But where do those sales come from? Customers, right?

Now, are all customers created equal? Of course not. Most customers will remain indifferent to your brand. They will buy from you on occasion—when it’s most convenient—and shop elsewhere when it’s not.

Amazingly, most businesses cater to these nomadic customers. Most executives think mass appeal and believe an untargeted marketing plan that casts the widest net will generate the most sales.

In the short run, they might be right. The fickle, nomadic customer might jump at a great promotion. But they will jump at your competitor’s great promotion just as quickly.

If you try to build your business around these fickle customers, the only way you can show increased profits on your balance sheet is to increase your growth curve. For retailers, this means continually opening more stores. Ultimately, this is not a sustainable model and profits erode over time as your market gets saturated.

The key to growing a profitable business is to build it around the needs and wants of your best customers. We call this special breed of customers Brand Lovers. Focus on serving your Brand Lovers and you’ll naturally attract more of them.

All great businesses—big and small—have Brand Lovers. All great brands learn to cater to and serve their Brand Lovers better than anyone else.

If your Brand Lovers represent your most profitable customers, why would you try to serve anyone else?

Focus on your Brand Lovers as the core of your business. Talk to them. Listen to them. Learn from them. Try to understand them. Co-create your business around their needs. The rewards for doing so will translate to the bottom line. Guaranteed.

Related posts:

1. The Danger of No Brand Land
2. Ten Reasons to Focus on Your Best Customers
3. The Ultimate Business Lens

Here are ten reasons why your Brand Lovers are so important:

1. Your Brand Lovers choose you more often than your competitors. To most Mac users, there’s no alternative competitor to choose from.

2. Your Brand Lovers spread the word about your brand and create new customers for you. Basically, your best customers are the source of your word-of-mouth stream.

3. Your Brand Lovers are by nature loyal customers. Customer loyalty is a better determinant of profitability than mass appeal. (Again, just ask Apple.)

4. Focusing on your Brand Lovers and cultivating customer loyalty can help you double your return on assets (ROA).

5. Similarly, serving your best customers can lead to explosive return on investment (ROI). Example: When Apple opened their retail stores they expected to generate $1,000/square foot. They actually generated $4,000/square foot.

Ultimately, your Brand Lovers drive the profitability of your business.

6. In The Loyalty Effect, Frederick Reichheld explains how a 5% increase in customer loyalty can increase a company’s profitability by 40 to 95%.

7. Think about what would happen if you turned just 10% of your occasional customers into Brand Lovers. For large enterprises, this shift represents billions in additional revenue and radically higher profit margins.

Need more reasons?

8. By focusing on your Brand Lovers, your cost of acquiring a new customer decreases.

9. Your marketing effectiveness soars as a result of building a stronger brand presence focused around the needs of your best customers.

10. By focusing on your Brand Lovers you can build a powerful brand that stands for something meaningful to your special customers. This gives you clear differentiation and helps you organically attract more of your most profitable customers.

The bottom line is that serving your best customers is the surest way to grow a profitable business—in any economic climate.

Related posts:

1. Focus on Your Customers
2. The Key to Building a Profitable Business
3. The Willingness to Genuinely Serve Your Customers

Most breeds of publishers—book, music and film—have little brand equity with their customers. Why? These companies don’t stand for anything; they haven’t made any clear declaration or pledge to their customers.

Without a clear brand promise that’s meaningful to us, why would we care about them?

Marketers are hesitant to clearly define what their brand represents.  They don’t want to risk alienating potential customers who don’t like their brand.

But with clear differentiation you also attract a special breed of customers who love you.

All customers are NOT created equal. Your Brand Lovers generate more positive word of mouth and stay loyal to you. They are your most profitable customers. Why would you want to cater to less profitable customers?

Businesses that stand for something generally have a balance sheet to prove it. We know what to expect from a Disney film, for example—family fun with a dose of magic and limited violence.

Most publishers, however, are in a precarious position, lingering in No Brand Land.

What happens when the Long Tail fully catches up with publishers and product distribution becomes ubiquitous? Why would an author—any author—publish with a major house when they can just as easily self-publish through Amazon and other digital channels without losing distribution advantages and keeping the lion share of book sales?

The lesson is clear: Make sure your brand stands for something meaningful to your customers and serve them better than anyone else.

Related posts:

1. Brand Lovers Form Brand Communities
2. Ten Reasons to Focus on Your Best Customers
3. Four Signs That Your Brand Has High Integrity

Not surprisingly, your Brand Lovers enjoy hanging out with one another, as do most like-minded individuals united by a common passion.

These social groups are called brand communities. When a brand community develops, you can be sure the brand is doing an excellent job serving its best customers.

Businesses with brand communities have a competitive advantage and enjoy an unprecedented level of word of mouth around their products and services.

Companies like Life is Good, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Zappos, Turner Classic Movies, LL Bean, Amazon.com, Harley-Davidson, Apple, and Oprah’s Harpo all profit from the power of brand communities.

But why do customers join brand communities and how can you support their growth?

Here’s the latest from the creative minds of Cult Branding:

If you enjoyed this slideshow, check out Why We Join: A Sociological and Psychological Analysis of Brand Communities, a new white paper The Cult Branding Company published today.

Related posts:

1. Ten Reasons to Focus on Your Best Customers
2. The Willingness to Genuinely Serve Your Customers
3. The Power of Intention in Brand Building

At our company (Cult Branding), we believe we have developed the ultimate business lens to help businesses make effective decisions that lead to long-term profitability.

Peter Drucker reminded us that “the purpose of business is to create a customer.” Thank you, Mr. Drucker. Very true.

But you also know that all customers are not created equal. Some customers are more loyal, and therefore, more profitable. If you serve your loyal customers better than anyone else, they’ll provide your business with a fortified foundation as well as help you create new customers through word of mouth.

Do you realize how important the lens of your best customers—your Brand Lovers—can be? Do you know who your Brand Lovers are?

Here’s our latest deck to help illustrate the importance of your best customers:

Related posts:

1. The Key to Building a Profitable Business
2. The Purpose of Business
3. What’s Your Decision-Making Lens?