6 criteria to recognize your brand ambassadors

As is often said, and rightly so, a company lives by its customers. Your customers are your turnover. But among these customers, some have a privileged role: they are the brand Ambassador marketing. What do you recognize as genuine ambassadors of a brand or a company?

What is a brand ambassador?

In diplomacy, an ambassador is a person in charge of representing a state to another state. This term has been used by marketing to define a specific category of customers.

In marketing, an ambassador is a person who promotes a brand, a product or a business in a spontaneous way. The ambassador is primarily a prescriber, someone who speaks positively about your company or your brand to other consumers. To benefit from this growth relay, your company must already have a good brand image.

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To understand what it is about and to be able to better use the ambassadors in your strategic approach, we propose you a list of criteria which make it possible to identify a (good) ambassador of mark.

1- A brand ambassador is a person who appreciates you enormously

To praise the merits of your products and to praise your business, which is more about volunteering, the ambassador needs to appreciate your brand. This is the first criterion, the most intuitive: an ambassador appreciates you so much that he wishes to share his enthusiasm around him.

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1-This criterion gives a first indication of how to generate ambassadors: you must create customer satisfaction. By doing everything to make your customers as satisfied as possible (through your products, services, after-sales service, etc.), you increase your chances of turning your customers into ambassadors.

2- A brand ambassador does not belong to the company

An ambassador, in the true sense of the word, is above all a consumer, a person who buys and uses your products and services. Apple's ambassadors are first and foremost aficionados of the apple brand (we all know them!).

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Therefore, the "true" ambassador is a person who does not belong to the company but who is in a personal and disinterested way . Which excludes automatically: salespeople, community managers, press officers and more broadly all the people who within a company have the function of promoting the brand.

However, the marketing literature has the concept of internal brand ambassadors , which refers to the trades just mentioned. But it is not this category of ambassadors that we are referring to in this article.

3- A quality brand ambassador is an influential person

An ambassador is someone who is listened to. A true ambassador (a "good" ambassador) is someone who is influential and enjoys an audience . This is an important criterion for spotting its ambassadors. An ambassador is usually very active on social networks or has a blog that regularly showcases your products.

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Good to know: it is now quite easy to identify the influencers of a brand on the internet. Just type the appropriate keywords in the search engines. The score also measures the level of influence of a person on social networks.

4- A brand ambassador acts voluntarily

For an ambassador to be truly listened to, he must be as impartial as possible . This excludes trade ambassadors, hired and paid to promote your brand. Unmasking a fake ambassador can have a very negative effect on your brand image and create a phenomenon of "bad-buzz" around you.

After, nothing forbids pampering its ambassadors by offering products, VIP invitations. But this only happens in a second time (see below).

5- An ambassador interacts with the brand

Dialogue does not just happen between your ambassadors and their audience, but also between you and your ambassadors. Ambassadors have an emotional relationship with your brand . They are people who are looking for a dialogue with you, who give you feedback from customers, who can make proposals to improve your products or services.

Ambassadors are people who build a constructive relationship with you and who feel involved in the business.

6- A brand ambassador is ready to participate in your events

An ambassador is not just someone who appreciates your brand (it's a necessary but not a sufficient criterion), it's mostly a person who plays an active role in the life and promotion of your brand .

The ambassadors of a brand are found in the events organized by it, or around it. They demonstrate a voluntary approach to all participatory projects you launch (social media campaigns, advertising spots, etc.).

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Discover How to collect reviews following an event.

The brand ambassador and you: a long-term relationship

Last criterion of a quality ambassador: the relationship he has with you is a lasting relationship. That's why we talk about brand ambassadors: an ambassador appreciates a company as a whole, not just a particular product. An ambassador is someone who loves Nintendo, not just Mario Kart.

A true ambassador never reduces a brand to a finite set of products. For an ambassador, a brand, it is also a philosophy, a mindset, environment, quality of service, etc . It is for this reason that the relationship with an ambassador is sustainable. The ambassador does not desert following the placing on the market of a product that he likes less.

Ambassador Marketing: Turn your Customers into Ambassadors

While the impact of traditional advertising is steadily declining, most business executives persist in using their budget on this acquisition channel. Yet, consumers trust their peer recommendations 2 to 3 times more than brand Ambassador marketing. Is it time to change your tune?

THE CLIENT, YOUR BEST SELLER

Increasingly mistrustful of brands, consumers have become less naïve. They understand better the workings of marketing and display a certain skepticism with regard to advertising. 3 in 5 French people consider word-of-mouth to be the most reliable source of information. More than 60% of consumers trust other customers, even if they are perfect strangers.

