HOW TO ATTRACT CUSTOMER ADVOCATES AT SCALE?
Attracting advocates might seem complicated or something that requires constant effort. Many advocacy program managers spend countless hours reaching out to customers 1-to-1 (directly). They reach out when they need to recruit customers for various activities. This includes content creation, community engagement, product feedback, beta programs, social sharing, or marketing event.
Think about all the great brands out there today. What they all have in common is great customer experience. If you do things for the right reasons, fans and advocates will follow.
Here are a few steps that can help you put in place the inbound method into your advocates recruitment flows:
But regardless of terminology, the goal of customer advocacy marketing is to create an engaged community. Different advocates talk about their positive experiences sharing content in social media. Some speak directly to prospects, analysts and reporters. Community is all about giving a voice to your happy customers. Then, you can capture the positive experience your advocates have and story-tell it. This will create market and selling impact for your products and services.
For this inbound process, the key elements to attracting customer advocates are:
- Consistency in putting out content that educates and brings value
- A genuine interest in people and improving their lives
- Respect for their time and desired level of involvement
Empathy can get you a long way too. Always deliver the best possible service/products for your market! You cannot fail if you show genuine interest in improving people’s lives. Advocates will appreciate the effort and will soon follow.
