What Are Brand Ambassadors?

A brand ambassador is a person who is passionate about a brand and willingly promotes it to others. They serve as the face of the brand and help create a positive image and reputation. Brand ambassadors can be customers, employees, influencers, or industry experts.

Some key characteristics of an effective brand ambassador include their genuine enthusiasm for the brand, their ability to effectively communicate the brand’s message, and their willingness to actively engage with their audience.

What Do Brand Ambassadors Do?

Brand ambassadors act as advocates and promoters of the brand, helping to increase its visibility, credibility, and reach. They can perform various activities such as:

• – Sharing positive experiences and recommendations about the brand through word-of-mouth marketing and on social media platforms.
• Creating content (e.g., user generated content, reviews, blog posts, videos) that highlights the brand’s products, services, or values.
• Attending and participating in brand events, promotions, or campaigns.
• Engaging with potential customers, answering questions, and providing valuable consumer insights about the brand.
• Representing the brand in a positive light and aligning their personal brand with the brand’s values and messaging.

By leveraging their influence, networks, and genuine passion for the brand, ambassador marketing can effectively communicate the brand’s message, build trust and loyalty, and attract new customers.

Types of Brand Ambassadors  

There are various types of brand ambassadors that you can collaborate with and there’s no good reason to limit to just one type. In fact, the best communities consist of a variety of people:

Customers and Brand Enthusiasts: Loyal customers who have had positive experiences with the brand’s products or services can share their personal stories and recommendations with their networks and potential customers. This is the most valuable type of ambassador for your brand.

Influencers: Influencers with a following on social media platforms like Instagram have the power to influence their followers’ purchasing decisions. Collaborating with influencers as brand ambassadors can increase brand awareness through influencer marketing.

Industry Experts: Partnering with industry experts who have a strong reputation and expertise in a specific field can lend credibility to the brand. These experts can share their knowledge, insights, and endorse the brand’s offerings.

Employees: Internal brand ambassadors are employees passionate about their company who actively promote it by sharing their experiences, showcasing the company culture, and advocating for the brand’s values on social media accounts.

Leveraging Customers and Brand Enthusiasts

Customers and brand enthusiasts are individuals who are truly passionate about a brand and actively promote it without any formal partnership or compensation. Partnering with these enthusiastic fans can have several benefits:

– They provide authentic advocacy, as their recommendations are often perceived as unbiased and authentic.

– They have their own networks and communities who trust their opinions, providing organic reach for the brand through word-of-mouth marketing.

– Partnering with brand enthusiasts is cost-effective, as it does not require monetary compensation. To partner with customers and brand enthusiasts provide them with a community that grants exclusive access and opportunities with your brand. Engage with them, feature their content, and build strong relationships which will lead to long-term loyalty and advocacy.

Utilizing Influencers as Brand Ambassadors  

Influencers can be powerful brand ambassadors due to their large and engaged following on social media platforms. Here’s how to effectively utilize influencers:

1. Research and identify relevant influencers: Look for influencers who align with the brand’s values, target audience, and industry. Analyze their engagement rates, audience demographics, and content quality.
2. Build a mutually beneficial partnership: Establish a partnership that benefits both the brand and the influencer, such as offering compensation, providing exclusive access to products or events, or co-creating content.
3. Set clear expectations and guidelines: Clearly communicate the brand’s messaging, goals, and any specific requirements or guidelines for the influencer’s content.
4. Invite them into your brand community: This is how to expand and extend the relationship past one off campaigns.
5. Measure and track performance: Implement a system to measure the impact of the influencer’s content and track key metrics such as reach, engagement, and conversions.

Engaging with Micro-Influencers for Authenticity

Micro-influencers, with a smaller but highly engaged following, also play a role and can be valuable brand ambassadors for creating authentic connections with the target audience. Engaging with micro-influencers can be beneficial because:

– They have genuine connections with their close-knit community of followers who trust their recommendations.

