What are Ambassadors?

Times have changed. Gone are the days when companies promote on traditional media to promote their products and services. Nowadays, you can tap different brand ambassadors or advocates in different niches to promote your product for you.

One way to make sure they are tracked effectively and easily on your end is by implementing a shopify referral software.

What are Ambassadors?

Brand ambassadors are those who uphold the name of the brand in their social media posts and blogs. There are two types. The first type is often an influencer.

This is a person who has a significant amount of followers and they are paid to promote a product or service. The second type is the loyal supporter. They are often fans and loyal customers of the brand and they promote the brand just because they like it.

These ambassadors are born out of good products and services. You can only get them if you have a product or service that is so good that they cannot help but share it with other people. In this article, I will be focusing more on the second type.

Ambassadors vs Referrals

Ambassadors are different from referrals because they don’t need a reward to promote your product. While most referrals are generated because of your referral incentive, ambassadors will promote your product because they like it. Ideally, you’ll want more ambassadors than referrals.

This is because ambassadors can promote you again and again without expecting anything in return. The difference between ambassadors and referrals is the intention. The intention of the referral is to win the reward while the intention of the ambassador is to share his good experience.

How Can You Get Ambassadors for Your Brand?

If you want to get more ambassadors for your brand, you need to attract them. Here are some ways to do that.

Aim for Excellence

Ambassadors are only attracted to excellence. Aside from an excellent product or service, they also expect excellent after-sales or customer service. This is because you will not pay them for their promotions.

They will do it out of their own free will. They will only do this if the product or service is worth their time.

Build Your Community

Social proof drives everything nowadays. While an ambassador may claim that he likes a certain product, it doesn’t mean anything if no one agrees with him. This is what a community is for.

You need a group of people that supports your ambassador’s claims. This way, the review will seem more real to your prospects.

Tap Influencers

While influencers are also called as brand ambassadors, you can attract more loyal customers (the second type) if you tap their power. Influencers are called as such because they have followers. These people consume their content and take note of their recommendations.

Because of this, their followers tend to be action takers – an asset for businesses. In fact, influencer marketing generates the highest quality leads. While other forms of marketing generate traffic.

Influencer marketing generates more conversions and sales. This is because of the bond between the influencer and his followers.

Host a Contest

Another way to gain new ambassadors is to host a contest. In fact, seasoned marketers have used this method because it works. Hosting a contest often attracts not only influencers but other marketers as well.

If done right, you can get new ambassadors in the process.

Here’s how it works.

First, you set the prize for your contest. This should be attractive enough that your market would want to share it through social media. Next, you should state the contest mechanics.

It should be easy to understand and should foster sharing. It is important to ask your prospects to like your social pages and to share it. This will get more traffic into your page.

Third, you should launch it. From here, you should promote your contest to influencers to gain more market traction. How can this method generate new ambassadors?

As more people promote your site (even if it is just for the contest), the more people will be interested in your brand. Once they try your products or services and they like it, they will eventually become brand ambassadors.

Recognize Your Existing Ambassadors

It helps to communicate with your existing ambassadors. These are people who have already mentioned your brand on social media, commented in your blog or social media post or shared their experience about your products and services. You can track these through a tool like Mention.

This is a tool that notes all the mentions of your brand name across the Internet. This way, you can reach out to them to tell them you appreciate them.

Recruit Your Competitor’s Ambassadors

An underhand tactic is to recruit your competitor’s ambassadors. This can be done by looking at the influencers that is currently promoting your competitor’s products and give them your products to review. It is important to not ask them to promote your product.

You can just ask them to try it and ask for their feedback. If they like your product, they will promote it to their followers and you’ll end up getting your competitor’s ambassadors. Another way to do this is to contact the ambassadors themselves.

These are the people that have mentioned the product at least once. You can track these through Mention. From here, you can ask them to review your product or give them your product for free.

If they like it, they’ll most probably switch.

Regularly Update Your Offers

Sometimes, your customers just need something to talk about to promote you. To do that, just update your offers. Offer rotational discounts.

Offer freebies. Launch a referral program if needed. Once you get a significant amount of ambassadors, you can give them something to share and talk about every week. This will eventually attract more customers to your site.

Nurture Your Ambassadors

Once you have brand ambassadors, it is important to nurture them. Give special discounts if needed. Make them feel special. After all, they are promoting you without expecting anything in return.

The least you can do is make them feel appreciated.