Word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool. People recommending your brand is the best marketing strategy as it resonates with the audience far better than direct messages from your brand. Thus, mobilizing and sustaining these endorsements in the long-term remains a crucial factor.
In this brand ambassador marketing guide, we will discuss how to set up a successful ambassador program. But before that let us briefly discuss brand ambassador and brand ambassador program.
Also, read on The Complete Guide to Partnership Sales in 2021
Who Is A Brand Ambassador?
Brand ambassadors are the ones who believe in your products and positively promote your brand to spread the word. However, what makes them so important?
When people know that the person who is promoting your brand is not paid to do so, they are more likely to believe them. Moreover, brand ambassadors are giving new customers a reason to trust your brand. Without pushing them to buy or try, they are informing others about your products from their own authoritative perspective.
What Is A Brand Ambassador Program?
A brand ambassador program creates an official relationship between your brand and the people who love your brand and promote your products/services. Through the program, you will hire the biggest advocates of your brand.
These recruits will focus on promoting your products/services to other people for increasing sales, driving conversions, and enhancing brand awareness. As part of the program, you will provide ambassadors with information about the brand, so they can boost the image of your brand through word of mouth.
In the next section of the ambassador marketing guide, we will teach you how to setup a successful program for your business!
How to Setup Your Brand Ambassador Program?
1. Outline Your Program Carefully
Simply hiring a bunch of charismatic millennials to talk about your brand will not make your ambassador program successful. Instead, you will need to carefully outline your program that includes goals, rules, milestones, and benefits.
Creating a well-structured program will tempt potential ambassadors while providing them with clear instructions for how to build brand awareness.
2. Establish Your Goals
Before you being your outreach, it is imperative to determine the core mission behind the ambassador program. Ambassadors must know why they are doing what they are doing to become an effective evangelist for your brand.
Whether you are trying to reach young millennials or entering a new market that people must know about – make sure your ambassadors know your program goals.
3. Motivate Your Ambassadors
These programs will be successful only if your ambassadors feel motivated to do the good work and spread positive word of mouth for your brand. Therefore, design a program that will make them feel motivated.
Of course, you do not want to be a brand who is paying ambassadors for spreading blatant positive reviews. But make sure that you are offering something that entices ambassadors to go the extra mile for your brand. You can motivate them by offering free access to your services or gifting them products. This will make them feel valued and motivated to go that extra mile in spreading the word of mouth for your brand.
4. Find Most Vocal Supporters
It is quite possible that your brand already has several dedicated followers who are shouting out loud about your products/services on social media platforms. Maybe they are constantly posting photos of your products on Instagram or tweeting about it on Twitter. Whichever is the case, you must take advantage of this existing pool of customers and recruit them for your ambassador program.
You can use tools like Brand24, to search for people who have mentioned your brand on their social feeds. These tools will also help you contact these people to recruit them as an ambassador for your brand.
Apart from this, you can even send emails to some of your best-known customers to see if they would be interested in becoming an ambassador for your brand.
Bonus: Learn how to setup a successful SaaS Partnership Program to grow your sales.
Ambassador Platform
Once you have a well-defined strategy for your program, you will need a platform where you can manage all activities related to your ambassador marketing program. In this ambassador marketing guide, there are several ambassador platforms available for you such as 60sec that you can use to find and manage your ambassadors. Using such an ambassador platform will allow you to track all of your brand ambassadors from a single platform.
Best Practices to Boost Your Ambassador Marketing Program
1. Use Social Media
Social media is the best way to create brand awareness and increase the sales of your brand. Therefore, one of the first steps to boost the presence of your brand is by having your ambassadors’ post about your product/services on social media. Initially ask them to post once a week and then ramp up things during product releases or promotions.
2. Use Data for Improving Strategy
Using data is the best to examine the success of your ambassador program. Moreover, it will also help you improve your strategy as and when needed. Using a data-driven approach also ensures that ambassadors are better informed regarding what they are expected to do and where they need to improve.
3. Encourage Ambassadors to Express Themselves
Setting goals form the basis of your ambassador program. But to differentiate it from others, you need to provide freedom to your ambassadors to express themselves. Allowing them to come up with their own ideas will keep them more involved with your brand, which can result in more benefits for your brand.
Difference between Affiliate and Ambassador Programs
Affiliate program represents a bunch of people who are marketing your products/services. These people receive a commission when the product is sold. It does not involve up-front payments. The affiliate will earn money only after converting a lead. These programs work completely on commission.
In contrast, ambassador programs do not involve commission. Either the brands will pay an up-front fee or reward the ambassadors with free products/services. Whether or not they convert a lead, they will definitely receive the benefits that the brand agreed upon. This is the difference between an affiliate and an ambassador program.
Final Thoughts
Ambassador marketing is a great way to increase your sales and boost your conversion rates. However, it is important to have the right set of strategies and to choose the right ambassadors who will promote your brand. This ambassador marketing guide helps you in building a successful marketing program.
