We live in a world of quick gratifications driven by urgent desires. Businesses strive to sate these urges through clever product and service promotions. At the same time, these very businesses also angle for customer loyalty, an increasingly difficult ask because customers today are increasingly fickle, demanding, and not to mention more well informed than they have ever been.

In trying to grasp at consumers slipping away, marketers are gripping too hard at them…in the form of a surfeit of marketing messages. Instead, companies would do well to assess their performance in terms of variables that influence customer stickiness. Sticky customers are repeat buyers and also enthusiastic recommenders to others. One of the single biggest influencers of stickiness is the ease with which a customer can make a purchase decision. This ease is facilitated by having trustworthy information at one’s disposal so that alternatives can be quickly compared. The information must be tailored to meet information requirements depending upon the stage at which a customer is during the buying process. And the information must be easy to assimilate, i.e. stripped of jargon. This is sticky marketing and can woo consumers towards your brand. eHESIVE can help your brand develop a comprehensive sticky marketing strategy.

By this single expedient of easing decision-making brands improve their chances of gaining customers, generating repeat sales, and getting free advertisement from these consumers. There are concrete steps that you need to take in order to simplify messaging to an audience. These steps do not necessarily have to occur one after the other. They can be executed simultaneously.

A consumer’s attention is an invaluable thing, and once a brand gets it, then it becomes imperative that the brand does not relinquish its hold on such attention. This requires that only the most relevant information be given in an easily digestible manner. The customer’s path down the buying funnel must be smooth without any bumps and too many distractions. But this is easier said than done, because it requires work from scratch and very often even after putting in the effort the consumer prefers to get trusted information from other sources that are outside a brand’s control.

When a consumer arrives on a brand’s website from a third-party website, he is at a particular stage in the buying process. The issue that marketers face relates to quick and accurate determination of the stage at which the consumer is and then supplying information that will help him move forward to the next stage. Research on how customers arriving from various sources, social media, organic search, forums, and PPC ads, behave and the path they take to making a purchase yields information on how many touchpoints to have on a website and the path of least resistance that a prospect is likely to follow before making a purchase.

Mobile searchers are, for example, likelier to make a purchase within hours of searching. Searchers on desktops may take up to a week. Search terms are great pointers to where a prospect is on the buying funnel. Generic terms suggest that the searcher is trying to make up his mind whereas searches on discounts on a given product and specific features indicate that the prospect has moved further down the channel.

Before consumers can begin to form feelings of trust for a brand, they need to be able to trust information placed in front of them. Such information should eschew marketing speak and efforts at brand building. The prospect wishes for information and not cool features that define your brand.

Do your brand a huge favor and build a roster of trusted advisors who will offer unbiased advice to people who wish to avail products and services similar to yours. If your product is good enough then it will feature high on the list of such recommendations. Highlight positive recommendations.

Brands that sell multiple products must work to simplify the decision making process. Do not complicate the choosing and selection process by putting all the products and attributes in front of the consumer. One way to do so is to ask three or four quick questions and throw up the most relevant choices based on results.

Easy navigation, trustworthy information, and a simplified decision-making process can help create empathy for your brand, leading to a loyal and sticky consumer.