You’re ready for a brand ambassador. This is someone who likes your brand so much, they’ll say nice things about it, even though it’s not their job to do so. Brand ambassadors work because they’re normal people who believe in a product or service. They’re the next step up from word of mouth marketing and testimonials.
Consider nurturing your brand ambassadors (and creating them from people who gave you testimonials) by adding a valuable incentive that will further build their brand loyalty.
Some brands do this through affiliate marketing and referral partners. That may be the route you choose, but first you’ll need a system to identify the brand ambassadors. For this, we use an automated marketing campaign through Keap (formerly Infusionsoft). Our system works like this:
We created a campaign that allows us to ask for client feedback.
Based on their feedback, we segment our clients into three categories:
Satisfied, Neutral/Undecided, and Dissatisfied.We have a campaign that automatically begins for each category:
Satisfied: We request a written testimonial. We make the process simple and are sure to thank them for their time with a bonus. If they give a particularly great testimonial, we may reach out to them personally to see if we can get a video testimonial. Only Satisfied clients are considered for brand ambassadors and our incentive/reward program.
Neutral/Undecided: This is a great opportunity to improve the relationship with our client by not being afraid to reach out to them to turn their “meh” into a “WOW.” Here we would ask for further feedback and schedule a call to follow up. You never know if you can turn them into a Satisfied client unless you try.
Dissatisfied: We haven’t made every client happy. Sometimes this was beyond our control, and other times it’s not. You will need to use discretion with how you want to proceed. I evaluate each case-by-case situation and divide these into two categories:
We were wrong. If this is the case, we are quick to admit our shortcomings and take responsibility for our actions. We’ll try to salvage what we can, and will use this time to learn, grow and build a better experience.
We did everything we could and still could not please them. Sometimes we go the extra mile, and the client still doesn’t get the the results they wanted. Sometimes clients can’t be pleased no matter how much you try. In this case, this is the end of the relationship as problem-solving has already been attempted.
Introduce them to your incentive/reward program: Now that they are happy and gave you a testimonial, what a great opportunity to build a stronger relationship than by rewarding them for just sharing with people, “how great you are!”
All this is achievable through Keap (formerly Infusionsoft), and we already have some of these campaigns built so you can simply modify them to your needs. If you need them fully, customized we can do that, too. Just schedule a complimentary consult with us, and we’ll get the ball rolling.
This is part of a series on simplifying and aligning your brand message with your marketing. Start reading the series from the beginning, or let us know how you’ve been able to implement the tools we’ve discussed.