Did you know that a whopping 75% of B2B buyers check at least three advocacy sources before making a purchase? As this research from Gartner reveals, endorsements play an important role in customer decision-making. A brand’s impact is largely shaped by its supporters — not just customers, but employees, partners, and avid fans.
What turns these individuals into powerful ambassadors for your brand? The key lies in forging strong, genuine relationships and engaging your audience through an effective brand advocacy program.
In this guide, we explore brand advocacy and how to maximize it across various groups, as well why a comprehensive brand advocacy program is vital for your brand’s success.
What is Brand Advocacy?
Brand advocacy is the organic promotion and endorsement of a brand by its supporters. Advocacy encompasses more than just customer testimonials or reviews — it includes every instance where someone speaks positively about the brand, be it an employee sharing their pride in their work or a partner expressing support for the brand’s values.
In a survey of social media users, 76% of respondents said they trust content shared by individuals more than content shared by brands. A statistic like this shows how important and influential genuine brand support is. Simply put, getting people to recommend your brand is one of the best ways to grow your business.
The Pillars of Brand Advocacy
Advocacy is built on the foundation of several essential pillars: trust, communication, and values. A brand’s advocacy goes two ways, and focusing on these principles can help brands build a loyal community of advocates who support and believe in their vision.
Trust
The foundation of brand advocacy is trust, which goes far beyond transactional loyalty. Brands can nurture trust through consistent, honest, and ethical interactions with everyone connected to the brand. This faith extends further than products or services — it’s a deep-seated belief in the brand’s mission and values.
Communication
Open and effective communication is crucial in fostering brand advocates. An engaging communication strategy involves consistently sharing relevant and helpful information. It also means actively listening to feedback, recognizing contributions, and maintaining clear, consistent messaging across all platforms.
Values
Shared values drive advocacy for a brand. Customers, employees, and partners who genuinely believe in what a brand stands for become a powerful force. Shared values create an emotional connection that turns supporters into passionate advocates.
Integrating Brand Advocacy into Marketing Strategy
Incorporating brand advocacy in marketing can significantly boost its effectiveness. There are several ways to make advocacy part of your marketing plan:
- Content marketing: Share compelling and relatable stories from brand advocates. These authentic experiences add depth and credibility to your content, making it more engaging and trustworthy.
- Social media strategy: Advocates can play a vital role in amplifying your brand’s message on social media. Their organic shares and endorsements extend your reach and lend a personal touch to your online presence.
- Public relations: Brand advocates are invaluable in PR efforts, providing authenticity and credibility that traditional advertising can’t match. Their genuine endorsements and positive word-of-mouth can significantly influence public perception and brand reputation.
- Customer experience: Integrating advocacy into the customer journey increases customer engagement. Encourage satisfied users to share their experiences, turning them into active brand promoters.
- Employee advocacy: Empower your employees to be brand advocates. Their insider perspective can provide unique, trustworthy viewpoints that resonate with audiences.
Embedding brand advocacy in these aspects of your strategy will make building and maintaining strong customer relationships more authentic and effective.
How to Measure the Impact of Brand Advocacy
To effectively measure the impact of brand advocacy, it’s essential to consider a wide range of key performance indicators (KPIs). Advocacy KPIs are key to understanding your brand’s broader influence and reputation, enabling you to adjust your strategies for long-term success.
One important metric is the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures customer loyalty and the likelihood that they’ll recommend your brand to others. Another vital measure are social media engagement rates, which track interactions and frequency of mentions across social platforms.
Additionally, monitoring media mentions and customer interactions across the internet can help you form a comprehensive picture of your brand’s overall market presence. Regularly analyze feedback and mentions, as well as reviews and testimonials, to detect customer sentiment.
Crafting a Successful Brand Advocacy Program in 5 Steps
Developing a brand advocacy program is a strategic process that involves identifying, engaging, and empowering advocates. This structured approach ensures that your program aligns with your brand’s goals and effectively leverages the enthusiasm of your customers, partners, and employees.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you build a robust brand advocacy program:
1. Define your advocacy program goals
Every effective marketing strategy begins with clear goal-setting. In brand advocacy, the primary objective is to enhance your brand’s reputation and generate more leads through positive word-of-mouth.
Set specific, measurable, and time-bound goals to translate this into tangible results. As an example, you could set the following target:
“Develop a brand advocacy initiative on Instagram, engaging key industry influencers and loyal customers, aimed at boosting brand mentions by 20% within the next four months.”
In addition to providing a clear target, this method also provides a framework for measuring advocacy success.
