The Archive May 02, 2015

Four Steps to Creating Loyal Brand Evangelists

The Mutual Benefits to Company and Customer of Brand Evangelism

The consumer electronics behemoth known as Apple may enjoy the highest concentration of brand evangelists to be found in any current company’s customer base. Because of this, Apple may be a bit of an anomaly and is certainly in a class all its own.

But just what is a brand evangelist?

It’s a customer who is so enamored of a product or service that he or she voluntarily, repeatedly and without recompense touts that product or service to everybody within earshot, eyeshot, tweet-shot and status-shot.

Brand evangelists (also referred to as brand loyalists, brand ambassadors, brand champions and brand maniacs) are “a minority of your followers,” wrote Ross Wilson on the Ignite Social Media website, “but they are ones that should be cultivated and catered to.”

The trick to social media is that there are no tricks to social media.

Brand evangelism might strike some people as a fluky phenomenon, but it can be kindled and nurtured, according to Rosario Drago, visiting professor of marketing at Villanova University.

In an email to me, Drago explained that brand evangelism always starts with a perception of value.

“Many companies seem to forget about this,” he wrote. “Without a product or service that has an advantage over what is already available — that resonates with consumers — a relationship will never be built.”

A company that lacks a product or service that stirs passion in customers isn’t likely to turn many of them into brand evangelists, Drago added.

“Failing to prove that your brand and products/services are valuable to consumers will make it hard to ever gain traction in your respective industry, let alone have individuals rave about you,” Shane Gamble wrote for the Sweet Tooth blog. “If your customer does not view your offering as meaningful and important in their lives, they are unlikely to advocate it. The benefits that customers receive from using your brand should far outweigh the cost associated with purchasing them.”

Here are some other steps to properly nourish brand evangelism:

1. What Are You on If You’re Not on Message?

What would you think if you saw a personal ad like the following?

First off, I’m male, very fit, and obsessed with buffets. I’m 110 years old but I look MUCH younger! I have been told that I am handsome, loathsome, articulate and monosyllabic. You should be fond of kids, childlessness, farms, urban blight, antiques from the Arts & Crafts period and stark, industrial interiors. I am sure you will agree that some of life’s pleasures include fine dining, convenience store hot dogs, sports cars, public transportation, good music of all kinds, sensory deprivation chambers, penthouses and sinkholes. I love holding hands, high-fives, sending flowers and stomping flowerbeds.

You’d probably think the person who wrote it was either confused or demented.

But when a company is not clear about its brand message or a company’s employees are not all on the same page about that message, then the result is akin to that fractured personal.

“The first step in recruiting evangelists starts within,” according to Sara Varni at Desk.com. “You need to clearly articulate your brand. Know who you are and what your values will be. Establish a distinctive voice. It takes a little time but it’s worth it to create a playbook that everyone can work from. You can’t expect employees to be ambassadors for your brand if they don’t know what it is! Once you’ve determined what your brand will be you need to build excitement about it among your team and make sure that your brand philosophy flows into every customer interaction.”

2. Develop Social Media Dexterity

In September 2014, Britton Marketing & Design Group posted a list of common social media gaffes. The social media sphere is a place where brand insincerity always glares and is always easily and exhaustively rooted out.

“Lameness Can’t Create Loyalty” is No. 3 on Adam Hanft’s list of evangelizing social media rules on the Fast Company website.

Brands have to give their customers the same respect, attention and energy that one friend might devote to another.

Sometimes lameness in social media can resemble a bad stand-up comedy routine: “How you all doing tonight? Good? Hey, how many people out there are married? Wow, men and women really are different, aren’t they?”

Hanft wrote: “Would you want to be friends, and hang out with someone who always feels obligated to spout something, even when they have absolutely nothing of interest on their minds?”

The trick to social media is that there are no tricks to social media.

If a brand wants to use social media to forward its goals, it needs to be genuine, smart, sincere, respectful and creative in that sphere. The bottom line is that brands should not engage in and with social media if they can’t, as Hanft wrote, “behave with breathtaking responsiveness.”

He added, “Increasingly, more and more companies are turning to social media to address customer service issues.” Brands can “create evangelists by demonstrating corporate flexibility, a stop-at-nothing obsession with consumer satisfaction.”

3. Add Value

Wilson cited several examples in his post of brands (Donna Karan and Coca-Cola) that found ways to add value that might not have occurred to more traditionally minded companies.

“Donna Karan,” he wrote, “set itself apart with its social media by becoming more than just a landing page and update source for a brand. The high-end fashion brand set out to actually become a part of its target market’s community, and provide a platform for not just the brand but also become a go-to source for New York lifestyle news and updates.”

A brand evangelist is a customer who is so enamored of a product or service that he or she voluntarily, repeatedly and without recompense touts that product or service to everybody within earshot, eyeshot, tweet-shot and status-shot.

Wilson wrote that Coca-Cola’s Facebook page was actually started by fans of the beverage. When Facebook informed the company that it would have to start running the page itself, Coca-Cola decided to keep fans in the administrative loop.

“They actually hired the initial page creators, Dusty Sorg and Michael Jedrzejewski, who continue to work for Coke on a freelance basis,” Wilson explained.

4. You Gotta Have Friends

Many of the headings in articles about brand evangelism (“Real Friends Don’t Impose — Unless There’s a Good Reason,” “Never Forget, Happy Employees Make Customers into Brand Evangelists,” “Interact with Your Customers on Their Level and in Their Voice,” etc.) refer to the same thing.

Brands have to give their customers the same respect, attention and energy that one friend might devote to another.

“Having faithful and active friends’ of your brand,” Wilson wrote, “can be much more valuable than garnering countless, meaningless Facebook Likes. It takes some extra time within the campaign to garner and develop these friendships, but they can really pay off. Communication with the active members of a social network does a lot to help build these relationships. By showing them that the brand is more than just a one-way platform for promotion, they’ll be that much more likely to care about the brand.”

Photos: Shutterstock

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