Scroll through any leading marketing blog and you’re likely to find an abundance of articles on PPC advertising, content marketing, and SEO. All of these methods are great for acquiring customers, but they take time (and in the case of PPC, money) before you get a result.
Alternatively, word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most effective ways to market your brand, since you don’t have to do the hard work yourself.
In fact, when your customers are promoting your business for you, this frees up valuable time for you to work on other objectives.
One of the reasons that word-of-mouth marketing is so powerful is because it comes with embedded social proof. The best kind of social proof is a recommendation from a trusted friend.
This is useful because 80% of Americans seek recommendations before they make any kind of purchase.
To harness the power of word-of-mouth, marketers create brand advocacy programs to engage their best customers.
Jay Baer, the marketing strategist behind Convince and Convert, defines a brand advocate in the following way:
“A volunteer marketer. A customer that proactively uses their time and their social capital to promote a company or cause.”
A single benevolent act such as giving a customer a referral code or special discount may encourage them to sing your praises momentarily – but advocacy is an ongoing process.
If you want your brand advocates to continue promoting for you, it’s important to invest in them. When you’re truly concerned with the long-term satisfaction of your customers – you’ll be amazed at the lengths they will go to promote you.
Taco Bell is a brand that has mastered customer retention.
One could speculate that there is something special in the hot sauce that keeps customers coming back, but there is more to it than addictive food.
While Taco Bell has an excellent social media presence, one campaign, in particular, caught my attention.
For Valentine’s Day, the brand launched a social media contest called Love and Tacos.
The winner, a diehard brand advocate who constantly tweets about the brand, was flown to Las Vegas for six days where he and his fiance enjoyed VIP treatment for the week. For the climax of the trip, the couple were married in Taco Bell’s flagship restaurant (yes, Taco Bell actually has a wedding chapel).
David Meerman Scott describes newsjacking as: “The process by which you inject your ideas or angles into breaking news, in real-time, in order to generate media coverage for yourself or your business.”
Taco Bell has taken this a step further, by injecting their brand into the life story of this couple. Every time they recall fond memories of their wedding – Taco Bell is associated.
Whenever this couple is hungry and craving fast food – which restaurant chain do you think will come to mind?
Consider how you can insert your brand story into a special moment for one of your brand advocates. Do it correctly, and birthdays, weddings and other special events will always carry the association of your brand.
Every marketer knows that it’s wise to retweet posts from your diehard followers. In fact, I recommend monitoring your social media channels to identify the individuals who are frequently mentioning your brand – this way they’re already on your radar when you’re ready to do some sharing.
However, you can take things a step further by featuring UGC from your advocates on your website.
Sending your brand advocates special discounts in exchange for video reviews of your products is a win-win exchange.
When you consider that 4X as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it – it’s clear to see why customer reviews are a good asset to any landing or product page.
Unlike text reviews, video reviews from real customers are impossible to fake – which helps with social proof.
Customer reviews will benefit you by improving your conversion rate, but your advocates receive benefits as well.