– They often have niche expertise and passion, lending credibility to the brand and attracting a highly targeted audience.

– Collaborating with micro-influencers is often more cost-effective compared to larger influencers.

When engaging with micro-influencers, establish a genuine relationship and provide them with the necessary resources and support, such as free products, exclusive discounts, or invitations to brand events.

Collaborating with Industry Experts

Collaborating with industry experts as brand ambassadors can significantly impact a brand’s credibility and reputation. By partnering with experts, brands can benefit from their expertise, insights, and network. The expert’s endorsement can build trust among the target audience and increase brand awareness.

To establish a mutually beneficial relationship, brands can offer exposure to the expert’s work or provide exclusive access to resources or events. In return, the expert can promote the brand, share their knowledge, and engage with the brand’s audience.

Leveraging Employee Advocacy

Employees can be powerful brand ambassadors, as they have an insider’s perspective and a deep understanding of the brand and its values. Here’s how to leverage employee advocacy programs:

1. Educate and empower employees: Provide training and resources to educate employees about the brand’s messaging, values, and key differentiators. Empower them to confidently represent the brand and share their experiences.
2. Encourage social media participation: Encourage employees to actively engage on social media platforms and share content related to the brand, such as company updates, new products or services, or their work.
3. Recognize and reward participation: Recognize and reward employees who actively participate in the advocacy program through shout-outs, incentives, or exclusive perks.
4. Provide guidelines and support: Establish guidelines and best practices for employees to follow when representing the brand on social media. Offer ongoing support and communication to address any questions or concerns.

Benefits of Brand Ambassadors

Leveraging brand ambassadors can provide several benefits for a brand, including:

• Increased brand awareness through amplification of the brand’s message and reach to a wider audience.
• Enhanced credibility and trust, as brand ambassadors have already built trust and credibility with their followers or connections.
• Authentic connections with the audience through the genuine enthusiasm of brand ambassadors.
• Cost-effective marketing compared to traditional advertising.
• Word-of-mouth marketing through the sharing of positive experiences and recommendations by brand ambassadors.

Overall, brand ambassadors can help elevate a brand’s visibility, credibility, and customer engagement in the long term, resulting in increased brand loyalty and business growth.

Starting a Brand Ambassador Program

When starting and running your brand ambassador program, consider the following:

1. Define program objectives: Determine the goals and objectives, such as increasing brand awareness, driving sales, or improving customer loyalty and customer service.
2. Identify potential brand ambassadors: Look for individuals who align with the brand’s values, have a strong online presence, and are influential within their networks.
3. Establish program guidelines: Create guidelines and expectations for brand ambassadors, including the frequency of promotion, use of specific hashtags or messaging, and requirements for disclosing the ambassadorship.
4. Provide resources and support: Equip brand ambassadors with necessary resources, such as branded content, product samples, or discount codes. Offer ongoing support and communication.
5. Track and measure results: Implement a system to track the performance and impact of the brand ambassador program to identify areas for improvement and measure success.

TINT’s ambassador marketing platform was designed to empower brands like yours to create and grow a thriving community of brand ambassadors that drive true business impact. 

Learn more here

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#2 Making “Experience” the New “Content”

In the 2010s, content was king. In the 2020s, “experience” will take the crown. Consumers will expect brand interactions to be immersive, personalized and creative, all while seamlessly blending digital ingredients with the offline world. We’ve been hearing about virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) for years, but with advancements in hardware, this technology is on its way out of the early adopters’ lane and into the mainstream. With product lines like Facebook’s Oculus, Microsoft’s HoloLens, Google’s Cardboard, and Apple’s anticipated new headset in 2021, marketers will need to integrate their brand into the VR/AR world and provide tangible experiences that foster emotional connections and lead to greater conversion and brand loyalty. Plus the rise of 5G will condition consumers to expect personalized messaging at almost instantaneous levels (and you thought real-time marketing was tough already). Thankfully, AI and machine learning will continue to aid marketers in navigating the infinite amount of data and algorithms.

