To compete with the giants in your industry, you need to make your company stand out, observes Will Yakowicz, writing for Inc.com. Your company’s brand, he insists, needs to be “a de facto religion, one with a dogma that’s easy to spread to the masses of lost souls looking for something to believe in”.
This is the view, explains the author, of Ron Faris, the former head of brand marketing at Virgin Mobile. Yakowicz distills Faris’s three tips on building a fervent following for your brand:
1) Create a dogma. A community of users can exchange ideas around the dogma, with an emotional investment. Individuals then become influencers and recruit other followers.
2) Create communal moments. Faris advocates creating physical and virtual moments for fans to congregate, share their passion and be rewarded with rare products or experiences they won’t get anywhere else.
3) Look upon them as fans, not customers. Don’t think of customers as merely a source of revenue. Acknowledge their love of your brand and return it.