Effective word-of-mouth marketing programs can serve as vital lifelines for brand visibility and customer engagement. While strategies like social media advertising, SEO-enhanced content, and digital ads have their charms, ambassador programs often get sidelined, when in reality, these can be a goldmine for business growth.
But in order to achieve this growth, you need ambassadors who love your program and want to keep participating. Ensuring active ambassador engagement is a critical challenge many brands face when managing an ambassador program. To help you navigate this, we unfold a detailed guide on improving your program’s engagement.
Who counts as a brand ambassador?
Brand ambassadors are representatives of your brand who promote you in the long term, both online and offline. These ambassadors play an important role in helping to spread awareness of your brand. They help you build your brand reputation, carve stronger customer relationships, and drive new leads and sales. However, even with their strong enthusiasm to champion your brand, getting the growth you need from an ambassador program is impossible without adequate engagement.
What is brand ambassador engagement?
Brand ambassador engagement relates to how deeply involved your ambassadors are with your brand. It is how often and effectively ambassadors promote your brand and its offerings through the ambassador program.
When your ambassadors are sharing your brand regularly and enthusiastically through the program, and seem excited about the program, they are engaged. The higher their level of interaction and conversation about your brand, the greater their brand engagement is.
Driving ambassador engagement is especially important to the success of a more informal ambassador program, where ambassadors aren’t required to promote you with a given frequency. In such cases, optimizing the performance of these ambassadors becomes integral to your brand’s growth path.
How to measure ambassador engagement?
Determining the level of engagement is crucial to the success of your ambassador program, as it sets the direction for future marketing strategies. Understanding how invested your ambassadors are in your brand can provide valuable insights into your brand’s market position and how to improve it.
You can measure engagement based on the frequency of shares ambassadors make in a given time frame, or the percentage of ambassadors actively sharing you in a given month or quarter.
Mistakes that can lower ambassador engagement
Several pitfalls can critically lower ambassador engagement. By identifying these, you can take appropriate measures to maximize engagement and contribution to business growth. Watch out for these “engagement killers” and take steps to combat them:
A faded program: Not keeping the program fresh can cause a major drop off in engagement. In fact, a stagnant program can make your ambassadors move toward competitors who offer more attractive packages. Ambassador programs should be vibrant and updated with fresh content, offers, and incentives to keep ambassadors genuinely interested and motivated.
Communication gaps: If you don’t update ambassadors enough, that will also lower your ambassador engagement. Regular interaction or updates can go a long way in keeping the engagement level high. A simple email or a call can show your ambassadors that they are valued. It also gives them a sense of belonging to your brand.
Wrong ambassador selection: Choosing the wrong-fit ambassadors (say, people who love your brand but who don’t feel comfortable promoting it on social media) can drastically lower your engagement rates. Not all brand enthusiasts make effective ambassadors. A good ambassador is a perfect blend of brand love, comfort in promoting your brand, and a dedicated follower base that matches your target audience.
Flaws in management: Consistent and effective management forms the backbone of a successful ambassador program. Organized and systematic management ensures that every ambassador understands their roles and responsibilities, which drives them to perform better. On the other hand, inefficient management systems can lead to lower engagement and might demotivate the ambassadors from pushing your brand.
Unappealing incentives or no incentives: Yes, ambassadors are willing to promote you for little to no compensation, but they deserve meaningful rewards for their efforts. Offering rewards that aren’t enticing (or not offering rewards at all) can cause a drastic dip in engagement. So, be sure to offer incentives that ambassadors actually want to earn, and that reflect the value of their work.
Boosting ambassador engagement: Proven strategies
Engaged brand ambassadors can deliver a significant impact on your business, attracting new leads, enhancing your brand image, and establishing deeper customer connections. And to achieve this, businesses need to adopt certain strategic initiatives that will boost ambassador engagement. To better navigate this process, outlined below are some actionable strategies that your brand can adopt to fuel the growth and productivity of your ambassador program.
Know your engagement goals
For brands aspiring to make the most of their ambassador program, the first step involves identifying their unique requirements. This step is crucial because the strategies for enhancing ambassador engagement can significantly vary according to the type of business, its size, target audience, or even the industry in which the business operates.
Regardless of whether you’re planning to start an ambassador program, or ramp up an existing one, comprehending the key elements that drive success is paramount. This helps improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your ambassador program.
Select the right ambassadors
The success of your brand ambassador program significantly depends on your ambassadors’ selection. Therefore, the process of selecting brand ambassadors should be handled with the utmost care and diligence. When you’re faced with applications from potential ambassadors or when you’re reaching out to influencers, it’s imperative to gauge their fit for the role based on their personality, follower base, content quality, and passion for your brand.
Look for ambassadors who:
- Love your brand and already are promoting you without prompting
- Are comfortable talking with people one-on-one about your brand (online and offline)
- Are active on social media regularly, with a track record of high-quality content
- Have other key brand ambassador skills
Choose the right rewards
Rewards serve as one of the best motivation strategies to drive ambassador engagement. So, carefully consider the type of rewards you plan to offer your ambassadors. This will involve understanding the preferences and expectations of your ambassadors, and also examining industry standards for ambassador programs.
Pick rewards you know your ambassadors want to earn – you may need to ask ambassadors directly. And think about a commission structure, where ambassadors earn cash or credits based on the sales they make (this inherently motivates more engagement as the rewards are performance based).
