When does customer loyalty actually begin? While some say it starts after repeat purchases or loyalty program enrollment, we’d like to propose a different perspective: the seeds of loyalty are planted when a customer first comes across your brand.
But what if there was a way to identify and nurture customers primed for long-term engagement right from the start? This is where brand advocacy comes into play.
At its core, brand advocacy is about turning your most satisfied customers into passionate ambassadors for your business. These supporters introduce new high-quality customers to your brand while remaining loyal.
So, how can you make the best out of this powerful marketing strategy? The key lies in identifying your best existing customers and feeding their enthusiasm through a well-designed brand advocacy program. Nurture these relationships correctly, and you’ll create a ripple effect of positive word-of-mouth and authentic recommendations.
Read on as we discuss brand advocacy in more depth and share 7 best practices for a successful brand advocacy program.
What is Brand Advocacy?
Brand advocacy is when customers, employees, or partners promote and support a brand, often by sharing positive experiences and recommendations.
These loyal spokespersons help increase brand awareness and trust through word-of-mouth, social media, or reviews. It results in higher organic growth without direct incentives.
It's a powerful form of marketing because it uses genuine enthusiasm and loyalty to influence others' perceptions. In fact, 92% of consumers trust word-of-mouth recommendations more than branded content, making brand advocacy an extremely trust-rich form of advertising.
Benefits of brand advocacy
A brand advocacy program uses your existing customer base as a medium and uses it to expand into areas saturated with potential buyers. Here are the benefits you’ll see with an advocacy program:
- Increased trust in your brand: Recommendations from real customers or employees are seen as 76% more authentic and trustworthy than traditional advertising. This helps in building stronger connections with potential customers
- Cost-effective marketing: Since advocates promote the brand voluntarily, it reduces the need for paid advertising and other marketing efforts. A report found that earned media like peer-to-peer referrals drive brand lift by 4 times.
- Expanded reach: Advocates amplify brand messaging through their networks and reach new audiences that would not be accessible through conventional marketing channels
- Stronger customer loyalty: Engaging with brand advocates cultivates a better relationship with existing customers. This also drives repeat business and long-term loyalty
Brand Advocacy Best Practices
1. Supply exclusive content to your advocates
Advocates do their best job when they feel valued and connected to your brand. Well, how to make them feel special? For starters, share behind-the-scenes insights, early product releases, or exclusive content. This keeps them engaged one way or another.
Be it customer brand advocacy or employee brand advocacy, giving advocates unique experiences strengthens their loyalty and motivates them to share these perks with their networks. And you know what, a strong brand advocacy platform like Highperformr streamlines this process significantly.
Highperformr can write and schedule content for you to publish across multiple channels. It can create consistent, brand-aware content from scratch and handle everything, from optimization to publishing.
2. Make your referral process smoother
Your supporters would love to share your brand, but if the referral process is clunky or unclear, they will lose interest faster than Swifties selling out Eras Tour tickets. Make it easy for them to recommend your products or services by providing simple, trackable referral tools.
Use a good brand advocacy platform to integrate these tools and allow advocates to refer others with minimal effort. When you optimize your referral process, you’ll encourage more participation and build brand advocacy naturally. Trust us, it makes a difference!
3. Recognize real, natural advocacy and reward accordingly
According to G2, brand advocates are 70% more likely to be a reliable source of information. While financial incentives can work to sway them, authentic recognition goes a long way in sustaining customer and employee brand advocacy. Shoutouts on social media, featured stories on your website, or even personal thank-you messages will show your supporters that you their support means a lot to you.
This personal touch goes a long way to nurture long-term relationships and strengthen their commitment to advocating for your brand. It is how ‘brand value’ is created, like the case with people swearing by iPhones while hundreds of competitors exist.
4. Grow a community around your brand
One of the most effective ways to build brand advocacy is by creating a community where users who love your product and services connect, share experiences, and just hang out. Be it an online forum (like a dedicated subreddit), a private social media group, or a branded event, communities birth a sense of belonging.
For customer brand advocacy, this gives your users a platform to share tips, discuss products, and even troubleshoot. For employee brand advocacy, it inspires collaboration and pride in representing the brand.
5. Offer structured advocacy training for employees
Employee brand advocacy is no doubt a powerful tool, but it needs structure. To lend this structure, you need to offer training and guidelines on how your employees should represent your brand on social channels, in conversations, and in their daily work.
Your job is to equip them with the right messaging, resources, and content so they are able to confidently champion your brand. With a tightly knit brand advocacy program in your organization, you can also track how much your employees are making an impact, which makes it easier to provide feedback, measure success, and fine-tune your program for maximum impact.
6. Add a personalized twist to your advocacy experiences
Not all flagbearers for your brand are motivated by the same things. Some like public recognition, while others prefer exclusive perks or access to new products early. To build a strategy that suits both camps, mould the experience based on each advocate’s preferences and behaviors.
Use the data and insights gathered from your brand advocacy platform of choice to segment your advocates and tailor rewards, communication, and engagement accordingly. This personal touch increases loyalty and ensures advocates feel individually valued.
7. Use data to measure and improve your advocacy efforts
Successful brand advocacy isn’t a one-time effort; it needs continuous tweaks and adjustments. Use data to track how well your customer and employee brand advocacy programs perform.
Measure engagement, referral rates, and even the quality of the interactions that advocates are having with your brand. Granular analytics will allow you to refine your approach, optimize rewards, and identify areas for improvement. Data-driven adjustments ensure your advocacy program stays relevant and continues to drive growth over the long term.
Turn Your Brand into a Fan-tastic Affair
At the end of the day, your brand advocacy efforts rely on the genuine and meaningful connections you grow with your customers and employees. Implement the best practices outlined above, and you too can transform your loyal supporters into powerful brand ambassadors.
To maximize your brand advocacy outcomes, you need an equally capable platform to handle it all. Highperfomr is the perfect platform for this.
Highperformr simplifies content creation and distribution across multiple channels and ensures consistent branding and result-driven advocacy. Its AI-powered optimization tools establish thought leadership and organically grow your brand's presence.
