Advocacy marketing: the secret of great companies

Have you ever wondered how many customers talk about your products or services with other people? If the answer is no, you probably still don’t know what advocacy marketing is and how it can take your business to the next level.

Advocacy marketing is about a customer’s true passion for a brand. Imagine when you first buy a product that you end up loving and want to recommend to your family and friends, at that moment you become a brand advocate.

Currently these brand advocates are in charge of making promotions through positive reviews or recommendations, usually on digital platforms such as social networks, forums, blogs, communities, and others.

Why should you implement an advocacy marketing strategy?

According to statistics, purchase intent on social networks increases up to 54% when products are recommended by trusted people (both influential profiles and acquaintances).

This is due to the credibility that a recommendation brings to the brand image and also has other benefits, such as:

• Loyalty: it increases customer commitment, which is the main objective of Marketing.
• Profitability: a good advocacy strategy can increase sales, achieving very remarkable results with low investments.
• Improves brand image: this will achieve the virtues of our brand and influence the consumer mind.

Advocacy Marketing Strategies

1. Transform consumers into ambassadors:

Allowing customers to have a voice and opinion about our products and services. How? By creating channels, platforms or pages where it is possible to upload photos with the company’s products.

2. Gamification:

Implementing gamification strategies allows users to actively participate with our brand. By providing this opportunity for customers to express their opinions or product ratings, we are motivating them to become advocates of our brand.

3. Customer experience:

If the buying and selling process is easy and simple for the customer, this will generate satisfaction, which results in a considerable increase of positive opinions and recommendations.

4. Storytelling campaigns about the company’s philosophy:

The key for them is to choose your brand, and subsequently be recommended influences to promote their stories, i.e., its origin, reason, why, etc.

5. Visual content as a foundation for dissemination:

Digital platforms are increasingly visual, which is why content formats such as images or videos, manage to generate greater engagement and are more effective at the time of generating sales. 

Therefore, one of our objectives should be that customers spread their own images or videos about our products. 

Keys to incorporating advocacy marketing into your strategy

1. Get them talking about you on social networks

If you have satisfied and loyal customers, it is easy to persuade them to become fans of your brand and talk about it on social networks. Because they are currently the most effective means of dissemination.

But now, the question arises: How to get a customer to talk about your products on social media? To make your job easier, let’s take a look at some ideas that will inspire you:

• Let your consumers know that your brand has a presence on social media. Most likely, they will immediately start following you.
• Encourage your brand’s followers to interact. Conduct dynamics, workshops, etc.
• Define a content marketing strategy. Focus on creating valuable content that motivates brand users to recommend your brand on their online profiles.

2. Select the right platform

When developing our digital advocacy marketing planning, choosing the right platforms is very important. We must select a platform where your ideal client is located, so we can focus our efforts there.

Likewise, it is recommended to select at least 2 or 3 platforms. For example, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn have a great potential due to their flow of users. However, Tiktok, Youtube or Pinterest are also quite effective depending on the format.

3. Turn your employees into brand ambassadors

The employees of our brand can confirm the quality of our products or services, since they are part of the process of creating and developing them.

These brand ambassadors can also be known as employee advocacy, which is a community of workers who are proud to be members of the organization or company, so that they are willing to transmit the culture and values of the brand.

4. Encourage advocates

Advocates are based on disinterested recommendations, which come from customers who feel commitment and passion for the brand. What is a real challenge is to incentivize influencers to do so willingly, without demanding remuneration for the mention.

Why can it be complicated? Because today there is a dispute that true influencers are professionals and should be paid for advertising. While another sector considers that the real influence is in providing recommendations and opinions without a monetary factor in between.

Something that would be appropriate is to have influencers who are willing to talk about the brand because they are really loyal consumers who can ensure the quality of the product.

5. Advocate-generated content

Promoting actions to boost UGC (User Generated Content) is another option for your Advocacy Marketing strategy. In fact, the millennial generation is one of those who give their opinion about brands the most, as if it were a responsibility.

Companies that employ advocacy strategies

1. Tesla

Tesla managed to attract hundreds of new customers through their loyal ones, how do they do it? By implementing referral packages. 

That is, for every loyal customer who would recommend the brand and attract a prospect, both would get a $1,000 discount on a new order.

However, Tesla decided to go further by motivating its customers to make more referrals. So each customer who referred 10 people was entitled to buy a limited Founder Series Model X SUV, which was not sold to the public.

2. Starbucks

The advocacy marketing strategy implemented by Starbucks was called “Tweet-A-Coffee”. It involved allowing customers to purchase $5 gift cards for their friends via twitter.

Customers just had to tweet “@tweetacoffee” along with the recipient’s username. In addition to having been a fairly profitable strategy that boosted the company’s sales, it allowed the brand to identify its loyal advocates.

3. Apple

Apple launched a campaign titled “Shot on iPhone” where it asked users to share photos they have taken with their iPhones, on their social media. Then, the company chose a group of photos and used them in different ads.

Hundreds of people decided to participate, as they saw it as an opportunity to become “Apple stars”. This provided the company with a lot of material for ads at a very low cost.

Identify your advocates

As we can see, advocacy marketing is a great opportunity for any business no matter what stage of growth it is in. However, many companies overlook it.

Therefore, a simple way to start implementing an advocacy strategy is through NPS surveys. It basically consists of conducting a survey where you ask your customers and followers how likely they are to recommend your brand.

This way you will identify your promoters and you will be able to encourage them to start developing your strategy. In case you need help with this, at Factor Engagement we have specialists in this area ready to help you design and implement advocacy marketing on your digital platforms.

You can book your first consultation for free by clicking here. You can also contact us through social media, we are on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.