What can you do to prepare?

1) Audit Your Existing Content to Find “Experience” Opportunities Embracing new technology doesn’t require reinventing the wheel. Take inventory of already-produced content and think about how it could translate to new technologies. This will dovetail to new ideas. 2) Don’t Silo “Technology” As you heard it preached for social, technology should be absorbed into all levels of an organization. Avoid creating silos and structures that cause bottlenecks for new technology to be adopted. 3) Become an Early Tech Adopter In the 2020s, marketing will be technology and technology will be marketing. The marketers of the next decade will be fully immersed in new advancements. Don’t wait for certain technologies to go mainstream before paying attention.

What’s Next?

The 2010s made it so anyone can have a pretty website. In the 2020s, it will take more than looks to win. How can you make your website a personalized engagement destination? Read our next post here.

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Brand-owned online communities offer marketers an always-on channel to connect with consumers through personalized experiences and engaging interactions. “Community” presents the next evolution of relationship marketing. It offers the two-way experience exchange a CRM list lacks, the data ownership a social media company won’t offer, and the emotional connection that doesn’t exist in traditional points-based loyalty programs.

Does a brand community move the needle in consumer perception and action? Resoundingly, the answer is yes.

Our Vesta solution helps dozens of brands cultivate and engage with owned consumer communities. We surveyed more than 5,000 consumers across multiple brand communities to better understand the impact a brand community has on consumer loyalty, brand perception, and purchase behaviors.

In our study we found:

• Community drives new consumer acquisition. 82% of community members “strongly agree” they are more likely to recommend the brand to others since joining the community
• Community heightens loyalty. 75% of community members “strongly agree” they feel more loyal to the brand since joining the community
• Community enhances brand equity. 78% reported higher overall brand satisfaction and higher overall trust in the brand  
• Community drives trial and purchase. 82% said they are more likely to purchase the brand since joining the community, with 59% saying they have already purchased more than one product within the brand portfolio since joining

Brand communities create a clear path for marketers to drive trial and awareness, repeat purchase and cut marketing costs, while also strengthening higher-order brand benefits like equity and trust. There is no doubt brand communities have quickly become an indispensable amplifier of the marketing stack. Read more in our article, published in Loyalty360.

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Through partnership and engagement, we prove our value to consumers, generate sustained engagement, and drive business impact. Emotional and more intangible benefits supersede standard product features and comparisons. We differentiate our brands through the quality of how and when we establish an emotional connection.

In this post, Elaine explores the last, and perhaps most important, pillar of relationship marketing success: community (specifically an online brand community).

The Key Role on an Online Brand Community

In today’s connected and social marketing world, most would agree on the critical role of community in building and sustaining brands, fostering loyalty, and driving ongoing engagement with your business.

What is the definition of community?

As we discuss the importance of community, let’s first ground ourselves in a definition of community:

A feeling of fellowship with others as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

As we consider what community really is, we see a natural, intuitive alignment with relationship marketing’s vision of partnership and non-selling approaches.

1. Community offers validation that the consumer has made an excellent choice to do business with your brand, supporting sustained interest
2. Community aligns your brand with authenticity – feeling connected to and having the perspective of a broader peer community supports the consumer’s trust in your brand
3. Community enables your consumers to feel truly understood – having a connection to others perceived to have similar interests is the hallmark of a relationship marketing vision
4. Community offers your consumers a sense of belonging – the feeling of being part of something bigger and special is one of the most natural, basic human needs
5. Community supports an emotional connection that sparks long-term loyalty and consumer advocacy
6. Community enables the consumer’s access to peer advice and mentoring – these practical resources and opportunities have far more influence than direct brand promotional claims
7. Community encourages loyalty by inspiring consumers to use your product in new ways and enhancing their receptiveness to doing so

Relationship Marketing & Community: Best Practices

Community as part of relationship marketing excellence sounds like a no-brainer, right? But as with most things, it all comes down to execution. It’s easy to buy into needing a sense of community conceptually for relationship marketing initiatives; the key is optimizing your community for relationship marketing success.

