How to leverage customer advocacy

In today’s consumer-driven society, word travels fast thanks to social media. Whether positive or negative, customers can share their experiences of brands at the click of a button and influence others.

People actively use social media channels to ask for connections’ product and service recommendations, and it’s becoming a more common practice than using Google search to find answers.

Having a base of customer advocates presents a huge opportunity for businesses to build brand authenticity and increase revenue, as research shows 77% of all purchases are made as a result of personal recommendations (Socxo).

If your business is customer-focused, it’s likely you already have satisfied customers singing your praises without incentive. But, there are ways to seek out the people championing your brand, and attract more, to boost your customer advocacy.

To identify the best potential promoters of your brand and begin establishing customer advocacy, you should do the following:

Analyse your reviews

Reviews are a clear indicator of what your customers think. Glowing reviews will give you your first set of happy advocates. And, any negative reviews are also useful to reveal areas you need to improve.

Define advocate personas

Identify the personas that you would like to showcase as your advocates. Next, match these persona types to different activities within your marketing strategy, while simultaneously establishing a sustained loop for product improvement via valuable feedback and mutual branding through collaborative content creation and sharing.

Focus on creating an outstanding customer experience, every time

Business strategies focused on customer satisfaction drum up the best results. When Amazon first developed Prime it drew some criticism for appearing too good to be true. Now, it’s clear that a move purely aimed at pleasing customers, rather than increasing short-term profits, has paid off.

And, once you’ve built a base of customer advocates, you can make it easier for them to talk about your brand by equipping them with the right tools.

Origin Blurbs encourages your loyal customers to do what they naturally already do; spread the word about your brand. It also inspires them to share their experiences, leading to user-generated content and amplified organic reach.