Connecting with brand advocates and fans is the ‘hot’ marketing tactic today, and for good reason. While customers as a whole don’t trust brands, they do trust other customers. Especially passionate customers that love their favorite brands. While a marketing message from a brand will likely be ignored, a passionate recommendation from a fellow customer will be taken far more seriously.
This has a lot of companies researching how to create a successful brand ambassador program, and how to work with brand ambassadors. Let’s start with some definitions:
What is a Brand Ambassador? A brand ambassador is a person who works to promote and represent a brand in its marketplace. Brand ambassadors are often current customers who were already advocating for brands before they started working with them, but some brand ambassadors are chosen because they have a large following or are viewed as influencers. Brand ambassadors have a working relationship with the brands they represent, and are given instruction on how to interact with customers in the marketplace, based on the business goals for that brand.
What is a Brand Ambassador Program? A brand ambassador program is a business program that organizes brand ambassadors and creates an ongoing, working relationship between the brand and its ambassadors. A brand ambassador program is used to manage the ongoing, working relationship between the brand and its ambassadors, and provide ongoing training and instruction for its ambassadors, as well as support. Most brand ambassador programs work closely with other areas of the business, such as marketing, sales, customer service, and product design.
So if your company is considering launching a brand ambassador program to connect with your brand advocates and ambassadors, here’s 10 things to remember:
1 – Spread the word internally as well as externally. Getting internal buy-in is just as important, if not moreso, than getting customers excited about your efforts. If your brand advocacy program doesn’t have INTERNAL advocates pushing it along, its chances of success are going to be greatly reduced. Launching a brand ambassador program takes time and energy. Immediate ROI will be very hard to prove, it’s a long-term process. Which is why it pays to have a team of people that are pushing for patience.
2 – Research, research, research. You’ll have to invest a lot of time in discovering WHO your brand advocates are. You might think you know who they are, but there’s rarely a ‘one-size-fits-all’ view. You’ll also have to monitor ALL conversations with your customers. Not just online conversations, not just offline ones either. Look at both. Also, make special note of the customers that go the extra mile to connect with you, the ones that write you letters, even if they sound negative. Companies often confuse passion for the brand with negativity aimed at the brand.
3 – Start small, grow big. You don’t have to have a million members in your brand ambassador program. In fact, I’d rather have 10 truly passionate brand advocates than 10,000 members that are merely ‘meh’ toward the brand. If you start small and select those that are truly passionate about your brand and its vision, the growth will come organically as these passionate people will help you identify others just like them.
4 – Make membership exclusive. This ties into the previous point, but you don’t want ALL your customers to be members of your brand ambassador program. You want to give them hurdles to jump, obstacles to overcome. In other words, you want to weed out the customers that aren’t committed to the brand, or the program. The true advocates for your brand will already be doing much if not all of what you would require of them as members of the program. It also pays to cap membership, and to give the existing members a huge say in who the future members are.
5 – Connect with your advocates and create ways for them to connect with each other. Your advocates are special people, you don’t want them on an island, you want them connected. Create a central ‘homebase’ for the current members of your program, but also stay connected to other advocates that aren’t yet members. And make your existing ambassadors aware of these advocates, and have them ‘vet’ them for possible membership in your formal ambassador program.
6 – Pay your ambassadors. This is one of the biggest misconceptions about brand ambassadors. They DO want to be compensated but most do NOT want to be given money. Sure, we all love money, but for a true brand advocate they usually want other things. Like access, empowerment, and acknowledgement. A few years ago when I worked with Dell on its #DellCAP events, the customers weren’t paid to come (travel was covered), but they were given access. For example, they got to tour Dell’s Social Media Listening Center, then they got to spend 30 minutes talking to CEO Michael Dell. That’s pretty heady stuff for a Dell advocate. When they go back home, their friend might brag about having the latest and greatest Dell laptop, while they can respond with ‘Oh yeah, well Dell invited me to their world headquarters and I got to chat with Michael Dell himself!’ That’s a great example of rewarding your advocates.
