Maybe we should stop focusing on measuring “engagement” or “retention” and just bundle it all under “love.” The purpose? That’s how consumers measure your brand—by how much they love it. Nobody thinks, “Man, this vacuum cleaner is really engaging me.”

The CEO of “freemium” service Evernote said, do things that people will love. And then wait. Love takes time to grow.

So. Are you doing things for your brand that people can fall in love with?

Are we as an agency doing things that will make our clients fall in love?

If they do, they’ll never leave (ideally, anyway).

Characteristics of the love-based model:

-Deep personalization. Make your product/service a part of people’s lives.

-Connectedness. Like Facebook, if we’re all using it together, it’s harder to give up.

-Prestige. Build a product that gives users status/bragging rights. i.e. foursquare

-Mastery. As you use the product, you get better at it and therefore it becomes worth more to you.

If you can get any of these characteristics into your product, people will fall in love.