Here are some considerations that will allow you to maximize the value of community in your relationship marketing:

1. A brand community should feel distinct from your broader base of consumers. There should be a sense of exclusiveness in customer service, experience, and offers, and the focus should be on providing value in tangible and emotional ways
2. Marketers with communities may leverage the benefits of satisfaction surveys or other means to demonstrate “we are listening” and enhance relationships with our communities; however, it is important not just to take (by capturing feedback) but to give back (sharing the feedback you captured with the community and the ways you are using it). Sharing what you learned demonstrates partnership and two-way engagement, core principles of relationship marketing
3. Make sure the tool you use to foster your online community are designed to truly support your brand. Too often, Facebook Groups is thought of as the marketer’s sole community-building tool. But Facebook does not allow a brand to own their consumer relationships or data. And they require marketers to spend money on advertising to effectively distribute your posts. Instead, utilize social media as a launchpad and direct consumers to a community that has been optimized for your branding, data, advocacy, and insights needs, such as TINT community building software
4. Leverage an online brand community to activate advocacy, custom surveys, promotional offers, online reviews, recommendations, and hosted/moderated discussions. In addition to supporting community, the insights you’ll capture will support innovation in a more natural and real-time manner (vs. launching an expensive and time-consuming external research project). If your organization needs to re-invent its consumer engagement, this can help position re-invention to happen more incrementally and organically over time, with higher acceptance and buy-in from internal teams
5. Consider conducting pilots within your digital brand community of users as part of research, as well as part of your relationship building strategy. Results can be shared by community participants with a broader consumer group, deepening existing relationships, driving advocacy, and giving your community more reasons to be loyal to your brand

A thoughtful approach to optimizing your community over time will enable your brand to realize its full business value. Your online brand community is a special, captive audience. Continue to develop your Community Powered Marketing strategy and unlock its full potential.

Ready to see what Community Powered Marketing can do for your relationship marketing strategy?

Check out how hello, Grubhub, and Seventh Generation have harnessed the power of TINT’s all-in-one Online Community Building Software to grow their brand love.

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This week, we focus on rethinking the definition of opting-in, and explore why engaging with and activating these consumers is imperative.

A key enabler of collaboration and building value with your consumers is the process of allowing them to opt-in. For marketing purposes, opting-in refers to strategic relationship building vs. operational or compliance considerations.  

As we consider relationship marketing principles, it is easy to see why a critical resource for collaboration and building value together with your consumers is opt-in. Opt-in is often defined solely in an operational sense and from the marketer’s point of view: capturing email addresses or mobile numbers for building and executing to a customer list.

Consumer-Centricity is Key for Successful Opt-In Strategies

We take this a step further with a more customer-centric definition of opt-in:

Opt-In is a customer granting permission for marketing directly to them via email, mobile or other personalized vehicles, and in doing so, demonstrating confidence and trust that a marketer will understand, respect, and respond to his/her/their preferences.

When looking at opt-in as the process of gaining a consumer’s email address, it becomes purely operationally driven and passive, which is not the same as expressed consumer consent. If the individual has not granted permission, you not only risk creating a negative customer interaction, experience, or perception of your brand, but you also risk legal implications.

However, when looking at opt-in in a consumer-centric way, you are able to create hand-raisers – an audience that has actively granted permission for your message and invited it.

Opt-in, while definitely not a new concept, continues to be a jewel for building relationships. It is an indication the consumer believes in you and demonstrates some level of trust – with this foundation, you can focus on validating why the consumer has made a great decision to engage with you and/or use your product (and should continue to do so). This usually has fewer hurdles for a marketer in generating incremental revenue.  

