The best customers are the ones who keep coming back.
They purchase a product they love, enjoy an incredible meal at a restaurant, or have a consistently positive experience with a service, and they return for more. They could bring their family, post about the experience on social media, or recommend your business to a friend.
These repeat customers are your most valuable asset, capable of propelling your business to new heights.
According to Gartner’s research, 73% of Chief Strategy Officers prioritize growth from existing customers who spend 67% more than new customers. With new customer acquisition costs soaring by 40% since 2023, companies must shift their focus and budget toward retention and maximizing the lifetime value of their current customers.
The recipe for success is simple: customers crave compelling experiences.
The roadmap is more difficult.
Every brand can compete on price and product availability. The true differentiator is when a customer feels a genuine emotional connection to a brand or company. Indeed, emotion is the new ROI. Curating consumer experiences that evoke joy, surprise, and anticipation can drive deep loyalty, turning one-off shoppers into repeat customers and brand advocates.
Here are five ways to cultivate emotional ROI in your business.
#1 Create Curated Encounters
Most customer rewards are transactional.
Nearly every business uses the same playbook: a loyalty program, an email list, and a rewards app. They offer a generic experience focused solely on points and discounts, failing to excite or engage shoppers with impactful, memorable moments.
To drive real engagement, you must be intentional about creating a connection.
Look for opportunities to deliver unique, authentic, or culturally relevant consumer experiences. Create an aspirational experience or opportunity that the customer couldn’t easily achieve on their own, allowing your brand to fulfill a deep-seated desire and secure an emotional connection long after the transaction is complete.
#2 Leverage Storytelling to Amplify Brand Reach
Often, the difference between a transactional reward (like a discount) and an unforgettable experience is the story.
A compelling narrative gives every purchase meaning and helps customers see themselves in your brand story. As Forbes helpfully explains, “The brands that find authentic ways to share their story are the ones that successfully convey their value, purpose, and what makes them unique in a way that resonates with people.”
Storytelling also amplifies reach by sparking organic sharing. A discount ends at checkout, but a story lives on in conversations, social posts, and cultural memory.
If you offer a customer a discount, it is a private transaction; they are unlikely to talk about it or share it with anyone. However, if that customer wins a unique experience or attends an exclusive event, they become a narrator. They tell their friends and social followers.
#3 Make Your Customers Winners
People love to win!
It produces a rush of dopamine, the feel-good chemical that’s released when, among other things, we achieve success.
Whether it is a digital sweepstakes or a live activation, the excitement of potentially winning something creates an unscripted, enthusiastic connection to the brand.
Even during a brand-sponsored trip or event, adding a layer of chance, such as a game show component or a prize drawing, maintains customer engagement and helps cultivate emotional experiences that strengthen loyalty and drive word-of-mouth promotion.
For example, a Fortune 500 company might host a sales contest in which top sales executives join a chef-led culinary journey through Europe, or a national clothing retailer might run monthly sweepstakes in which purchases earn entries for a shopping spree abroad.
#4 Remove Friction to Allow Total Immersion
Your customers have lives full of challenges, struggles, and piled-up responsibilities that you likely know nothing about. A truly impactful brand experience acts as an escape valve, taking people out of their day-to-day grind.
For this to work, the experience must be hassle-free and require minimal effort or planning on the customer’s part.
Put differently, customers expect brands to handle logistics, planning, and complexity. Anything less undermines the experience and short-circuits emotional connection.
#5 Lean Into the Unknown
Predictability and reliability are positive brand strengths. However, when many customer touchpoints are homogenized, surprise and spontaneity can be powerful tools for breaking through monotony and forging deeper emotional connections.
The goal is to open doors to experiences your customers didn’t even know they wanted. Consumers have different motivators, and sometimes they don’t know what will excite them until they see it.
When you introduce a customer to a destination or activity that was never on their bucket list, the impact is amplified.
Focus on the Feeling
How your customers feel when they encounter your brand is the most important success metric. Emotions are the catalyst that keeps people coming back for more, breaking through the noise of competing offers and building lasting, authentic loyalty.
As business leaders, we have the opportunity to offer new experiences for the people who sell and buy our products. Shifting our focus from the transactional to the transformational helps secure a sale today, but more importantly, it cultivates engaged, committed customers who become passionate advocates for your brand.
Are you ready to move beyond the transactional and start curating moments that matter? Explore how to elevate your brand loyalty strategy through the power of experience and bring the extra to extraordinary for your business with Atlas Experiences.
Derek Gwaltney is the founder and CEO of Atlas Experiences, an INC. 5000 company recognized as one of the fastest-growing businesses in America. In just six years, Derek transformed his solo entrepreneurial vision—born just eight months before a global pandemic—into a trailblazing experiential marketing powerhouse that delivers once-in-a-lifetime prize experiences, large-scale promotions, and game-show activations for many of the most recognizable brands and state lotteries in North America.
Now, Atlas Experiences is ranked on the Inc. 5000 list at #33 nationally and #1 in Georgia, as the fastest-growing Atlanta-based company on the list.