7 – Give your advocates direct access to the brand. The members of your brand ambassador program should be given direct contact with multiple key executives within the brand. In fact, I would suggest making 1 or more of the ‘top’ members of your brand ambassador program part of the team that’s responsible for reporting on the progress of the program to the C-Suite. The idea here is to make sure that the voice of your brand’s biggest defenders and advocates is always heard at the company, from the top down.
8 – Create a feedback loop between the brand ambassadors, and the brand. I outlined the process for this loop in this post. You need to have a way to let your ambassadors have direct access to the brand, as mentioned above. But at the same time, the brand needs to respond to the brand ambassadors and give them feedback on their feedback. Additionally, the brand needs to take the feedback from its ambassadors and distribute that feedback internally and not just silo it among the employees that are working directly on the brand ambassador program.
9 – Give your ambassadors the tools to create something amazing. Again, you want to start small and grow organically. And you want that growth to be fueled by your existing advocates. You want to embrace and empower your existing advocates, thus the creation of the brand ambassador program. But you also want your existing ambassadors to have the tools to embrace and empower other advocates that aren’t yet members. And tying back to the earlier points about giving ambassadors direct access to the brand, when your existing ambassadors find other advocates, they can immediately bring them to the brand’s attention.
10 – Transfer ownership of the program from the brand, to its ambassadors. When you create a brand ambassador program, you need to realize that long-term, this will belong to your advocates. You’ll always be there, and you’ll always have a voice, but the idea is that you want your most passionate customers to eventually take over this program. Maybe you’ll start out with a ‘board’ over the program made up of 5 key brand executives, and 5 brand ambassadors. But over time, as your ambassadors become familiar with the program and its function and goals, you need to let them have control. Again, you don’t want the voice of your company to dominate this effort, you want the voice of your most passionate customers to have control, because those customers are going to be connecting with other customers.
But perhaps the most important thing to remember when creating a brand ambassador program is who you will be working with:
Every single day you’ll be working with customers that love you. Customers that love your brand as if it were their own, and who will work with you every day to see it grow and prosper. Let’s be honest, it’s pretty awesome to work every day with people that love you and believe in you. That’s exactly what happens when you create and launch a brand ambassador program.
BONUS: When you are ready to pitch your idea for a brand ambassador program to the C-Suite, make a plan that details exactly how the program will benefit the brand, and exactly how it will benefit the ambassadors who participate. Carefully and clearly spell out all the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that will be measured and tracked, as well as an explanation of why it is important to do so. Also, give a thorough timeline of the roll-out of the brand ambassador program, for at least the first 6 months of the program, 12 months is better. Assume that there will be a healthy amount of skepticism from upper management about the success of a brand ambassador program (since your brand has likely never launched one), so the eventual signoff by the CEO or CMO will greatly depend on how well you address these concerns head on.
So there’s some ideas to consider when you get ready to create and launch an official brand ambassador program. This won’t be easy, and it will take a lot of time, but if you are committed to connecting with your most passionate customers and willing to empower them, the results will make program a huge success. If you need help getting started, let’s explore how we can work together to create an ambassador program for your brand.
DOUBLE BONUS: Want to see a great example of an employee brand ambassador program?
@MackCollier You really have a gift for understanding advocates. I felt sooo jealous of the Dell advocates reading that. @Starbucks @coreydu
@MackCollier Please go work for Starbucks! // @starbucks @bradnelson @matthewguiste @coreydu
Mack, while these are all fabulous points, I’d like to add a 6.1 if I may. Once the role of product enthusiast turned brand ambassador evolves into that of a consultant, most ambassadors DO want to and usually deserve to be paid in money. So many of these programs begin as a unique way to offer unprecedented behind-the-scenes access or first looks at new product to the most influential and authentic enthusiasts, but somehow grow into a seedy relationship where the influencer is exploited for free consulting. Hopefully the same brands that are turning to you for your valued opinion will also heed that cautionary tale and make changes in their own programs.