Cash, or credits towards your products, may seem like the best rewards. But don’t stop there. These additional perks will show ambassadors how much you value them and inspire them to keep promoting you:
- Discount codes for ambassadors and their followers
- Free access to new products, before the public can buy
- Exclusive events for top-performing ambassadors
Keep refining the reward system
While it is essential to maintain a robust reward system, introducing elements of novelty in your approach can amplify engagement. For instance, you could conduct a periodic assessment of your ambassadors’ performance and offer upgraded rewards to the highest-performing ambassadors. Or, you might increase rewards during slower periods or add bonuses during holidays. Also, ensuring that the rewards stay relevant and meaningful to the ambassadors is vital to maintaining their interest and motivation. So, ask ambassadors what rewards they would like to earn, and consider incorporating those rewards into your program.
You could also introduce bonus rewards for ambassadors achieving specific goals, as a token of appreciation for their struggle and dedication. This not just recognizes the ambassadors for their hard work but also inspires others to strive for similar recognition, thereby setting an environment of healthy competition among your ambassadors.
Embrace gamification
Gamification is a cutting-edge strategy that incorporates game-based components into a work environment. This strategy can infuse fun into the ambassador program and serve as a powerful tool for boosting ambassador engagement. The introduction of game elements can make the ambassador program more exciting and compelling, considerably enhancing participation, engagement, and productivity.
Introducing elements like leaderboards, points, and extra rewards can serve as excellent engagement drivers. Say, you might create a leaderboard that tracks who helped make the most sales or did the most ambassador activities, and then give added rewards to top performers. Or, create a contest where ambassadors compete to create the best UGC (user-generated content) and the winner gets a grand prize. Ambassadors will keep creating content, and promoting you, because they want to win.
Establish a community
Establishing a community of ambassadors can greatly enhance collaboration and ideation, facilitating better performance. Providing a platform for ambassadors to interact with each other, share ideas, and collaborate can lead to a more robust and enthusiastic group of brand ambassadors. This community approach can drive innovative strategies, promote camaraderie, and improve performance. Whether it’s an online forum, private social media group, or space on a group messaging platform (like Slack), facilitating a community can immensely help your brand engagement.
Seek feedback from ambassadors
Open communication channels promote trust, and seeking regular feedback from your ambassadors can serve as a great strategy to boost engagement. Gauging their satisfaction level and addressing their grievances can also work wonders in enhancing their performance. Moreover, feedback helps you understand what works in your program and what doesn’t, allowing you to adapt your program to better meet the needs and expectations of your ambassadors.
So, survey ambassadors to see what they like and don’t like about the program, and then incorporate their feedback. Also, integrate other ways to keep ambassadors involved and invested, such as involving them in product development, giving them a platform for their voices, and asking them for marketing ideas.
Send brand-related surprises
Everyone loves surprises! Sending your performing ambassadors surprises related to your brand not only feels rewarding but also promotes brand loyalty. However, the surprise should feel personal and not like another promotional strategy. It’s about making your ambassadors feel special, showing them your appreciation, and encouraging more active participation from them.
Consider sending new products before they are released to the public, or make customized care packages for each of your ambassadors. This will make ambassadors feel valued – and they’ll likely talk about the package they received.
Celebrate ambassadors’ success
Regularly acknowledging the top performers with additional rewards, or public recognition, can keep your ambassadors motivated. Highlighting their success stories on your brand’s website, social media platforms, and other channels can make them feel appreciated, encouraging them to continue their excellent work. Displaying their success stories not only motivates them but also inspires other ambassadors to perform better.
Keep your ambassadors posted
Updating your ambassadors with the latest content, changes to the program, or any other brand-related updates can serve as a gentle nudge to promote your content and align their activities with your brand’s targets. Consistent communication enables your ambassadors to respond quickly to changes, enhancing the efficiency of their promotional activities. Furthermore, constant communication ensures that your brand remains fresh in the ambassadors’ minds, fostering better engagement and loyalty.
Here are some ways to keep ambassadors in the loop:
- Send updates on the ambassador program, and your brand as a whole, whenever they occur.
- Periodically send “reminder” emails about the program. You might combine this with other helpful or fun info, or add it in a newsletter to remind ambassadors of the program.
- You might also hold one-on-one video calls to check in with individual ambassadors.
Embrace ambassador software
Managing an ambassador program can be a cumbersome process, especially when handled manually. Ambassador software, like Referral Rock, simplifies tracking ambassador performance and ensures timely rewards for their contributions.
- Brand ambassador software creates links that track sales ambassadors motivate, and automatically pays out rewards when ambassadors earn them
- It also lets you send automated emails to keep ambassadors engaged
- Plus, with software, it’s easy to track ambassador engagement and take action if you see an engagement dip
The automation of these processes helps reduce manual effort, thereby saving time and resources. More importantly, this software aids in improving the efficiency of your ambassador program, promoting greater ambassador retention, boosting engagement, and enhancing overall performance.
Summing it up
To maximize ambassador engagement, it is crucial to carefully analyze and optimize your existing management programs. The right software, continuous updates, and enticing rewards, all contribute to promoting a greater degree of engagement. These elements, when executed effectively, fuel the growth of your ambassador program, improve business performance, and strengthen brand reputation in the long run. Therefore, focusing on these factors is a necessity if you want to spur the growth of your business and carve a distinctive place in this competitive market.
