How do you get there? How do you create these customer relationships and get them to advocate for your business by writing reviews<\/a>? It all starts with understanding what your customer needs, how you can provide them with value, and how you can keep them engaged. Want to start driving online reviews today? Check out these eight customer advocacy tips to do so:<\/p>\n For starters, round up your existing advocates, understand their behaviors, and begin to recruit new, similar brand advocates. While attempting to find new advocates can be a challenge, if you spend time creating an ideal advocate profile, you can recruit those candidates from your current customer base.<\/p>\n If you strategically build and nurture your advocate network, they\u2019ll be more likely to share their experience with your brand by writing online reviews, giving testimonials, and interacting with potential customers in their network. So be sure to give them a place to advocate! This is the most effective form of word-of-mouth marketing<\/a><\/u>.<\/p>\n Want to make being a part of your advocate network more appealing? Make your brand advocates feel exclusive. I don\u2019t know about you, but when something is exclusive, it makes me want it more. So, by creating a feeling of exclusivity within your advocate network, recruiting new brand advocates becomes that much easier.<\/p>\n Why? Because people love to be the first ones to have a behind-the-scenes look at your new product or what\u2019s going on in your business; It makes them feel special, important. If you can give them this, they\u2019ll be more apt to leave glowing reviews about the product they knew about first.<\/p>\n Source<\/a><\/p>\n Piggybacking off the tip above, get your brand advocates involved. Seems simple, but it\u2019s extremely meaningful and therefore, effective.<\/p>\n So you\u2019ve let them in on an exclusive first look at a potential new product? Let them be involved in certain stages of design, development, and testing of that product. Conduct focus groups among your brand advocate network. Allow them to give insight on new messaging for the product launch. Whatever it may be, involve them and when it comes time for the product to be released to the public, you better believe your brand advocates will be the first customers to leave reviews.<\/p>\n Empower your customer advocates! The simplest way to do this is to give them the affirmation they deserve. Formally recognize who they are, what they\u2019re doing for you, and the impact that they\u2019re having. This will directly correlate with how supportive your advocates will be to your business. The more positive affirmation you give them, the more they\u2019ll give you in return.<\/p>\n Your customers want to know they\u2019re being heard. That being said, be sure to respond to customer feedback, both positive and negative. Take the time to personally respond to their thoughts, questions, joys, and concerns to show them that you\u2019re listening and that you care about their opinions. If they know they will be acknowledged, they will be more likely to leave online reviews moving forward.<\/p>\n Email marketing has become a powerful tool when it comes to both converting leads to customers and retaining those customers. In fact, according to VentureBeat, 84% of marketers<\/a><\/u>\u00a0believe email is important or critically important for customer loyalty. And as I mentioned before, loyal customers will be your biggest brand advocates. With that, nurture email campaigns are an easy way to win customers and keep them coming back.<\/p>\n There are many different types of email nurture series that you could use, and when it comes to easily roll out these email campaigns, using marketing automation<\/a><\/u>\u00a0software\u00a0proves to be most efficient.<\/p>\n1. Build your advocate network<\/h2>\n
2. Give your advocates feel a sense of exclusivity<\/h2>\n
![\"pura-vida-exclusive-content\"](\"https:\/\/referralrock.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/pura-vida-exclusive-content-1024x503.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n3. Offer meaningful involvement<\/h2>\n
4. Give your advocates affirmation<\/h2>\n
5. Respond to customer feedback<\/h2>\n
6. Nurture campaigns<\/h2>\n
![\"email](\"https:\/\/referralrock.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/email-marketing-tips.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
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