How to take advantage of Advocate Marketing

 

 

This is where you encourage people who like your brand to talk about you more, online and off. Advocates are usually customers or employees, but they can also be people who aspire to your brand in some way.

 

Where as ‘Influencers’ are largely defined as people who have a large online following on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, Advocates have fewer numbers. This means harnessing the power of advocates at scale - recruiting hundreds - is vital to success.

 

 

Word-of-mouth marketing is probably the oldest kind of marketing in the world and it’s stood the test of time as people listen to other people they trust, be it friends, family or peers. What’s changed recently is that technology is now allowing businesses to create digital employee or customer advocacy programmes at scale – significantly increasing the ability to spread positive word-of-mouth marketing. 

 

This also means being able to manage thousands of advocates efficiently and, importantly, track and measure activity, so results and ROI can be reported on accurately.

 

In an age when people are switching on ad blockers and are more cynical about push marketing from brands, hearing stories anecdotes and word-of-mouth recommendations from friend and family is a more efficient way to communicate brand messages. Nielsen states that 92% of consumers trust family and friends over other forms of advertising.

 

An online advocacy programme allows brands to upload a variety of content daily (news, videos, infographics etc.) on to their platform. Advocates are invited to join the platform and connect their own social accounts after which they are able to choose and share content quickly and easily to their networks.

 

Whether you scale quickly or try a smaller pilot trial first, brands will be able to track and measure what content advocates share and when, in order to optimise campaigns, increase positive brand awareness and ultimately drive sales. 

 

Is it time for you to switch on your advocates?

 

Read more about Qube Media’s latest work in The Grocer or download one of their free white papers here.