Loyalty Blogs

Gaining the attention of customers and retaining them for the long run is a good thing for business success but finding customers who not only purchase frequently but go out of their way to promote and represent the brand to others is just like hitting the jackpot. Having even a few brand ambassadors can make your business go a long way as they are willing to provide free marketing for your brand’s offerings. However, turning your best customers into brand ambassadors is not child’s play.  

That is where reliable Loyalty Program Software comes into action, which can enable businesses to build a strong strategy to discover, engage and nurture brand ambassadors. Without wasting further time, let’s learn how your business can drive a path to incentivize your existing customers and encourage them to become brand fans.  

How Can Loyalty Programs Choose Your Brand Ambassadors & Reward Them? 

A dedicated Brand Loyalty Program for your business is a great way to identify, motivate, and reward brand advocates. Here are some of the techniques that can help in achieving these objectives!  

1. Focus on Segmentation 

The first step is to implement a tiered system within the loyalty program where the tiers are exclusively designed with brand advocacy in mind. This will help ensure that the ones who reach the highest tier are truly dedicated customers and actively promoting your brand  

2. Encourage to Unlock Better Rewards 

The next step is to follow a structured criteria system showcasing how customers can progress through the tiers and take actions to unlock extra perks and additional points earnings.  

Some ways include focusing on social media engagement, encouraging the participation of customers in social media challenges and contests, and giving reviews to motivate customers and incentivize them to spread the word about the business. Setting up a friend referral loyalty system can play a huge role in making this possible.   

3. Deliver Tailored Rewards 

Building brand ambassador relationships with businesses should be a win-win situation for both sides. This means both business and brand ambassadors should be in a mutually beneficial agreement. For the company, this leads to positive word-of-mouth, a dedicated and willing target following, measurable KPIs, and a trustworthy presence across social media. 

On the other hand, by becoming loyal customers or influencers, one can unlock tangible benefits, which can be part of the ambassador tier rewards or agreed upon separately. Some benefits are gifted products, product renting opportunities, partner rewards, VIP in-store treatment, appearances in promotion campaigns, taking part in launch events, gaining access to limited edition products, etc.  

4. Engage Your Brand Ambassadors 

The most important step is to keep your brand ambassadors engaged as it is crucial to properly utilize their influence and make the best of it to unlock business benefits. Listed below are some of the ways to make the best of this relationship- 

• Showcase Product Videos 

Businesses can make use of a virtual try-on product filter and encourage their ambassadors to take part in this campaign. All they need to do is create a video trying out the filter and encourage their followers to duet the video showing off how the products work for them.  

• Promote Exclusive Sales 

Another thing that brand ambassadors can do is share experiences about their purchases, their best buys during the promotion, top-selling products, as well as products that fail to meet expectations or suggestions for enhancement. 

• Create Interactive Videos 

Your business can encourage the ambassadors to create interactive videos where they genuinely ask their followers about preferred functionalities, colours, likes/dislikes about the product, and any features that the products may lack. 

• Build Active Communities 

Another effective way is to help in building active communities where ambassadors create unboxing videos of products they purchased from the brand, their first impression and how they are featuring products to inspire their followers to try them. For instance, if it is the clothing sector, they can show how they are styling and using them in the best possible way.  

The key to making the program successful is to take your time to choose the right customers, create a clear (and achievable) strategy, and reward your advocates effectively. This method can be beneficial in many ways such as generating organic word-of-mouth, enhancing social engagement, boosting brand awareness, and strengthening customer loyalty.  

Tips to Keep in Mind While Choosing Brand Ambassadors 

Before choosing the right brand ambassadors, it is important to ensure that your products and services are of high quality with all customer touchpoints, including customer service and loyalty programs well-executed. Once the loyal customers are finalized, it’s time to create a strategy based on the current brand position and goals such as enhancing brand awareness, launching new campaigns, etc.  

After setting clear objectives for your brand ambassador program, make sure that you consider your budget to choose whether you want to establish an organic brand advocacy system, a paid partnership model, or a combination of both approaches. Having a clear strategy and goals in place is a must to engage and incentivize potential brand ambassadors.  

Another tip is to encourage customers to be a part of your community and advocate for your brand involves emphasizing your brand values across all channels, being genuine in communication, and investing in social listening. Showing such solution-focused content that adds practical value can help in making word-of-mouth promotion more successful for the brand, thereby leading to a higher chance of bringing in new customers.  

Final Takeaways 

As we are aware of the significance of loyalty programs focused on nurturing brand ambassadors, ensure that you build an appealing incentive program that caters to your influencer needs. The most important thing that must be kept in mind while building brand ambassador relationships is to know the kind of brand ambassador you are looking for. This means the key to building a successful program is to identify brand advocates, encourage new referrals and reward accordingly.  

If you are planning to retain loyal customers and turn them into brand advocates, get in touch with the experts of Novus, your all-in-one customer loyalty software that enables businesses to achieve brand advocacy by giving more focus to valuable customers. Book a demo to unlock the path of business success and turn loyal customers into brand advocates.