Marketers, are you protecting your customers from the noise?

We’re reaching a point of saturation where the noise of the connected world can quickly and easily outweigh the value of listening. As social media use continues to increase alongside constant connectivity, the voices that matter most to us—the voices we’re loyal to and appreciate—end up being the only voices we can really hear.

The Saturation Point

When consumers hit the saturation point, they’re highly likely to take a step back from the marketing chaos and ask themselves “What matters most?” and “How can I escape the chaos?” They’re likely to limit their focus to the things and places they hold dear. This is exactly where brand loyalty matters more than ever.

The world certainly won’t get any quieter. To make sure they’re heard, a brand needs to make up for increasing noise with better, more focused (and less noisy) customer engagement that leads to greater levels of loyalty. The stakes are high. When a brand is in a trusted relationship with its customers, it knows its customers far better and offers a respite from the need to filter out the irrelevant. It offers peace from the dark aspects of constant connectivity. It offers safe haven from those who would unfairly shout and distract.

Brands and Noise Filters

When a brand engages loyal customers in a way that offers a noise filter, it creates appreciation from the customer. Appreciation leads to brand advocacy. Strong customer appreciation—strong enough to create advocacy—is a hallmark of the brands that enjoy much higher lifetime customer value and powerful networking benefits as their customers are more than willing to vouch for the brand and introduce others to its benefits.

A focus on customer loyalty is an excellent strategy for a real-time, noisy world.

This post first appeared on the Loyalty Lab blog and has been edited.