Opt-In Comes With its Challenges

Opt-in is a simple concept for relationship marketing. It is not new, yet marketers often get it wrong:

– Once a person opts- in, marketers fail to follow up and immediately validate why the consumer made a great decision to opt-in. It is critical for the consumer to immediately understand the value of their opt-in decision. This can be an offer or your promise for what they can expect. A consumer should not opt-in, then have to wait an extended period of time before they actually hear from you (beyond the confirmation of opt-in, or fulfilling an operational requirement). Additionally, opt-ins are an elite group – differentiated offers, services, or customer experience (i.e. service, etc.) should be developed for this group.

– When a person opts-in, marketers pull the trigger on endless emails/messages, many of which may not be directly related to the consumer’s interest or context in which they opted in. Avoid bait-and-switch with your consumers.

– Marketers fail to assess preferences over time and how they change for an opt-in audience. An understanding of how opt-in customers migrate in preferences (stated and potential) will enable teams to drive the most customer satisfaction and business return from an opt-in relationship. While this should be standard practice for any target audience, it should be an even stronger priority for an opt-in audience –this group is potentially higher in response and business value over time vs. non-opt-ins.

– Opt-in is often used purely for the sale; it should also be leveraged to assess the pulse of your opt-in community, gather feedback and conduct satisfaction assessments. Learn together with your opt-in community. This is the essence of relationship marketing.

– Digital may be the way the customer opted in; however, it may be just one part of how your consumers make their purchase decisions. Understand the role of digital in the opt-in consumer’s decision-making framework/journey. Digital may be an awareness tool, but a follow up in person/live experience may close the sale, depending on the audience.

Opt-in can bring tremendous value to your relationship marketing program when used properly.

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For her fourth post in our Relationship Marketing series, Elaine shares how Pillar 3—Segmentation and Customization—play a crucial role in ensuring customer-centricity.

A key enabler of relationship marketing excellence is segmentation, defined as the process of dividing potential and current customers into discrete groups with similar characteristics to guide the development and execution of strategy.  It is a universal concept that is embraced by most marketing organizations.  

I would take this definition a step further on what segmentation is in practice: segmentation is part of strategy—a guide to demonstrate your customers are truly understood, grouping customers by how they are similar and different from one another and a framework for delivering your customer-centric promise (or what’s most meaningful in messaging, product, offers, etc.)

As we know, segmentation is conducted in various ways that include demographics, product preferences, and needs. It may also reflect lifestyle areas, values and “jobs to be done,” among others.

Digital data provides an exciting gateway to understanding and segmenting our customers in real-time and contextual ways. All of this provides relationship marketers with a rich foundation to truly connect, understand, inspire and build value together with our customers. We don’t need to guess, hypothesize or make assumptions about the richness of data available to us.    

Many would say segmentation is a no-brainer. Isn’t it? Doesn’t everyone do this as part of business as usual? The results of a marketing survey could appear troubling.

Winterberry Group surveyed professionals to find:

– Only 16% of advertisers, marketers, publishers, tech developers, marketing service providers say they have successfully implemented an overarching strategy to govern how they collect, manage, share and use audience data

– Only 19% of respondents say their firm is well prepared or extremely well prepared to deal with recently passed or enacted regulations governing consumers’ personal data

Why Is Segmentation Important?

