6 Ways to Turn Customers into Brand Advocates
No matter how hard you try to advertise your brand, potential buyers will believe its existing consumers more. This means that you should try to turn customers into brand advocates. We present the 6 best ways how to achieve this - it is now only up to you to put these suggestions into practice.
Thousands of companies worldwide are struggling each day to gain more market share and win over new consumers. They create business plans and allocate enormous marketing budgets trying to strengthen the customer base. However, customer advocacy turned out to be the cheapest and the most effective way to promote your brand. It seems that by 2020, customer experience will be the most important brand differentiator by far. Loyal consumers have the biggest retention rate, spend more than average buyers, and spread a good word about your brand.
The Guidelines to Brand Advocacy
A research revealed that the word-of-mouth marketing produces two times more profits than paid ads. The question now is – how exactly do you turn customers into brand advocates? To help you cope with this problem, we made a list of the 6 most efficient ways how to achieve this goal. Let’s check them out one by one!
1. Superb Consumer Journey
You need to provide purchasers with the most comfortable shopping experience. Create conditions for the superb consumer journey, training your sales staff to communicate politely throughout the process. Your customers will appreciate a nice, but non-aggressive, talk with the salespersons. The latter must be able to recognize regular buyers and call them by names. This way, the staff will prove reliability and create a firm bond with customers.
Just like James Robbins, a sales manager at ResumesPlanet resume writing service, recently stated: “Your competence is on the line if you struggle with your communication skills.” Additionally, teach your staff everything there is to know about the brand and all products. It will help them communicate more smoothly with potential buyers.
2. Omni-channel Engagement
Customers don’t have time to wait for your feedback, so be careful to interact with them through all channels. Whether it is the face-to-face communication, your web page, email, mobile app, or phone call – you need to be available 24/7.
Some customers prefer more traditional, personal communication, and you have to indulge them. On the other side, a vast majority of potential consumers demand modern communication platforms, so you must act accordingly. But whatever channel you use, bear in mind that customers need precise information. Use part of your marketing budget to educate employees how to react in each situation, it will produce great results. That’s basically why almost 60% of companies in the U.S. are going to increase their loyalty budgets this year.
3. Social Media Management
This element of brand advocacy is closely related to the previous one but requires special attention due to the global popularity and importance. Everybody’s using Facebook or Twitter these days, so you must constantly follow consumers’ online comments. When they give you positive feedback about the brand, it’s by far the best brand promotion. In this case, you should step in and encourage them to tell you more about the product qualities.
In case you have to deal with negative statements, carefully address them, show understanding, and promise a quick solution to the problem. And when you make the promise, don’t disappoint customers again!
4. Solve Problems
There are no perfect brands and products. We all make mistakes and your buyers know this, too. You will face disappointed customers from time to time and it is crucial to understand their remarks and solve the problem. Give your best to detect what went wrong, how to solve this problem, and improve the product eventually. Don’t think that such problems will be devastating. Instead, try to see it as the chance to solve issues and prove brand reliability after purchase. It will unexpectedly add value to the consumer journey.
5. Customer Education
If you want the customers to become brand advocates, make sure to teach them about the product essentials. Buyers like it when you dedicate some time to explain a few brand details, future plans, or new releases. Do it subtly, don’t push it too much – excellent staff training is once again the basic precondition here. When you have well-trained employees, it will be no problem for them to educate customers and turn them into genuine brand advocates.
6. Testimonials
Buyers trust their peers, which makes customer testimonials the best brand advocacy method. According to the Nielsen survey, more than 80% of people consider personal recommendations the most trustworthy information about the brand. Therefore, you need to encourage consumers to express their appreciation for the brand. Make customers the brand advocates - it will be the public validation of your efforts to develop a high-quality business.