Similarly, you could set goals around increasing your NPS by a certain percentage, boosting social media engagement rates, or growing the number of positive customer testimonials within a specific timeframe. By setting quantifiable and achievable goals, you can more effectively guide your brand advocacy strategy and track its impact.
2. Identify and recruit potential advocates
Identifying and recruiting the right supporters is a crucial step in your brand advocacy journey. Potential advocates can come from various segments, including:
- Loyal customers: Those who repeatedly purchase your products or services and are highly satisfied.
- Engaged social media followers: Followers who actively interact with your brand on social media platforms.
- Employees: Team members who are passionate about your brand and can authentically represent your values.
- Industry influencers: Individuals who have a significant following in your industry and can sway public opinion.
Use platforms like Influitive to help in this process. Influitive’s tools enable you to analyze customer data for loyalty and engagement patterns and monitor interactions and feedback, ensuring you connect with those who genuinely resonate with your brand’s mission.
Advocate marketers are instrumental in the recruitment phase, crafting personalized messages that communicate the role’s benefits, tailored to the specific type of advocate — whether customers, employees, or influencers. These messages should highlight unique perks like exclusive product access or platform recognition.
3. Equip advocates with essential tools and content
Once your advocates are onboard, make sure they have the right tools and content to succeed. Your onboarding process should begin with a thorough introduction to your brand’s values and products so advocates can understand your company’s mission and vision.
Clear communication guidelines are key to maintaining accurate and consistent brand representation. Make sure you outline the specific expectations and provide essential resources like brand guidelines and a style guide. Providing examples of effective communication and highlighting practices to avoid will help advocates understand what is and isn’t appropriate.
A brand advocacy platform can help. Influitive streamlines the onboarding and training steps with structured courses and resources to thoroughly prepare your advocates. The platform also promotes active engagement by facilitating user-generated content creation and sharing. Effective training and enablement empower your advocates to spread your brand’s message across their networks.
4. Recognize and reward contributions
Acknowledging and rewarding your advocates is a key step in your brand advocacy process. It’s important to show your appreciation for their efforts, as this builds loyalty and keeps them excited about your brand. Simple gestures of gratitude can range from a shout-out on social media to exclusive perks like early access to new products, special discounts, or unique experiences.
Making your advocacy program fun and engaging can also make a big difference. Gamification can be a successful approach, allowing advocates to earn different rewards based on their activity levels. In addition to encouraging involvement, gamification in advocacy adds a playful, competitive element to participation.
The Influitive platform makes it easy for you to reward your advocates. Keep advocates interested with badges and levels that serve as status symbols, and customize rewards based on advocate types and needs. Additionally, the platform facilitates referral programs to reward supporters for referring new customers.
5. Measure success and adapt your program
Continually evaluating and adapting your brand advocacy program is crucial for long term success. During this process, you should closely monitor specific metrics and KPIs that align with your goals, such as social media shares, mentions, referral rates, or conversions. Having these measurements will allow you to gauge your brand advocates’ impact and effectiveness.
You should also actively seek and incorporate feedback from your advocates. Their insights may reveal opportunities for improvement or new strategies worth exploring. Regular feedback and surveys are essential for collecting data to adjust your strategy. For instance, if certain content types are more shared than others, you might focus more on those.
Influitive’s platform supports this evaluation process with robust reporting and tracking tools. These features help you effortlessly collect data on advocate engagement and campaign performance, streamlining the measurement process and enabling data-driven decisions.
Overcoming Challenges in Brand Advocacy
Building a network of advocates who represent your brand effectively and consistently can be challenging. One significant hurdle is ensuring consistency in messaging. Your core message should remain concise and clear despite multiple voices supporting your brand. Another challenge lies in aligning brand values with those of your advocates. Misalignment can lead to mixed messages and dilute the authenticity of the advocacy.
To address these challenges, be sure to provide all advocates with thorough training to ensure they effectively communicate the brand’s key messages and values. Establishing a consistent brand narrative across all platforms and interactions is also crucial. When this narrative resonates with advocates’ values and experiences, it makes their efforts more authentic and cohesive.
The most important thing is to keep in close contact with your advocates and engage with them regularly. By communicating through an advocate community and maintaining a regular update schedule, you can stay on the same page and address issues as they arise.
Level Up Your Brand Advocacy With Influitive
A strong brand advocacy strategy can help your business grow and succeed. Building a community of advocates, from your loyal customers to your dedicated employees, can have a powerful impact on your brand’s impact. With Influitive, you can develop meaningful relationships with your advocates, deepen their loyalty, and inspire them to actively promote your brand.
Are you ready to take your brand advocacy to the next level? Learn more about our platform’s features and explore how Influitive can revolutionize your advocacy strategy. Request a demo today to see it in action.