The power of word of mouth is amplified by social networks; every customer comment or review about your brand can potentially be seen by thousands of people. Habits that are rooted in consumer behavior. For example, Generation Y consults three times more comments posted on social networks when looking for a product / service. When it speaks, users of your products become the showcase of your business.

Having become a real player in the market, the customer can become an opportunity as a threat to your business. A satisfied customer can be used to increase brand awareness and build trust with other consumers. A recent study showed that a satisfied customer speaks to 3 people around him. This number can become exponential if your marketing strategy is well established. Make the customer your best seller!

CAPITALIZE ON POSITIVE EXPERIENCES

Through the collection of customer reviews, you have been able to draw up an inventory of the satisfaction of your customers. Valuate it! Indeed, if your customers can play a central role in your company's recommendation, you do not always need their word. You can use the measure of your customer satisfaction as a real reassurance factor in your communications.

We all know the communication campaigns, like those of Yves Rocher for example, highlighting the satisfaction. Example: a message of the type "9 out of 10 customers recommend this product" that appears at the end of the commercial. Blablacar uses the customer notice to reassure: on its homepage, the start-up shows the latest opinions submitted by satisfied users of the service. What reassure skeptics or novices of carpooling?

These strategies make it possible to value the satisfaction of your customers, and to use the customer reviews as assets for your communication. Effective, these communications are still issued by the company, and the trust is not as strong as when the recommendation is made directly from client to client. Let's see how to turn your customers into brand ambassadors.

TRANSFORM YOUR CUSTOMERS AMBASSADORS

First of all, it is essential to know how to identify a client ambassador. Any satisfied customer is not a brand ambassador. An ambassador client is a loyal and committed customer. He is the creator of exchanges with the brand, he actively recommends the brand around him. To activate the potential of the client ambassador, it is therefore essential to start a customer engagement process.

How to recognize the potential of a customer's ambassador? By asking her opinion! This is one of the benefits of collecting customer reviews: identifying the best potential customers. The NPS indicator, which measures customer referrals , is the most appropriate tool for detecting potential ambassadors hiding among your customers. A client who scores 9 or 10 (out of 10) is considered a "promoter".

Once the "promoters" identified in your CRM, use this data to create marketing campaigns specific to their status . We are talking here about referral marketing (or advocacy marketing). To increase your loyalty, offer them exclusive promotional benefits (for example, a discount for a second purchase or information in preview) or an effective loyalty program. Thus, you will increase their frequency of purchase.

Regarding their power of recommendation, social networks have a key role to play. Encourage your fans to spread your messages on social networks, offering them engaging content or playing on the community aspect of your brand.

The furniture distribution brand MADE has integrated the social network "Unboxed" on its website. Her most loyal customers proudly post pictures of their sofa or buffet purchased from MADE in the middle of their interior. Fans can like and comment on others' photos, share on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. MADE encourages its customers to share their photos through contests to earn coupons.

The brand uses these photos to post them on its own social networks. MADE even visits some clients to film their interior and interview them. The approach is very pleasing to customers who dream of having their interior chosen by MADE. The customers of the brand feel valued and share more and more photos on social networks.

Some of your engaged clients may also be opinion leaders. The latter, admired by their peers, have an even greater ambassadorial potential than your clients. Some brands identify these customers to exploit this potential.

This is the case of ASOS, a leader in the UK ready-to-wear market. The brand identifies "bloggers" and "social influencers" and offers them to integrate their program "Asos Insider". In exchange for free clothes and accessories, these Insiders develop selections on the site, and exhibit their style on social networks. Highly followed, these "micro-fashion-influencers" have various characteristics (size, weight, skin color ...) that stick to the range of customers of the brand.

More classic, but just as effective, the sponsorship program is a very powerful way to make your clients ambassadors. This strategy is based on the win-win principle. Thanks to a winnings system, your customers recommend your offer to those around them. Very popular in marketing for referrals, the referral program is one of the least expensive and most effective sources of client acquisition.

The Tesla car brand, recognized for its advanced marketing strategy, offers a $ 1,000 discount to the sponsor and godson if recommended. Uber is also a fan of sponsorship programs for both users and drivers. When a customer is sponsored, the godchild and the godfather each receive a € 10 voucher for the first race.

A satisfied customer that you have identified can become an ambassador. For this, it is necessary to shape an appropriate marketing strategy. Rather than spending your budget on advertising campaigns that have become ineffective, think of the customer first and exploit their potential. The customer can become your best seller!