How to create brand evangelists

Having a successful social media presence with plenty of Likes on Facebook and thousands of Twitter followers is powerful. It gives you a direct channel to reach loyal customers. But you can take this further by creating an army of brand evangelists.

Brand evangelists are your biggest fans. They are the ones that will go out of their way to spread the word about your brand, they talk about you, big you up to their friends and social media contacts and want to get involved in your brand beyond simply buying your product. According to Satmetrix  Evangelists spend 13% more than your average customer and refer business worth 45% of what they spend.

These people are marketing gold and should be not just encouraged but looked after.

So how do you go about building an army of loyal brand evangelists?

Allow your brand to resonate with people

You must align your brand with the lifestyles of your potential evangelists and create more meaning in your brand than simply products. Create an image around your brand that your customers want to part of. Find your niche audience or common ground among your fan base and use it to create a sense of common purpose among your fans.

If they believe they are buying into something bigger than simply your products they will be happy to advocate it.

Apple is the king of this strategy. The people that use its products are viewed as trendsetters and so have embedded themselves in peoples self-image.

Give them a reason to love you

Sometimes you have to give away to get back. When you’re starting off looking for these evangelists, why not lure then in with freebies. Bloggers are are a good place to start as you know they are already active on various web channels.

“We’re passionate about putting our customers in the driving seat at Zaggora, and this ethos has been key to growing advocates within our customer base,” says Dessi Bell, founder of sportswear company Zaggora.

“As a start up company, we took a grassroots approach to marketing when we launched. We sent 500 pairs of HotPants to bloggers and real women we connected with on Twitter, asking them to try the product for themselves and then tell us what they thought on our Facebook page.”

Create a community around your brand

If you create a sense of community among your fans, it gives them extra value rather than just your products. Social media makes this a lot easier for brands as you can create social places for them to go and share information, have conversations and you can add value to those places by creating content.

You can create a Facebook or Twitter handle where people go to get and share information. Start relevant conversations and ask for feedback on your product or service.. Give away secrets on your community platforms and make it worth your fans’ while coming back and engaging. Run competitions which encourage people to go out and create their own brand content and share it on your channels.

“Our Brand Ambassadors are a vital part of our business, and our relationship with them very much goes two ways,” explains Bell.

“We listen to their feedback and base our product development around what they tell us they want to buy. Through our social feeds and website, we give them a platform to communicate with and support each other, building a community that extends even beyond their association with our brand.

“We feature Ambassadors in our photo shoots; in fact, at our most recent shoot, women attended who had also been at our very first shoot in autumn 2011. This year, we’ll be expanding our Ambassador programme to reward our advocates even further.”

Communicate personally with your fans

Your loyal fans like to know that your brand is more than just a one way platform on communication.

If they are constantly tweeting about you, talking on Facebook etc. you should always get involved in the conversation too. It’s all well and good sending out tweets and group messages to your fans but if they are particularly active, their activity warrents a personal response from you. Your responses will serve to encourage their further involvement.

Give them a reason to keep sharing

A recommendation from a friend is six times more powerful than regular advertising according to Satmetrix so encouraging your brand evangelists to keep spreading the word could be worth more than a massive ad spend. Fellow customers are also more trust worthy than any salesperson you hire.

Offer your brand evangelists offers and special discounts for their continuing involvement and spreading of your good news.

“The voices of loyal Ambassadors, and, more importantly, taking the time to nurture your relationship with them, is one of the most powerful ways you can market your brand through word of mouth – and the massive growth of social media means that word of mouth spreads further and faster than ever,” says Bell.