Eighty percent of U.S. marketing professionals are working with brand ambassadors or advocates. By doing so, brands give a voice to their biggest promoters through fresh and authentic content.
Done well, advocacy marketing can drive traffic to your website or store, boost brand awareness, and gather feedback for user-generated content.
Here are some tips and best practices to get the most out of your efforts.
Develop an advocate marketing program
Before choosing which brand loyalists will be hyping your products, you’ll need to create an advocate marketing program. Some things to consider include:
- The goals of the program
- Terms of payment (Discounts, free products, gift cards, etc.)
- Frequency of campaigns
- Criteria for selection of advocates
- Criteria for advocates to remain in the program
- Long-term opportunities for high-performing advocates
Find your biggest fans
There are several ways to determine potential advocates. Turn to your brand followers on the social channels and customers on your email lists. Check your customer database to search for brand loyalists, including those who spend the most money, purchase the most frequently, or even those who are subscribed to e-newsletters and use your brand’s credit card.
Collaborate with sales and customer service
Long before you can enroll your first advocate, you’ll need to ensure that both sales and customer service are well-informed on the new advocacy marketing program. This will help prevent gaps in knowledge and help ensure that the program runs smoothly.
Identify opportunities to collect feedback
Polls and customer satisfaction surveys can provide an ongoing means of gathering customer insights and identifying brand advocates. Your brand may also want to consider online forums where customers can make suggestions, ask questions, and share their opinions on existing and future products. A brand advocate hub is an ideal place for this.
Respond to all comments and questions
Considered a best practice for all types of social marketing, ensure that someone from your brand can respond to comments and questions through any advocacy campaigns. Prompt, thorough, and unique responses are of the utmost importance to help drive sales, boost engagement and demonstrate transparency.
Gather user-generated content
Your advocates’ posts can generate buzz and engagement. Repurpose user-generated content often. You’ll need to get consent and give credit, but reviews and testimonials can be incredibly effective in persuading others to purchase.
Gather UGC to use on your brand’s website, e-commerce store, and social media channels, but don’t overlook other marketing collateral, such as e-newsletters, brochures, and even printed signage.
Track and analyze your advocates’ efforts
Not every marketing effort will pay off immediately (or at all), but that doesn’t make it worthless. By tracking and analyzing your advocates’ efforts, you’ll not only learn what’s working, but also where there’s room for improvement.
There are countless tools to help you measure your advocacy marketing program, and each can shed light on a different but essential indicator. From tracking exposure and engagement to landing page visits and conversions, the right tools will inform a variety of decisions, such as:
- Which advocates are performing best for our brand?
- Which messaging is resonating with customers?
- Which product lines need to be expanded? (e.g., new colors, additional sizes, new features)
- What pricing is succeeding?
- Which campaigns are generating the most UGC?
- Which campaigns garnered the most shares?
If you’re overwhelmed by the time commitment required to develop, launch, and maintain an advocate marketing program, invest in an advocacy platform. These all-in-one platforms are designed to boost brand affinity, generate influential social content from actual customers, drive reviews, generate referral leads, and gather feedback. With full functionality at your fingertips, your brand can incentivize advocates with built-in rewards to drive measurable sales results and track and optimize campaign results in real time.
Not sure where to start? Check out Zuberance’s custom-branded advocate platform. Beyond the benefits of software that seamlessly integrates with your business’s technological infrastructure, your team will be supported by seasoned professionals who can guide your advocate marketing efforts as little or as much as you need.
Want to check it out?
Book a Demo
Businesses leverage Zuberance to fuel their advocacy programs, integrating them into their overall marketing programs. The outcome? Lowered marketing expenses, enhanced customer engagement, improved retention rates, and most importantly, positive ROI.