– Segmentation guides our approach to bringing relationship marketing value, the potential for collaboration that is the heart of relationship marketing excellence. We cannot execute to someone we do not truly understand

– For segmentation to be effective, it is a marketing-led initiative, a framework that is known, understood, and championed throughout an organization cross-functionally (across all partnering teams and touchpoints)

– Segmentation can be dynamic for a product/service. With the wealth of options a customer has for what is offered, when, via what channel etc., preferences can change and consumers may migrate in their segmentation throughout a period; if your segmentation is old and/or static, this could negatively impact customer relationships and business results

– Customizing a message by segment and establishing relationships becomes seamless with a rich, dynamic segmentation that adapts in real-time to your consumer; messages can be customized with more exactness and confidence, demonstrating to the consumer that they are understood and valued. We are not trapped by having to guess or “hypothesize,” and can have more confidence that we are being truly “customer-centric”

– Consumers, especially your most loyal audiences (the primary focus of relationship marketing), may have higher expectations; so, it is not just a nice to do, but an imperative for retaining them and differentiating your company

– The deep understanding enabled by a robust segmentation framework and supporting operational processes position organizations to have true loyalty and engagement, not just settling for “inertia” (or customers who stay because they haven’t had a chance to leave yet)

Segmentation Pitfalls to Avoid

– Avoid the annual segmentation that stays that way the entire year. Segmentation should be dynamic, within reason, evolving in real-time to reflect and/or adapt to new consumer insights

– Strive for the optimal number of segments with both strategy and execution considerations in mind. Organizations may have good intentions by having a high number of segments and customizing for each, but this can make execution across partnering teams more complicated and ineffective; this results in poor customer experience and diminished relationship marketing impact

– Customization in messages for all segments is a north star; however, customize within reason. As an example, if two segments are similar enough on most dimensions, the incremental business impact of customizing for each (to be very “exact”) may not justify the effort

– Avoid being overly academic in your segmentation approach; relationship marketing segmentation should be thoughtful, yet simple. This will also enable more efficient cross-functional execution of the relationship marketing segmentation (marketing, customer service, in-store, channel teams, etc.). Ask yourself would the customer easily understand the segmentation I’ve developed and assigned him/her to? This is a good question to ask when developing a segmentation recommendation.

Segmentation and customization are powerful tools for relationship marketing excellence. Using them strategically and thoughtfully will enable your business success.

Updated 3/5/20: Winterberry Group Survey data.

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For our third post in our relationship marketing series, Elaine provides her perspective on consumer experience. She shares her wisdom on customer experience excellence with tips on implementing a successful consumer experience strategy within your organization.

What is consumer experience excellence?

In my first post, I provided a definition of relationship marketing:

A business strategy that maximizes the value of products and profitably boosts retention via 1:1 communication, customer preferences, two-way engagement, and collaboration with your customers, bringing new value over time.

As discussed, relationship marketing is not about selling, or why my product is better than yours–it involves partnering, collaborating, and actively building value together with your customer in a manner that is meaningful to them (as perceived by the customer).

As we consider this relationship marketing definition, it is easy to see why relationship marketing would be essentially inseparable from the consumer experience. In a nutshell, consumer experience is:

The cumulative impact, both emotional and tangible, of all the encounters and interactions a customer has with an organization over time.

For many brands, consumer experience refers to the servicing infrastructure or process behind the consumer journey (e.g. customer service, consumer care). The key guiding principles for consumer experience excellence include: Reliability, Convenience, Responsiveness and Relevance.

Why Consumer Experience Excellence is Crucial for Brands

An excellent customer experience has many benefits, including driving higher repeat purchase and customer loyalty. Consumer experience is also a key enabler/’pillar’ of relationship marketing excellence:

– Consumer experience excellence demonstrates an organization can deliver what they promise–the consumer has the opportunity to see you in action first hand. Hence, it represents the essence of building relationships, establishing trust, and bringing value that is meaningful to the consumer

– Relationship Marketing is not about selling and a satisfying consumer experience potentially frees an organization from the shackles of having to constantly sell to get revenue (my product is better because of XYZ, my price is better, I’ve got a better deal than XYZ brand, etc.). A memorable and satisfying consumer experience may prompt the consumer to consider a purchase with you without your having to work as hard on the sell. You’ve differentiated your product or service in other intangible ways through your interactions. You’ve earned their trust and the right to have a relationship with them

