Guest Post: Creating Brand Advocates Without a Special Formula
NOTE: The following is a guest post by Amy Swanson. If you want to submit your own guest post, click here for more information.
Creating Brand Advocates Without a Special Formula
As someone who (at times) falls into the narcissistic Facebook user category, I regularly believe that my friends care about the brand of laundry detergent I use and the kind of coffee brand I love. I can’t help it; when I find a new product that I really love, I tell others about it. I blame part of this on my marketing degree—since I know that every brand impression helps grow a company—and on the fact that I do genuinely want to help others.
Highly-engaged consumers help your brand become adopted and advocated by others, and they will ultimately create more recognition for your brand and product. How you get them on your brand’s side, though, is the question.
What’s the Secret?
Adoption of your product can be tricky, but don’t make it any more complicated than what it is. People will only want to adopt your products if they exceed expectations, so you should aim to please. Your goal is to get to the point where consumers can’t even imagine not using your product every day!
To get there, remember the following:
- You need to properly identify the needs of your target market. What Consumer A wants may not be as important to Consumer B.
- Internal motivations (personal needs, aspirations, and ideal self) as well as external motivations (need for acceptance among peers) are major factors in whether or not a product is used. Be sure to address both motivators accordingly for the highest level of success.
- When your mom said “life won’t always be like high school,” she wasn’t being completely truthful. Popular and trusted endorsements can greatly influence adoption, since all that really matters to consumers is what the ‘cool kids’ think. Figuring out who exactly those cool kids are is different for each market, though.
- When a product improves the user’s life at every stage of interaction, emotional bonds are built and loyalty and a strong brand relationship are strengthened. Once those bonds are established, your brand will be easily adopted into your customers’ everyday routines.
Advocate, Don’t Annoy
When you hear the word ‘advocate,’ there’s probably an outdated image of a protester from 1960 burned into your mind. Brand advocates don’t quite fit that stereotype, however; an advocate of your company wants to share the discovery of a product or brand that improved their life and can help others do the same.
Just like the product adoption process, you need to completely shatter their expectations (not just meet or slightly surpass them) in order to gain an advocate. If it’s necessary, you’ll want to update your image before taking on such a task. To increase your brand advocates, understand that consumers want to feel understood, appreciated, and rewarded for their passion of sharing your brand with others.
Have you ever experienced that feeling of knowing something that nobody else around you seems to understand? That’s exactly what consumers love feeling, too! If you’re ready to get some advocates on your side, here are some tips to remember:
- Make them feel knowledgeable about your product by providing as much information as you can about it on your website. Give them all the facts and stats so that all potential questions can be accurately answered.
- Keep up on your Twitter account and Facebook account. Engage with your followers and fans on a regular—not on an excessive—basis. Try not to exceed two posts a day on your Facebook account, but more frequent posts on your Twitter will keep people checking back to see what you’ve posted.
- Make fans feel heroic for passing on your brand’s attributes and benefits to their friends and family. Sincerely thank them if they post on your Facebook wall or if they send a Tweet telling you they’ve introduced new people to your brand. Also, offering them a coupon or a discount can go further than you think!
Ask, Don’t Just Assume
Whether you consider yourself a narcissistic Facebook user or not, chances are you’re at least friends with a few of them. Embrace those advocates and find out why they’re adopting your product and how you can further that interaction by having them share with their friends. You may even find that they love your product for some other use you had never considered before, or you could even market to another group you didn’t initially think to target. You’ll find that the formula for success isn’t so secret, just maybe one you hadn’t thought of before!
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Amy Swanson is a part of the marketing department at Quality Logo Products and regularly contributes to their promotional products blog. She is a self-professed newspaper and business nerd.
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This is a great post with a lot of really good information in it. Another tip about brand advocates: once you have them, don’t forget to keep them in the loop about any new products you may be coming out with, or with any special news about the product they’re advocating.
Also, the coupon or discount that Amy mentioned can definitely go a very long way!
“Make fans feel heroic for passing on your brand’s attributes and benefits to their friends and family.”
Listing the attributes and benefits of a product or service is easy enough, but making the consumer feel proactive enough to pass on the information is a fine art. Pulling it off requires that the information itself be highly relevant without being overwhelming and highly engaging without losing focus. It all comes down to having a stellar content strategy and, like you mentioned, being able to engage and interact with customers and clients on social channels.
You’re so right: boosting brand advocacy means figuring out exactly what draws your customer base to your product to begin with. And to do that, you’ll need a direct and continuous line of communication with them — which is where social media comes in.
Excellent tips, Amy!
Great post Amy!
I think creating a brand is one of the most difficult and time consuming things that a marketer has to deal with. You are essentially creating a completely custom persona, but once you’ve done the leg work, it is the customers and no longer the company that controls this brand “image”. It’s so… weird!
A powerful brand can mean GREAT things for a company though.
In regards to advocates, I think a GREAT way to award these individuals is early access to new product releases, exclusive product pricing, and depending on your line of business, maybe a factory tour. For ex. I know for a few dollars more you can chose FACTORY delivery on new BMW X5s and X3s because they are built here in the US. You can actually fly out to the factory and watch your car roll off the assembly line. For the car aficionados out there – I bet this is super cool and creates even greater brand loyalty as a result!
Great post, Amy! I especially like that you’ve mentioned “shattering expectations.” There’s nothing better than brands that go 100% above and beyond for their customers. That kind of effort creates a passionate brand advocate — and yes, I speak from experience!
You’re right, there’s no real secret formula to this stuff. Sometimes you just have to love what you do and treat customers the way you’d want to be treated.
Excellent post here, Amy!
There’s a bunch of great information here that can be adapted to any business. You don’t even have to have the star power of Kohl’s or Dunkin Donuts to help foster new brand advocates. If your brand allows for it, giving brand advocates a little bit of an “insider” feel can also go a long way. Just look at buzz for The Dark Knight Returns! They put out tiny, little hints that brand advocates pick up on, and those advocates produce so much publicity – at barely any cost to you.
Guest Post: Creating Brand Advocates Without a Special Formula http://t.co/KzOmwtrs My first ever guest post
Guest Post: Creating Brand Advocates Without a Special Formula http://t.co/hX9mW2v5 #PMBlog
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