Thanks for a great post!
@SbuxMel Melody that’s one of the best compliments I have ever gotten. Thank you 😉
@SbuxMel Maybe I could help @starbucks launch a brand ambassador program. If so, contacting u first! cc @bradnelson @matthewguiste @coreydu
Mack – This is such a great post. You really know how to step into the mind of an advocate. I felt jealous reading about the Dell advocates, wishing that that was me. I think that many brands don’t think there is a return on investment in spending a lot of money on a few fans. Most fans won’t turn into a Melody O. And why bother showing Melody O. a sneak peek at new products? I think the attitude is that people like me are valuable if you do nothing. I actually do not know if there is a formal brand advocate program at Starbucks. And I don’t know who would be in charge of it. But I would hope that they would establish something like that – with your help of course! @mackcollier @coreydu @bradnelson @starbucks
Hey @MackCollier, Great things to consider. Thanks for lending your expertise to the discussion.
@SbuxMel Melody you know this, but for most of us, passionate customers are far better salespeople for the brand, than the brand itself. We tend to respond to brands that speak in a voice that most like our own. What better way to make this happen than to empower your existing advocates to speak on your behalf? Thanks again for the inspiration!
@ResourcefulMom that is a fair point, but honestly if the brand is abusing the ambassador’s time to that degree, I don’t think they’ll stick around, and I don’t think the program will last. If a brand goes in with the mindset of getting ‘as much free advice as possible’, then I think their entire focus will be off-kilter, and the foundation of the program will doom it from the start.
You raise some very valid points, my main point was to stress that the underlying motivations that most advocates have is not in monetary gain from the brand. They are usually interested in other things. But to your point, if certain advocates are being asked and willing to contribute a great deal of time and energy above what others do, a financial relationship may make sense.
Mack, are you reading my mind? we’ve been talking internally about this over the past few weeks and are in the midst of building a list of initial “ambassadors”! Thanks for the notes here.
This is an incredibly valuable post, Mack – I hope it makes its way into the hands of thousands of brand marketers!
One thing I want to mention is that there is gold in one of your sentences in point #2 – “Companies often confuse passion for the brand with negativity aimed at the brand.” I’d hate to have that very important insight lost because the point is labeled “research.”
I literally just experienced what you’re describing this morning at my doctor’s office. Perhaps that’s not where you’d typically think about “brand advocates” but I love this doctor and have a great relationship with her. Her team wasn’t at all organized today, though, and I ended up wasting a lot of my time, which has never happened before. I was very honest with her about my dissatisfaction – because I care about the practice and *expect more.*
She went out of her way to make sure she understood all the details and to apologize, and my loyalty to the practice is as strong as ever, if not more so. If she and her staff had “written me off” because I was upset, they would have lost a valuable client.
Negative feedback is often a gift from those who care about you…
Congrats on an excellent post!
@LisaPetrilli GREAT point and clarification, Lisa! I love how you clarified that you wanted to see your doctor do better, and that’s why you said something. Many companies miss this important distinction.
Hope your doctor gives you the attention you deserve 😉
Excellent. All great points.
I have to admit, I was surprised to see research on your list. I’m glad it’s there. It belongs in these types of conversations and so often gets left out.
On a different note, I think a lot of companies are tempted to focus on big spenders or high margin customers when they build panels like this. There’s obviously a place for that, but you are on target when you put passion (positive or negative) first.
Good stuff, Mack.
I think number 6 is really important.. Far too many people want to solely pay ambassadors on a commission basis or in free product. They get what they pay for… not much.
Exactly. And when you only pay ambassadors in free product or on commission, it helps to frame their behavior and how they interact with other potential customers. It encourages them to only interact with other people as a potential sales transaction. You hurt the ability of your ambassadors to actually INTERACT with potential customers, to talk to them, to listen to their feedback, which means you also can’t relay feedback back to the brand.