Advocacy Marketing: How to Do It (Well) in 2020
Take off your business hat for a moment and put on your customer hat.
Let's think about the brands you’ve previously purchased from that have gone above and beyond. Remember the experiences you've had with these companies and why they motivated you to tell your network about them.
When you promote a business as a customer, you become a brand advocate — and brand advocates are what you want your customers to become.
You’ve heard about the power of word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing — over 90% of consumers trust WOM marketing recommendations over any other type of marketing. Moreover, customers referred by other customers have a 37% higher retention rate, making customer advocacy a particularly strong acquisition play.
Keep reading to learn more about how you can market to these customers who are integral parts of your growth and success.
Advocacy marketing is the process of inciting and equipping customers to generate buzz around your brand through social mentions, reviews, and word-of-mouth marketing. In other words, it's providing products, experiences, and customer service so good that customers can't help but share.
Advocacy marketing is a marketer’s dream — cost-effective and high-yielding. This method is one of the best ways to attract new customers and increase revenue at a very low cost.
Brand advocates are highly valuable brand assets. Not only do they often spend more than the average customer, but they’re also typically well-versed on your brand and products.
Advocacy Marketing Strategy
1. Provide an excellent product or service.
It doesn’t matter how fantastic is your marketing or customer experience are — without a top-notch product or service, customers won’t become advocates and fans. More importantly, an excellent product or service can make up for not-so-great marketing or negative customer experiences.
Before working on how you’re marketing, focus on what you’re selling.
2. Deliver an unforgettable brand experience.
Whether it’s what your customers first see when they walk in your brick-and-mortar store, open your product packaging, or talk to your customer service team, every interaction they have with your business contributes to their experience. These unforgettable experiences make it easy for customers to promote your business among their peers and share positive stories about your brand.
3. Operate with a customer-first mentality.
A customer-first company culture creates a natural sense of loyalty and reciprocity between your brand and your customers. One key way to build this culture is to genuinely listen to your customers. You can do this by publicly responding to social media questions and comments
Another way to build this culture is by consistently sticking to your word as a brand. Ship your products on time, respond to support queries as quickly as possible, and always fulfill promises of discounts and sales. When customers feel they can rely on a brand, they’re more likely to advocate for it.
4. Make it easy for customers to advocate.
When it comes to advocacy marketing, you can split your customer advocates into two groups: those that are so thrilled by their experiences with your brand they’ll do whatever it takes to share them, and those who love your brand but will only share their experiences if it’s easy — or incentivized.
Neither group is better than the other. In order to capture both, however, it’s best to make it as easy as possible for your advocates to share information and experiences about your brand. What do we mean by “easy”?
Here are some ideas:
5. Actively seek out advocates.
You can’t use brand advocates to spread awareness and excitement about your brand if you don’t know who they are. Take the time to identify your customer advocates so you can reach out to them when it's time to run a campaign or ask them to provide feedback on your messaging or products in the meantime.
Here are a few ways to do this:
