First, I love the phrase “ride or die.” I think it’s fantastic marketing, so high five to whomever first coined it.
Essentially, we’re talking about ridiculously loyal, die-hard fans of your brand. You’re the apple of their eyes and the biggest vendor on their American Express statement every month. They comment on your social media posts, they share your funny memes, they also recommend you to anyone who remotely has a need for what you offer.
That’s totally the dream, right?
Imagine what ride-or-die customers could do for your business:
- They’d lower your ad spend because of the increase of word-of-mouth
- You’d have an almost-guaranteed regular source of revenue
- You’d be able to launch products and almost guarantee a quick profit every time
- You’d have a loyal base of followers who would give you ideas for new products or services and save you a ton of time on market research.
So yeah, it’s definitely worth the effort to spend time cultivating this sort of customer.
How to Make Your Customers Ride-or-Die
But how the hell do you do that? How do you create loyal customers?
1. Go to where they are
Don’t force yourself to be on a social media platform because it’s the latest and greatest, be where your customers are. Don’t make it harder for yourself than it already is!
2. Talk to them
Engage with their posts first to create a reciprocation need. If you’ve already got customers then go through your “followers” list regularly and comment on their posts. If you’re new and don’t have a lot of fans yet, head out into the “explore” feature to find potential customers who might be into what you’re doing and comment on their posts with valuable info. Do NOT use this as an opportunity to sell. You might also get marked as spam and rarely will you convert anyhow.
3. Drop the ego
I’ve seen so many brands think they’re above engaging outside of their own page and that’s just ridiculous (but makes more room for the rest of us!). You want people to find you? Be accessible!
4. Rinse and repeat regularly
Loyalty to a brand is like dating and it takes time to nurture, so spend more time dedicated towards outreach and engagement. The more you go out there regularly to cultivate loyalty, the more ahead of your competitors you’ll be AND the more impact you’ll make on your customer base.
Ride-or-die must be earned, so the more effort you put towards it now, the bigger the payoff you’ll get later.