– Consumer experience excellence enables companies to escape the inertia trap–consumers stay with you because they truly believe in the relationship they have with you and have trust in your marketing promise (they do not stay because they haven’t had a chance to leave yet or are afraid to do so, inertia)

– Opt-In is a key enabler of relationship marketing business return (aka “hand-raisers”). Consumers may be much more receptive to opt-in for future marketing messages and cross-sell/upsell when requested in a consumer experience/service context (helpfulness, etc.). Although it is possible to understand and act on consumer preferences without opt-in (e.g. digital, cookies), the most passionate customers and responders are hand-raisers, those that made a conscious choice to receive your marketing messages. Using customer experience to drive opt-in directly supports your ability to deliver response and business return in relationship marketing. In my experience, hand-raisers have a response rate that is 70% higher vs. non-hand-raisers

How can you leverage consumer experience to support ongoing relationship marketing initiatives?

– Request opt-in for marketing messages during the consumer experience (email, mobile). This can be positioned as helpfulness; as discussed, opt-in is a key enabler of relationship marketing excellence

– If you have a product training or servicing infrastructure with steps or several parts, determine which part of the customer experience is most meaningful to your consumers and make this the focus of follow-up relationship marketing messages/engagement. This potentially demonstrates you are listening and collaborating, especially if the focus is the most satisfied audiences (based on net promoter scores, etc.)

– It is customary to issue a satisfaction survey after consumer experience interactions.  Along with collecting the survey, sharing what you learned with consumers is a way to foster collaboration and ongoing trust, enabling two-way communications (key relationship marketing principles)

– If someone was not satisfied with their consumer experience, spend some time in your relationship marketing exploring this with your customer (via a sequence of touchpoints, etc.). This can be communication that demonstrates you are listening, how you acted on the feedback, and how you want to be more helpful in the future. Inform the customer how he/she helped you to get better

– A sense of community is part of relationship marketing. Leverage a positive consumer experience to support a sense of community and the development of advocates. Actively engage satisfied customers in sharing their experience with others. In doing so, provide specific discussion areas/topics audiences can consider for their feedback. This will enable you to establish a stronger and more engaged group of advocates (not just people who would passively recommend or share a link)

As we consider the role of consumer experience in relationship marketing, we must remember two important tactical pieces. When a consumer opts-in, do not inundate them with sales emails after a positive consumer experience interaction (e.g. product offers). We defeat the purpose of building relationships if we immediately pull the trigger on too much communication, especially if unrelated to the task or context in which you engaged the customer.

We must also remember to be transparent about your strengths, opportunities, and insights gained from consumer experience–this should be part of your relationship marketing strategy and execution.

Consumer experience excellence is key to unlocking the business potential of relationship marketing and truly differentiating your product in ways other than the typical sales pitch or feature-driven messaging.

Look for Elaine Gamble’s next post in the relationship marketing series: the role of segmentation and customization in relationship marketing. 

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For the second post in our relationship marketing series, Elaine provides her perspectives on consumer engagement. She shares her wisdom on consumer engagement excellence, supporting you in championing consumer engagement within your organization.

Consumer Engagement is now a term used across industries. The renewed focus on being consumer-centric has resulted in greater interest in customer engagement success. At the same time, it seems organizations define consumer engagement differently.

What does consumer engagement really mean?

Let’s begin with the dictionary definition of the word engage:

Causing someone to become involved in a conversation or discussion; to occupy, attract, or involve.

In building on this foundation, my definition of consumer engagement (in a marketing context) is:

Two- way communication with your consumer, providing information while demonstrating you are listening and driving ongoing, sustained interest in a next interaction.

Although organizations across industries often discuss consumer engagement or perceive this is practiced day-to-day, they may not really be implementing true consumer engagement at all–why is that?

