Love the LOFT

Pretty much anybody who works with me knows that I love the LOFT--about 85% of my work clothes come from the store. So naturally I became a fan (now liker, I guess?) of their Facebook page. If you're looking for a fantastic example of a company using Facebook to build brand loyalty and keep in close communication with their customers, make sure you check them out. Even Mashable agrees!

The Mashable post details LOFT's responsiveness after customers complained that a certain pair of pants would only look good on a model. So LOFT posted pics of 5 employees of varying heights/weights wearing the pants. They still didn't convince everybody to buy the pants, but they did earn major brownie points for listening!

And as a marketer, I love the fact that, unlike many other stores, they don't focus too much on coupons and discounting to attract people to their Facebook page. Exclusive fashion tips, heads-ups on new arrivals, and quick answers to customer questions and complaints are so much more powerful than coupons when it comes to building long-term loyalty. Now if they could just try that with their other marketing channels. I get so many coupons by email and postal mail that I couldn't possibly use them all...