Customers are the lifeblood of any business, but how can you increase customer lifetime value to ensure more customers spend with your business more often? By converting your customers into brand ambassadors who will evangelise about how amazing your business is. An army of brand ambassadors will be more powerful than any marketing team because potential customers are much more likely to make a purchase based on the suggestions of previous customers. So how can businesses motivate and delight their customers to help spread the gospel about their brand?
Firstly, you must understand the definition of a brand ambassador.
These are your best customers who are such avid users of your products or services, they are more than happy to publicly promote your business and sing your praises to whoever will listen. Think of them as your very own marketing team – except they’re not on payroll!
Discover our top tips for creating a loyal army of brand ambassadors:
Build a fantastic business to ensure customers are fanatical about your brand
If you provide high-quality products and services, you’ll give your customers plenty of reasons to promote your offering for free simply because they love your business. Additionally, if you’re an ecommerce only enterprise, you should already be offering a personalised experience from purchase to delivery. It also goes without saying that a seamless, customer service experience is equally important, if not more so. Customers need to feel like their concerns are being listened to and feel confident their issues will be resolved swiftly.
Give customers incentives for spending their hard-earned cash with you
No matter your industry, there will always be competitors trying to woo your customers away so you shouldn’t take for granted the fact they choose to spend with you versus another brand. Reward customers for making purchases by developing loyalty, affiliate and referral programmes. There’s plenty of ecommerce loyalty software that even rewards customers for simple actions like social shares and newsletter subscriptions, giving them even more reasons to fall in love with your brand! Better still, with affiliate and referral schemes, current customers are financially rewarded for every new customer they bring on board so what better way to encourage them to evangelise about your brand?
Create a customer-centric experience where they feel like VIPs
Spend time developing a long term customer relationship where they feel valued and invested in your brand from their very first purchase. Remember your existing customers are just as important as your new customers so consider creative ways to give them the rockstar treatment. You could spotlight your customers in marketing campaigns and spoil your best customers with special perks, discounts and exclusive product access so they feel extra special.
Create and cultivate online communities
Customers love the idea of being part of a tribe where they can meet other customers and share their love for your offering. Why not create an online forum, Facebook group or Slack channel where customers can interact directly with your business? You could use these spaces as an opportunity to communicate with customers in real-time and even give them exclusive access to offline and online events to foster that sense of community.
Use social proof to influence prospective customers
Leverage social media, customer reviews, testimonials, case studies and endorsements to show prospective customers how much your offering is loved by your existing customer base. Encourage customers to submit user-generated content like blog posts and video tutorials which you can share across your social platforms and promote their personal profile. Make customers feel invested in your business by requesting they contribute product feedback or participate in beta testing so they are playing an active role in your business success.
If you want to convert your customers into brand ambassadors, you need an ecommerce store to make it even easier for people to buy from your business. Get a free webstore with integrated payment gateways for your business on Prospa. You can upload your products, manage inventory and automate sales for your products and services.
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