The terms “brand ambassador” and “influencer marketing” have gained a lot of attention lately in the marketing world. Searches for both terms have grown over 1500% in the last three years alone. Although you may first think it’s for B2C, brand ambassadors have quickly shot into the spotlight for many B2B brands as well.
While slower to catch up, B2B marketers are starting to tap into the power of brand ambassadors. There are now over 320 different third-party platforms that can help you source them, and while these can be a great asset, there are also simple ways to find and recruit solid brand ambassadors through your internal team.
Before you start your hunt, it is key to figure out why and what outcomes you want from these programs. Is the goal to generate brand awareness, revenue or support marketing for a product launch. Knowing why you’re reaching out and what you need from your brand ambassadors will help make sure you see results.
It is also important to explain all the expectations of your brand ambassadors. Is this paid or unpaid? Are there posting guidelines they need to adhere to? What are the timelines? How much effort is required?
Setting expectations early ensures everyone is on the same page and relationships do not get damaged during this process.
Core Qualities of a Successful Brand Ambassador
- Affinity – Is this person fully bought-into the brand? Do they (or will they) like and use the product/service? There needs to be some sort of natural relationship in order for the promotion to appear authentic.
- Credibility – What is this person’s reputation within the industry. Will their statements hold water with potential customers? If the answer is no, then it’s probably for the best to just leave them as fans of your brand.
- Network – Micro-influencers with 30,000 followers or less have been shown to get 6.7x more engagement than a large-scale influencer. It is also important they have at minimum 1,000 followers or connections on any given channel.
- Relevancy – Do these influencers mirror your target personas? The closer your ambassadors resemble potential customers, the higher the chance these reviews, testimonials, case studies will resonate (aka generate click-throughs, purchases, or demo requests)
Where to Find Ideal Brand Ambassadors
Customers
Customers make extremely credible brand ambassadors because they’ve had first-hand experience with your product and services. Within your customer base, you’ll most likely find loyal customers who have nothing but great things to say about your brand.
Asking a customer to provide feedback or participate in a case study can seem like a daunting task but it doesn’t have to be.
Brands who have a solid rapport with their customers should be consistently building their relationship. Doing this allows for a two-way street of communication; both what is going well and what isn’t. If the customer feels listened to and is seeing success, they will most likely want to share their experiences with others – as who doesn’t love a little free press and to be viewed as a thought leader in their space.
- Lean on your Customer Success and Support team to help guide you in the right direction.
- Create a list of all customers who are seeing success with the product.
- Reach out and gauge their interest and participation level (provide a review vs a fully on case study).
- Make the process and straightforward and painless as possible.
- Make sure to include the benefits they can attain by being an ambassador for your brand which can include social mentions, sneak peeks to product launches or participation on your customer advisory board.
Review Websites
Review websites such as G2 Crowd or Capterra can make a great place to build brand ambassador relationships. If a customer has taken the time to leave a positive review, the chances are high that they are open to sharing their experience about your product or service.
According to Inc., “A customer who has a negative experience is highly likely to share that experience by leaving a bad review. A customer who has a positive experience, on the other hand, is unlikely to leave a good review…only one in 10 happy customers leave a good review.”
Finding a positive review and asking a customer if you can repost it on social or your website is an easy and simple way to start building a brand ambassador relationship. Authentic reviews are seen as more trustworthy because they originated from a third-party source and are generally unprompted. According to HubSpot, 70 percent of people surveyed said they trust recommendations from customers.
Social Media
Of course, this list wouldn’t be complete without social media – it is the medium that really launched the popularity of brand ambassador and influencer marketing. A great way to find brand ambassadors are those who are already unofficially promoting your brand.
These are your most dedicated followers who engage with your posts and content on a regular basis. Engaging with these active social media personas can help build an authentic online relationship and promote positive discussions on social media. HubSpot found that 71 percent of consumers said they are more likely to make a purchase based on social media referrals.
Finding social media fans who are already sharing and loving their experience creates a kind of positive brand sentiment that ads simply cannot compete with.
Another way to leverage social media is finding those who are similar to your target audience with a large follower base and asking if they would be interested in your product/service. Again finding ambassadors who are generally interested in your brand and not paid to post will lend more credibility. Before reaching out or engaging with anyone on social media make sure to do your due diligence on their personal brand before tying your company’s image with theirs.
Your Own Employees
Your best ambassadors could be no further than the desk beside you. Employees are your most believable ambassadors – they can give your customers an inside look into your organization. Unhappy employees are unlikely to sing the praises of their employer which leads to their messages been seen as more credible.
Nearly half of all people believe a company’s employees are much more trustworthy than a brand’s CEO, Executive or PR department. Customers are 16 times more likely to read a post from their social connection about a brand than a post from the brand itself.
Brand ambassador programs which include your workforce and often called employee advocacy. Launching an employee advocacy program can be fairly beneficial for brand reach and engagement. Company branded messages reach 561% further when shared by employees versus branded channels. Creating a program gives employees the guidelines and confidence needed to start promoting your brand online.
Activating Your Brand Ambassadors
Looking for brand ambassadors doesn’t need to be all-consuming – its all about leveraging those who are already bought in and spreading that message to like-minded individuals. It is important to remember anyone who is taking the time to promote your product or service is doing you a favor so the relationship should be reciprocal. That doesn’t have to mean paid either – it can be as simple as a retweet, shoutouts, inclusions in a case study or sneak peek into a product launch.
Taking care of your brand ambassadors and making sure the relationship is mutually beneficial is the best way to ensure that they will stay with the brand. Influencer marketing and brand ambassadors are considered to be one of the best marketing strategies because of the authenticity of messages which engages people.
