• by Tom Hespos , January 8, 2002

Ever hear stories about folks who are so attached to a brand that they are proud to show their allegiance to that brand at every opportunity? I’m sure we all know someone who occasionally remarks, “I’d rather push a Chevy than drive a Ford,” or “Porsche…There is no substitute.”

Most brand managers would kill to have people so devoted to their particular brand. Brand loyalists are not only lifetime consumers of the brands they favor, but they’re also advocates of those brands, such that they help others develop an affinity for them. The more brand loyalists you have, the better your chances of being impacted positively by word of mouth and viral marketing.

As a practice, wearing a brand like a badge is fairly widespread. It can happen in the general market (e.g. – “I’ll wear English Leather, or I’ll wear nothing at all.”) or in niche B2B markets (Anyone ever see that commercial for Andersen Windows, in which a contractor insists that a homeowner either use Andersen Windows or sign a legal release?)

The difference between a brand loyalist and your basic run-of-the-mill consumer is the presence of a relationship that is deeper than that of “buyer and seller.” And because the Internet is a two-way medium, it is ideal for developing deeper relationships between brand and consumer. I’m actually quite surprised that more brand advertisers are not using the Internet in the capacity of a relationship-marketing tool.

With the commercial explosion of the web, most brands rushed to deploy a website. Lots of those brands did a lot of head scratching when they failed to build a huge audience of devoted followers. After the dot-com explosion and subsequent contraction, marketers and agencies alike began to embrace the notion that not every brand needs its own website. While that may be the case, I feel as if every brand should employ interactive media in some way, whether through email or through the web, to give its most devoted followers a way to interact with the brand on a regular basis.

Every brand has a way to add value to the customer relationship through online marketing, even if the brand’s particular product category is commoditized. For all intents and purposes, most people shouldn’t care what brand motor oil they put in their car’s engine. But I can think of dozens of things off the top of my head that Quaker State can offer online to its customers to deepen the brand relationship. Maybe motor oil isn’t an interesting enough subject to keep a consumer coming to QuakerState.com on a regular basis, but Quaker State can offer an email newsletter to people who have visited the website. Such a newsletter could host special offers, car care tips, testimonials and tons of other features that would help to demonstrate to consumers that motor oil is more than a commodity. Using email in this way would add value to customer relationships and establish a brand preference.

The tactics employed to make a relationship marketing campaign successful often contrast sharply with many of the tactics we learned in the “go-go ‘90s.” Relationship marketing is all about quality and not necessarily quantity. A successful relationship marketing campaign doesn’t try to sell product to every Tom, Dick and Harry. It instead latches on to a brand’s most loyal and devoted consumers, tries to find out what makes them so devoted, and gives them a way to spread that loyalty to others.

Relationship marketing represents a huge part of the Internet’s future as a commercial medium. Many times, consumers are looking for more than just a buyer-seller relationship when they purchase a product. They’re often looking for support, expertise and an acknowledgement of their relationship with the company they purchase from. Add value to your relationship with these customers and you will reap the benefits of having brand loyalists who will help market your product for you.