Do you want to get your customers talking positively about your brand to their friends and recommending you to other people?
A great way to build your business’ reputation and your customers brand awareness is by creating brand advocates.
A brand advocate is a person or customer who talks favourably about your brand or product and passes on positive word-of-mouth messages about the brand to other people.
Brand advocates advertise your business to their friends and networks because they like your brand and believe in your products.
Proactively creating brand advocates is an effective way to reach a wider audience with your message build the brand awareness of your business and increase your sales through word-of-mouth marketing. These advocates are important to your business because they have the power to influence the purchase decisions of the people they are connected to.
How to create brand advocates
There is no set procedure on how to build a brand advocate because it’s mainly about creating valuable relationships with your customers and providing good customer service. Every business and every customer is different, which means you should take a tailored approach to building advocates. However, here are some general tips to help you get started.
Build the relationship
One of the key elements in building brand advocates for your business is to create long-term relationships with your customers. Relationships are important because they can turn a one-time customer into a loyal supporter who trusts the business. When customers feel like a valued part of the business they will be more willing to pass on information about you.
You can provide them with valuable or helpful information through a variety of communication channels. You can communicate with them via social media including liking their posts and responding to their comments. Since every customer is different you will need to tailor your approach to keep your customers continually engaged with your business.
Customer service
We’ve all heard stories about how a business went above and beyond to please its customers. This is because when a customer has a great experience with a business they are likely to tell other people about it. Great customer service is then an important part of building brand advocates and creating relationships with your customers.
You can start by making sure your customers are happy, impressed with your service or products and receive exactly what they expected and more. Great customer service involves responding to all questions and complaints in a polite and timely manner. Listening to your customers’ feedback and taking action to implement their ideas. It also involves resolving any issues they have with the business and delivering on your brand promises.
Reward them
Most brand advocates are not motivated by money. They are usually motivated by the desire to tell other people about the great experience they had with your business. They also want to share their knowledge with other people to help them make better purchase decisions.
This means most brand advocates are often just looking for recognition from your business that you appreciate the good work they are doing. However all brand advocates are different and want to be appreciated in different ways. To keep your brand advocates happy you need to make them feel special. This may involve providing them with discounts, giving them insider knowledge about the business first, providing them with a thankyou letter or recognising them as a ‘customer of the month’ on your social media channels.
Don’t force them
If you try and force your customers to talk about your business you will only anger or alienate them. Be careful when offering them discounts or prizes because this could be seen as a bribe. Customers may be offended you tried to bribe them and their comments may look less legitimate because they received a prize afterwards.
To create true brand advocates you need to think about how your business can provide value and benefits to your customers. This will keep your customers happy and help you to create better relationships with them, which over time may persuade them to become brand advocates.
Do you have brand advocates for your business?
Sydney Public Relations Agency, CP Communications provides specialist media, traditional and online PR strategies that get amazing results. Contact us today. For more great tips visit our website www.cpcommunications.com.au.
