty is only a measure of behavior, not sentiment. Loyal customers do not necessarily need to feel connected to the brands they shop from.
Brand affinity
Brand affinity is an emotional connection a customer feels toward a brand. Measuring brand affinity means measuring how much a customer personally identifies with the brand’s values, personality, or purpose. A strong sense of affinity might not always translate to frequent purchases—but it can be a major contributing factor to brand loyalty.
Benefits of building brand affinity
By building a strong relationship with your client base, you can increase brand affinity and gain a competitive advantage within your product category. Benefits range from reduced marketing costs to better relationships with your existing customers. Here’s a breakdown of these benefits:
Prospects for customer retention
When customers have a strong affinity for your brand, they’re more likely to remain loyal to your brand. The resultant customer retention can lead to a more predictable revenue stream.
More word-of-mouth referrals
Customers with a genuine connection to your brand are more likely to become passionate brand advocates, sharing their positive experiences via social media posts and online reviews, as well as referring their friends and family. This organic word-of-mouth marketing can be highly influential and cost-effective for your growing business. Not only is word-of-mouth marketing affordable: It’s also internet users’ top form of brand discovery.
Pricing power
Brands that build a strong bond with their target audience can often command higher prices for their products or services. Customers may be willing to accept premium pricing for the emotional connection and perceived value. Brand affinity can also make your business more resilient to competition since strong customer relationships make people less inclined to shop around at other businesses.
Strategies for cultivating brand affinity
- Define and communicate your brand values
- Deliver exceptional customer experiences
- Foster a strong brand community
- Use content marketing to form connections with your target market
- Respond to customer feedback
- Identify key metrics to measure brand affinity
Building brand affinity goes well beyond your standard marketing blitz. To build stronger relationships with your customers, you must actively engage them, sharing your brand personality and values so they have something to latch onto on a personal level.
Jessica Lee and Lizzie Agnew co-founded Modern Citizen to address an underserved market: young professional women who are primarily dressing for work. In doing so, they built brand affinity over the long haul, leveraging strong connections. “Fashion is inherently personal. It’s something that people put on their bodies to represent who they are,” Jessica explains on the Shopify Masters podcast. But the inherent intimacy of fashion products isn’t something she takes for granted; Jessica and Lizzie rely on a range of strategies to attract customers and build lasting affinity.
Here are six ways—all used by Modern Citizen—to cultivate affinity for your brand:
Define and communicate your brand values
Communicate your company’s values, in the hopes these may align with the personal values of some of your target audience. Such an alignment encourages customers to see your brand as a reflection of their own beliefs, and it can foster community between business and clients.
In the case of Modern Citizen, one of its core brand values was affordability. “We felt it was important to kind of reinforce the values of the business from day one,” Jessica says. One of those values? “We inherently wanted the business to be inclusive from a price point perspective.” This inclusive attitude welcomes customers to the brand and helps build long-term affinity.
Deliver exceptional customer experiences
Go beyond merely meeting customer expectations by providing memorable, positive experiences at every touchpoint. Perhaps that means throwing in a small gift with an order or upgrading someone to two-day shipping. Satisfied customers who experience excellent customer service or discover a highly relatable brand personality are more likely to become brand advocates. This may lead to increased brand awareness and loyalty.
Foster a strong brand community
Actively engage with your audience on social media and other platforms, creating a space where customers can connect, share tips, and network. This strong brand community will strengthen affinity and drive valuable brand mentions and social media engagement. “We think about that with everything,” Jessica says. “[We’re] always wanting to build community and do it in an authentic way.”
Use content marketing to form connections with your target market
Share content that reflects your brand personality, such as profiles of your team members, or a summary of your company’s sustainable practices. The hope is that some of this content resonates with your target market and inspires affinity. Content that taps into a shared interest or shared values encourages customers to engage more deeply with your brand.
Respond to customer feedback
Regularly seek customer feedback to better understand customer expectations and continuously improve. When you make positive changes based on feedback, you show customers you care about their opinions.
For Modern Citizen, understanding what customers love about the brand helps the brand maintain affinity. To keep tabs on how customers feel, the team conducts an extensive annual survey—usually around 40 or 50 questions about the customer experience. The goal is to get a sense of each customer’s relationship with the brand.
Identify key metrics to measure brand affinity
Track metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS), brand mentions, social media engagement, and repeat purchase rates. These metrics give you more than just a measure of satisfied customers; they also help assess the depth of your customer relationships. Ideally, you’ll better understand how your brand resonates with your audience and where you can improve.
Brand affinity FAQ
What is an example of brand affinity?
An example of brand affinity is when a customer feels a strong connection to a sustainable clothing brand because its values align with their own commitment to environmental responsibility.
Why is brand affinity important?
Brand affinity is important because it builds emotional connections with customers. This can foster long-term loyalty and advocacy that drive repeat business and increases the customer lifetime value (CLV) of people who shop with you.
What is the difference between brand awareness and brand affinity?
Brand awareness is about how familiar consumers are with a brand, while brand affinity measures the emotional connection and positive feelings consumers have toward a brand.
