Building brand advocates can have an incredible impact on the growth of your business but it’s often overlooked in the customer journey process. A brand advocate is a loyal customer who actively promotes and supports your brand, product, or service to their personal network through positive word-of-mouth, online reviews, social media posts, and other forms of endorsement. Brand advocates are highly valuable as they provide authentic, unpaid promotion and can significantly influence the purchasing decisions of others.
Brand advocates are usually customers that have interacted with your brand and think highly of your offering and brand experience. They are built during the entire customer service journey but it’s usually the final step, that happens after the sale or service has been completed, that brands fail to completely convert their customers to becoming brand advocates.
Steps for Building Brand Advocates
1. Deliver Exceptional Customer Service
Every interaction a customer has with your brand should be positive and exceed their expectations. Respond promptly to enquiries, resolve issues effectively, and create a seamless and enjoyable experience.
2. Build Emotional Connections
Create marketing campaigns that resonate emotionally with your audience. Use storytelling to share your brand’s vision, values, and the impact your products or services have on real people’s lives.
3. Offer High-Quality Products/Services
Consistently provide products or services that meet or exceed customer expectations. The quality of a product or service is a fundamental factor that drives customer satisfaction and loyalty.
4. Engage on Social Media
Actively interact with your customers on social media platforms. Like, comment on, and share their posts, and encourage them to share their experiences with your brand. Look at social media as a relationship-building platform not an advertising platform.
5. Create Loyalty Programs
Develop loyalty programs that reward repeat customers with points, discounts, exclusive offers, or early access to new products. Make customers feel valued and appreciated for their loyalty.
6. Request and Act on Feedback
Regularly ask for customer feedback and show that you value their opinions by making improvements based on their suggestions. This makes customers feel heard and valued.
7. Personalise their Experiences
Use data to personalise marketing messages, offers, and product recommendations. Tailored experiences make customers feel special and understood.
8. Encourage User-Generated Content
Content created by customers is a brilliant way of increasing the organic reach of your brand on social media platforms. Encourage customers to create content related to your brand, such as reviews, photos, and videos. Feature this content on your website and social media channels to show appreciation and inspire others.
Harness the influence of brand advocates
Building brand advocates is not only beneficial but essential for sustained business growth. Loyal customers, who voluntarily promote your brand through their networks, wield significant influence over potential customers of your business. However, converting customers into brand advocates requires a strategic approach that extends beyond the transactional phase of your customer journey.
The fundamental elements for developing brand advocates includes consistently delivering exceptional service, fostering emotional connections, ensuring product excellence, engaging authentically on social media, implementing effective loyalty programs, actively seeking and acting on feedback, personalising experiences, and encouraging user-generated content. Sounds like a lot, but if you can cultivate a community of brand advocates, not only will they amplify your brand’s visibility and credibility but they’ll also serve as trusted voices that can drive meaningful engagement and foster long-term success.
Embracing and nurturing brand advocacy should be a cornerstone of any comprehensive customer experience strategy, which in turn, will yield invaluable returns on your investment and ensure sustainable business growth in a competitive market landscape.