A brand home (or brand house) is your brand’s big destination where your consumers can experience your brand, values, and history up close and personally. It powers a marketing strategy that achieves awareness, revenue, and loyalty by attracting tourists and community visitors. 

But how can you grow strong brand preference through your brand home beyond driving repeat visits? Well, there are five tactics you can incorporate into your brand home strategy that make all the difference.

1. VIP Experiences
2. Sweepstakes
3. Swag
4. Discounts and Passes
5. Exclusive Access

What is Brand Loyalty?

Brand home loyalty is the amount of recall and preference involved when your current consumers buy from your category. It impacts your average transaction value, and the more effective your loyalty programs are, the more improvement you’ll see in the rate at which consumers purchase from your brand throughout their lifetime.

Brand homes create loyalty through personalized, immersive, and memorable experiences that use a consumer’s emotional response to create a more sticky product recall. 

Where Does Loyalty Fit into Brand Home Strategy?

As with many brands, most consumers will only buy occasionally. They’ll dip in and out of your category throughout the year depending on their shifting needs and preferences, which puts them at risk for conversion by competitors. 

So, it stands to reason that constantly attracting new consumers and re-engaging past customers is a strategic priority. Ask yourself: How do I nudge three-times-per-year consumers to become five-times-per-year consumers? Bringing consumers into your brand home, delivering experiences that are memorable and unique, and then continuing the relationship post-visit is a great way to foster loyalty through your brand home. 

In addition to fostering loyalty in terms of increasing purchase frequency, you can also use brand home experiences to move consumers from entry-level products to higher-end offerings. 

Take The Macallan, for example. Consumers are often introduced to the brand via their 12-year-old whisky, which sells for around €75. While consumers participate in an experience in person at their brand home, they create a moment of choice that nudges them to the 18-year-old version at €300. Then, the 25 at €2,000, and so on. By nurturing loyalty in this way, the brand can grow the lifetime value of their most engaged consumers.

Now that you understand your brand home's role in driving greater loyalty and how that can power greater revenue for the business, let’s dig into 5 tactics you can incorporate immediately to start reaping these benefits. 

VIP Experiences

As consumers move through their journey with you, they often self-identify as VIPs who want to be closer to the brand. Inviting those hand-raisers to more exclusive experiences like visiting The Macallan Estate or their recent 200th-anniversary Cirque du Soleil show rewards them for their continued loyalty and encourages them to deepen that connection. 

VIP experiences create a strong emotional bond between your brand and consumers. The exclusivity and personalization make attendees feel valued and appreciated, fostering a positive emotional connection. This emotional tie goes beyond transactional relationships, contributing to a deeper sense of loyalty.

Think back on your childhood for a moment: what kind of toothpaste did your parents use to brush your teeth? What brand of shoes were your favorite? Do you still lean towards those brands today?

These memories are nostalgic, and when you, as a brand, work to create a special experience for your consumers, they’ll remember it fondly whenever your name comes up. They’ll be 79% more likely to choose your product and brand.

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VIP experiences are generally more intimate and exclusive, like a private distillery cellar tour or a limited concert for the most dedicated fans. It’s a way to give your fans a chance to get to know your brand better and to reward them for their dedication with unique access. 

Sweepstakes

A sweepstake acts as a lottery. Loyal consumers can win a prize, gain extra entries, and even improve their chances through a barrier of entry, depending on how close they are to your brand. Brands use sweepstakes to encourage value exchange and get consumers to provide their personal information or feedback. 

Not only are they great for loyalty, but also enable you to:

• Increase your consumer engagement.
• Discover new information about your audiences for even better personalization.
• Partner with other well-known brands to increase the value of the prize.

Swag 

Premium branded merchandise, like special bottles and letterman jackets, make great add-on loyalty rewards. The swag's quality (and rarity) is important here; offering limited edition versions of your branded merchandise drives the perceived value even higher and feels incredibly personal.

Swag also acts as a FOMO tool for other consumers on the verge of purchasing. Knowing that a brand cares enough about you to give you something makes consumers feel seen and act like the professional influencers most envy with something free they can show off. 

Discounts and Passes 

You don’t have to spend a fortune to earn customer loyalty. Memberships and loyalty programs are everywhere, offering unique member-only discounts and free guest passes to use whenever they visit your brand's home and retail element if you have one. 

But we’re not talking about 10% off; this depends on the value of your product and how much money the average transaction value is with your brand. Do your research and understand how much your target demographic spends with you and how much they spend on average to offer the best possible deal. 

Look at how many guests book their brand home experience as a party. If you can offer one seat free on average, or even two depending on the size, it creates an easy way to not only help your loyal consumers show off but also bring in new consumers to the brand for more awareness.

Exclusive Access

Exclusivity is one of the most popular words in marketing right now. There’s something luxurious and prized about having or experiencing something that not many others can. Exclusive access, the invite to a limited event or experience, can be an incredible tool for loyalty.

That exclusivity can mean reservations for a private dining experience attached to your brand home, tours with head brewers and distillers, and even special events like concerts or closed tastings at your brand home. 

As long as the exclusive experience is relevant to your target audience, it’s a surefire way to encourage strong customer relationships and loyalty.

Loyalty As a Brand Promise

When brands approach loyalty, it can often seem like the more product-focused it is, the better. However, in the age of digital marketing and category overload, creating sticky loyalty means breaking through the noise of differentiation. 

Modern marketing strategies like experiential aim towards building emotional relationships, especially when making your brand house a home. Bringing your identity and values to life through immersion and reward improves the customer experience and your competitive edge. 

You can create a branded house strategy that sticks by using VIP experiences, unique sweepstakes, limited edition swag, membership perks like discounts, and exclusive event access. 

So pick one to start with, and see how far a strong loyalty marketing strategy can help your brand home. 

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