Strategies To Use for Advocacy Marketing

The business world is becoming a competitive arena. Many brands are battling to get the attention of their target audience. For small businesses, it is a hard struggle to come at par with established and large enterprises. Luckily, several marketing strategies can be done to ensure that you are still head-on in the competition like growing your views in your YouTube videos. One of the tactics you can explore is advocacy marketing, which can help strengthen your brand.

For many years, business owners rely on the influence of word-of-mouth marketing. These days, consumers rely heavily on marketing reviews before making any buying decisions. That makes advocacy marketing an effective way to bring your business name into the limelight.

It should be your goal to turn your customers into becoming brand advocates and help you in your marketing promotions. When your clients are endorsing your small business, they become your brand advocate. It would be best to note that it can have a 37% retention rate when customers come from a customer referral. That makes advocacy marketing a useful tool in leads and sales acquisition.

What is Marketing Advocacy?

Advocacy marketing is the type of strategy that get existing customers to share their good experiences with your brand. By doing this type of marketing tactic, you reinforce the voice of your brand. It makes your brand more relatable and more appealing to your target audience.

Advocacy marketing can get loyal clients to share their positive experiences with your business with their family, friends, and acquaintances.

Many marketing professionals and analysts notice the efficacy of this strategy. Experts expect that once more businesses engage in advocacy marketing, it will rise to 54% in the coming days. Marketing advocates are some of the most affordable ways to gain additional consumers at a relatively low rate.

Customer views are among the most frequently shared user views on the Internet, the third most trusted advertisement source by Nielsen. If you’ve encountered a movie with a big promotional budget but a low Rotten Tomatoes score, then you know how much online reviews matter.

This marketing strategy fills the divide between web presence and physical ads. In a way, you use the first concept to develop the second, generating better content that turns people from consumers to activists. You are also grooming your current advocates to improve your friendship with them.

Strategies You Can Do For Your Advocacy Marketing

To make advocacy marketing work for you, here are some strategies you need to take note of on your next campaign.

1.     Offer The Best Brand Experience

Whether your customers go to your brick-and-mortar store or browsing your online shop, their experience would matter in your campaign. When they open any packaging from your store or talk to your customer service support, it will add up to their experience with your brand. Providing the best brand experience will create a special connection with your customer and your brand. In this way, it will be easier to encourage your customers to share and advertise your company with their family and friends.

When you have loyal and trustworthy customers, it would be easy for you to turn them into your brand advocates. They can become an outstanding source of possible referrals and quality content for promotion. You can also ask them to express their experience with your brand to share with their audience, so your campaign will become more authentic and relatable.

2.     Always Remember The Customer-First Policy

No matter how powerful and useful your brand is if you will not listen to what your customers are saying, your brand will not move forward. Make your customers feel heard in the process of doing your advocacy marketing. That will make your tactic more effective.

Respond to any comments and mention on social media and take note of their suggestions. Publish blog posts that appeal to them and try to deliver the content requested by most of your audience. Doing this will make your consumers a considerable part of your brand. You can also do an FAQ or try to answer all possible questions that can arise from your customer base.

3.     Be consistent with your brand

Be consistent in every promotional advocacy that involves your brand. Send your goods on schedule, respond to help requests as soon as possible, and always deliver when your promised discount and sales commitments. When consumers believe they can count on a brand, they’re more inclined to advocate for your products, services, or offerings.

4.     Strengthen Your Relationship With Your Advocates

You can’t use brand ambassadors to share your brand recognition and enthusiasm if you don’t know who they are. Take the time to recognize your consumer ambassadors so that you can reach out to them when it’s time to start a plan or invite them to provide input on your messaging or goods.

Show gratitude for your customers (mostly faithful ones). You can go beyond a necessary “thank you.” However, you don’t need to do something significant. A simple birthday discount, exclusive warehouse tours, or an appreciation day for your advocates can make them appreciate your brand more.

5.     Give Quality Products

No effective ads will correct any wrong product. You absolutely cannot create a tribe of brand supporters until you offer an outstanding product and service. You’re facing so much competition, and if you’re not providing value, no, you will not make it in the competitive arena.

Without a top-notch product or service, consumers will not become your supporters and followers. Moreover, an outstanding product or service will make up for some not-so-great ads or an isolated poor consumer experience.

If your campaigns are not a success yet because of your product offerings, take a pause and check how you can improve your product offerings. The last thing you want to do is introduce a campaign that lobbies a wrong kind of hype. Because of the many competitors you have, see your campaign as the only chance you have, so you have to make it count. 

6.     Make It Easy To Share

Some people love your brand but only share their experiences if it’s convenient. So, it is best to make it as simple as possible for your supporters to share your brand. You should create a sponsored hashtag that can allow your customers to find you easily. Your advocates can use this whenever they share a post, tweets, or any content. In this way, it will also be easier for you to check on all posts at once.

Final Thoughts

Brand supporters are beneficial to brands. Not only do they frequently invest more than the average customer, but they are often usually well versed in the company and goods.  That makes them a perfect source of insight for leads and future buyers. Customer ambassadors will also lead to favorable feedback, create natural interactions about the brand, raise visibility, and increase organic traffic.

 

About Author: Maricar worked as a marketing professional for almost a decade and handled concerts, events and community service-related activities. Leaving her corporate job for good to pursue her dreams, she has now ventured in the path of content writing and currently writes for Softvire Australia – the leading software e-Commerce company in Australia and Softvire New Zealand. A Harry Potter fan, she loves to watch animated series and movies during her spare time.