Brand advocacy can be considered the goal of any marketing plan. Imagine satisfied consumers willingly advocating that others utilize your brand's products over others simply because of how friendly your customer service was or how succinctly your product solved a problem.
The best part about it is that brand advocacy is the marketing plan that keeps on giving so long as your company adheres to the quality that turned a regular customer into an advocate in the first place.
The tricky thing about brand advocacy is that it's hard to turn a regular customer into an advocate. You need to earn the individual's trust before they're willing to vouch for your brand to their friends and family.
Let's explore how you can use email marketing, PPC, SEO and social media to elevate your customers to the level of advocates for your brand.
Search Engine Optimization: The Cornerstone for Advocacy
The first step to creating satisfied customers whom will advocate your brand to others is to create an informed consumer. The best way to do this is through the use of your web properties.
Content marketing and search engine optimization that puts your pages at the top of web search queries can provide information to your consumers about their problems and how your products solve them.
The important thing to remember here is that SEO should work on informing. If the customer chooses to purchase your product, then that's an added benefit.
PPC Campaigns: Raising Awareness
Brand awareness is another key factor that needs to be prevalent before advocates appear for your brand. One of the best ways to raise it is through smart pay-per-click campaigns.
The idea is that you target sponsored search engine phrases that buyers are likely using. This allows you to create a profit while creating a customer.
Your products and your landing pages should work to establish a form of contact between the customer and your business.
Email Marketing: Bridging the Gap
Emails represent a personal way to notify customers of updates to their favorite products and to inform about special events your business might hold.
You can also use it to create a dialogue with your customers so that they may learn more about your brand. This is one of the key steps to creating an advocate for your brand.
Social Media: Rapid Back-and-Forth Communication
The last part of raising advocates for your brand requires that you have communications with your customers where others customers can plainly see how your company fixes problems, addresses concerns, and answers questions.
Consider social media a form of public relations with your average consumer. Engaging in social networking establishes more brand awareness and works to convert your customers into people whom refer others to your business.
Equal Parts of a Whole
Creating advocates for your brand requires that you thoroughly invest in the aforementioned options. Each should be a core part of your marketing strategy to ensure that your customers work for you to spread your products by word of mouth.
The final point to remember about advocacy is that it takes a considerable amount of investment to create enough advocacy for your brand to expand your sales significantly. When you reach that point, you'll know that every minute and dollar invested to reach it was well worth it.