LoginSchedule demoLoginSchedule demoWant to learn how to launch a brand ambassador program at your company? Use this guide to get set up for success and generate results.
For brands looking to grow authentic relationships with customers, creating a brand ambassador program makes a lot of sense.
People want recommendations from people they know and trust, and 74% of consumers identify word of mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decision.
Companies that enable and reward people for sharing and evangelizing their brands will see more success with their marketing and brand building efforts.
Influencer marketing and brand ambassador programs are on the rise because they empower real people to share about products and services in more personalized and authentic ways.
Are you considering launching a brand ambassador program at your company but don’t know where to start? This guide will share everything your company needs to know to set up for success.
A brand ambassador program is a type of social marketing strategy that utilizes your company message, content, and particular influencers to improve areas of the business like sales, brand recognition, and corporate reputation.
The overall goal of a program like this is to build relationships and partnerships with people who genuinely like your content, company, and product or services.
When your company activates these brand ambassadors online, they are helping distribute positive messages about your company, which hopefully build more brand awareness over time.
What your company can expect from brand ambassadors are people who are positively representing the brand in an authentic and consistent way. This could mean sharing or creating content, leaving online reviews, engaging on social media and in their networks, and contributing value that extends your word of mouth marketing strategy.
Although you might be thinking a brand ambassador and influencer are the same, they are actually a bit different. An influencer is someone typically hired for a single social campaign to drive awareness from their large social following. Where a brand ambassador is long-term relationships that can last for months or years.
Influencers are paid and focused on the transaction between the brand. Where brand ambassadors might be compensated in some way financially, the goal of an ambassador program is to harness people who organically love your company, product, and/or services.
Brand ambassadors are more likely to be your customers and employees, those who have more connection to the company and want to show the world more about what your organization does.
Depending on the established goals and audience for your program, you will want to choose the type of program that will best achieve those outcomes.
The most common types of brand ambassador programs are:
Depending on the needs of your company, you might have various brand ambassador programs set up, or just a very specific one.
In addition to driving sales and building brand awareness, a brand ambassador program can provide benefits that other marketing channels can’t.
Some of the benefits include:
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Before you create your brand ambassador program, it’s helpful to have a strategy in place.
Follow these steps to make sure your company is prepared for both launching a program and measuring its success.
Having clear goals and expectations in place before you launch your program is the first step to success.
Whether you are focused on increasing sales or expanding to new audiences, knowing your aims will help you find the right ambassadors and how to incentivize them.
Let’s look at some of the common goals associated with these types of programs:
Looking for potential brand ambassadors is an important part of setting up your program. You want people whose values and qualities are in line with your company goals and objectives to lead your ambassadorship.
Ambassadors (or employee influencers) that already have networks of your target consumers will help fast-track your success in spreading the word about your brand.
Since they have built a community through the years on their social media of choice, they know how to publish content that their audience loves and will connect with.
Start utilizing some social listening. Usually, your employees and customers are great places to start.
According to Web Shandwick, 98% of employees use at least one social media site for personal use, of which 50% are already posting about their company.
These “employee ambassadors” are great to start with and help get a program organized as you can learn valuable insights from them. Plus, you can see if they will help organize your program, too!
You’ll also want to consider the right incentive to keep brand ambassadors motivated.
For example:
Be sure to be clear and upfront about what you will provide and what you expect in return from your program members.
It may be helpful to set up a formal application process to get more information about potential partners and why they want to work with your brand. If you need more help finding brand ambassadors, this guide can help you.
Brand ambassadors will need your help so they can promote your brand effectively. You will want to consider providing them with new products, equip them with assets, and let them know about upcoming events or insider info that you want them to promote.
You can also help them improve their skills in promoting your brand by signing them up for different workshops and courses, strong social media policy, as well as enrolling them in mastermind groups.
Providing ambassadors with tools to succeed allows you to invest in their success and provides them with the resources they need to post effectively.
With your goals in mind, you need to find a way to measure the social media performance of your ambassadors.
You’ll want to track how often they post, how many impressions and engagements they received, and how your brand reach and traffic are impacted.
Compare their progress or KPIs to your goals over time and see if they were able to reach or exceed them. Any good brand ambassador program you utilize will have reporting and tracking capabilities.
For example, EveryoneSocial is used for employee advocates and ambassadors, which provides a plethora of data to help your strategy.
Small snippet of data from EveryoneSocial.
Brand ambassador programs, like all relationships, require trust and communication. These best practices will encourage healthy connections between your brand and the people you are working with to promote it.
These companies have developed brand ambassador programs that use a wide range of incentives to achieve great results.
Adobe’s Creative Insider Ambassador program is a great example of offering mutually beneficial incentives to members.
Adobe offers ambassadors tons of training resources like webinars and workshops to further develop expertise in the creative apps.
The voice of the brand ambassador is especially important to Adobe for developing new products and feature improvements so they provide surveys and opportunities to share feedback directly with the Adobe team.
There are also regular meetings with other ambassadors which creates a community and affords networking opportunities.
In return, brand ambassadors are asked to host workshops for their work colleagues to share their Adobe skills and offer suggestions for integrating Adobe solutions at their workplaces.
Related: Adobe built a solid brand ambassador program using the EveryoneSocial employee advocacy platform. Learn how over 900 ambassadors has generated an additional 3 million in social reach.
Lululemon’s ambassador program focuses on supporting local leaders and growing community.
Brand ambassadors get to test new products and provide feedback, and in return some host in-store classes and events.
Yoga instructors, athletes, and wellness influencers are all asked to share their goals, and Lululemon offers training and resources to support them.
United Airlines empowers its employees to be brand ambassadors and uses employee advocacy (also an EveryoneSocial customer) for bigger reach and more personalized content.
Posting photos with coworkers and sharing behind the scenes looks at new airplanes brings outsiders in to see company updates and announcements in a more authentic way.
It also strengthens the United employer brand by making it more human and sharing the employee experience.
In today’s digital and social media driven environment, pretty much every organization should consider some brand ambassador program. Pending your needs and wants, your brand ambassador program may focus heavily on employees, customers, or a combination of “influencers.”
However, there is some work involved to ensure a great program will be sustainable, and managing it for the long-term takes a bit of work. So before you jump right in, use this checklist to ensure your organization is ready.
Here are a few signs your company is primed for a program:
Todd served as Director of Marketing at EveryoneSocial, leading content strategy and editorial across the blog through 2021. Today he is Head of Content & Brand at RemoFirst, founder of Linkeezy (an inbox and content tool for LinkedIn), and a SaaS marketing and content advisor.
See the platform that comms, marketing, and compliance teams use to run their advocacy program.
