Are You Missing the Emotional Connection That Turns Buyers into Brand Advocates?

[BON_Loyalty]

Is a single sale your finish line? It shouldn't be.

From our experiences with 8500+ brands using BON to build customer loyalty, we've identified 7 proven strategies to transform first-time buyers into your brand's most passionate defenders:

1. Deliver truly personalized experiences 
2. Listen, adapt, and repeat
3. Foster an authentic community
4. Build a loyalty and rewards program
5. Make social sharing rewarding
6. Create exclusivity through VIP Tiers

1. Deliver Truly Personalized Experiences

According to Segment research (2024) reveals that 89% of business leaders identify personalization as a critical driver of success within the next three years. This aligns with consumer sentiment, as customers increasingly reject generic experiences and favor brands that demonstrate a deep understanding of their individual needs.

We mean personalization goes beyond addressing customers by name. It’s about tailoring rewards, offers, and communications to match individual preferences and behaviors.

💡Pro tip: Use purchase history data to recommend complementary products that genuinely enhance your customer's life, not just boost your sales.

2. Listen, Adapt, and Repeat

As we’ve seen, the success of personalized service relies heavily on data and technology. However, technology alone can’t replace the invaluable insights gained from direct customer feedback. That's why we recommend collecting feedback through surveys, social listening, and reviews to understand what your customers truly want and where you can improve. By actively listening to your customers and making meaningful changes, you show that their opinions matter. However, feedback is only valuable if you act on it. 

🗣 Action step: Implement a simple post-purchase feedback system that asks one crucial question: "What could we have done better?"

3. Foster an Authentic Community

The key to an engaged community lies in fostering a sense of authenticity and belonging. So, we recommend that your business encourage user-generated content (UGC) – genuine reviews, photos, and videos, which is paramount. It's not enough to just show off your goods; you need to make the customer's voice heard, confirm their experiences, and build a shared story.

Sephora's Beauty Insider Community exemplifies this approach by creating spaces where beauty enthusiasts connect, share, and learn together. This sense of belonging has contributed significantly to their loyalty program's success. But you don’t have to be a big brand like Sephora to create your own customer community. Even small businesses can build an engaged community with the right approach.

🗣Start small: According to Statista data (January 2023), Instagram and Facebook remain the most effective platforms for building active communities. Begin with consistent engagement on just one platform before expanding.

4. Build a Loyalty and Rewards Program That Actually Works

Loyalty programs are programs that reward customers for repeated purchases with a brand or business. Specifically, these programs track customer spending and offer benefits based on their purchase history or engagement. Your customers earn points, rewards, or achieve status levels that unlock additional perks as they continue to shop with the brands.

Özel Beslenme, a Turkish health supplements retailer, implemented a customizable loyalty program through BON Loyalty that resulted in a 10-fold increase in order volume within just three months, plus a 6% revenue increase from loyalty program members alone.

💡Key insight: The most effective rewards programs offer a mix of transactional benefits (discounts, free products, free shipping…) and experiential perks (early access, exclusive content).

5. Make Social Sharing Rewarding

Sprout Social research (2025) reveals that 73% of social media users will buy from competitors if brands don't respond on social platforms. So, how do you fix that? Well, you've got to be active, obviously. But more than that, you need to create a social media campaign that gets people talking. Our ideas are contests, giveaways, and user-generated content (UGC).

💡Pro tip: Beyond just monitoring mentions, integrate social engagement into your loyalty program to make it more appealing: award points for follows, shares, and user-generated content.

6. Power Up your Referrals Program

Word-of-mouth remains the most trusted form of marketing. A strong referral program rewards both the referrer and the new customer, creating a win-win dynamic that naturally expands your customer base with pre-qualified leads.

💡Pro tip: Make sharing effortless by providing pre-written messages, personal referral codes, and clear incentives for both parties.

7. Create Exclusivity Through VIP Tiers

To build true brand advocates, focus on the community. The real insight here is that people don't just want to buy things, they want to belong. A tiered VIP program with clearly defined benefits (Silver, Gold, VIP) creates aspirational goals that motivate continued engagement while making top customers feel genuinely valued.

💡Psychology hack: Display progress bars showing how close customers are to reaching the next tier. This leverages the powerful "endowed progress effect" that keeps people moving toward completion.

Your Turn to Transform Customers into Advocates

Which of these strategies resonates most with your brand situation? Have you tried any of these approaches with different results? WE'd love to hear about your successes, challenges, or completely different tactics that have worked for you.

Do you agree with the above points? If not, tell us why down below. The best insights often come from friendly debate!

[Ellie-BOGOS]

Thank you, @BON_Loyalty, for many incredibly valuable insights 💙 The section on creating an authentic community stood out to me—it's so true that people want to feel they belong, not just buy products. You’ve definitely given me a lot to think about when it comes to building personalized experiences for customers.

[BON_Loyalty]

Thanks so much, Ellie! We're glad that part resonated with you. Authentic connection really does make all the difference 😃