– In practice, industries may confuse consumer engagement with a response. A response alone (e.g. email open, Facebook “like”) is not evidence of sustained interest and true, ongoing engagement

– Most consumer communication is one-way that never actively invites feedback (in a real-time manner). Although a goal in true consumer engagement is a conversation, as marketers, we often do all the talking

– Across industries, organizations believe they’ve delivered on consumer engagement with satisfaction surveys; however, these are meaningless most of the time for consumers. We may have a false sense of consumer-centricity by issuing them

– An organization might measure response rate in bulk (e.g. email response rate) but may not confirm the same group of people (e.g. email responders) is continuing to respond over time

– Organizations may settle for consumer inertia, where the consumer consistently responds, yet their interest in your communication, product, or service is actually quite passive at best and has been for some time. (e.g. email open, Facebook like)

What Consumer Engagement in practice really means….

– Not settling for just response in your definition of success—inspiring interest in ongoing response and a next action assessed to have high engagement value. As part of this, confirming a core group of consumers continues to perceive value in your communication over time

– Being perceived as a trusted advisor to your consumers by acting on their preferences, along with inviting and providing opportunities for them to share feedback in a real-time manner, a true conversation

– Confirming you have a true consumer journey or experience with your audiences. Ideally, consumers should want to interact with you in a variety of ways over time, not just one that is more passive and infrequent (e.g. Facebook “like”)

– Actively requesting and developing customer advocates; this should be much more than providing a link to Facebook or an invitation to “like” your page. Having advocates is a thoughtful process of inviting the highest potential engagers to be advocates, and providing the tools to truly deliver on their role–e.g. suggested areas of focus for their discussion—and through this, supporting consumer engagement

– Being transparent with consumers about your strengths and opportunities (based on what you hear from real consumers); validating your consumer in this manner and appearing authentic will give you more credibility and enhance engagement

– Being relevant in timed and contextual ways with your consumer–not just pushing out communication on a schedule that you define, but being in the moment for when you engage with an audience. Optimal sequencing of communication is also part of this

– Implementing an omnichannel engagement approach – including digital strategies without an over-reliance on digital. Understand the role of each channel for the consumer’s decision (digital and offline), then tailor communication to align with each channel’s “job”.    

Measuring Consumer Engagement – A few Perspectives

Measuring consumer engagement is related to assessing response, but they are not one and the same. To start measuring consumer engagement, confirm you are engaging a core (and high value) group of consumers over time. Ask yourself: “Are we maintaining consumer interest from a core group or are the respondents entirely different in each execution?”

The second part of measuring consumer engagement is to assess what percent of engagement opportunities your loyal customers have taken advantage of overtime. If it is consistently low, this could signal a preference for a certain type of channel, or could it mean the consumer does not perceive value in most of what you present to him/her? (which puts them at risk for defecting). You should complete this assessment even if the total return on investment is positive.

Lastly, measuring consumer engagement is to remember that customer satisfaction is not just a  “nice to do,” but instead is a “must-have.” Have a clear approach or algorithm within your organization for how it is directly correlated with return on investment.

True Consumer Engagement is an exciting opportunity across industries. Its success involves a thoughtful process of understanding your customer, being perceived as a partner, and driving sustained interest to achieve your goals.

Look for my next post in the relationship marketing series: the role of customer experience in relationship marketing and the full Relationship eBook.

Interested in more?

Sign up for a demo today.

Elaine Gamble is a consultant, evangelist, and subject matter expert in relationship marketing and omnichannel strategies. She is also co-chair of the Relationship Marketing Committee at the Association of National Advertisers. Contact Elaine for consulting engagements and exploring these areas further for your organization – elainegamble6@gmail.com

The post Relationship Marketing Pillar #1: What Really is Consumer Engagement? appeared first on TINT.

If you ask a room of marketers “What is relationship marketing?”, most will have a different response. While there is a consensus that we want the customer to “like and trust us”, there is no exactness on what relationship marketing actually entails. However, without a core definition, organizations will struggle to implement relationship marketing effectively—it’s like taking a ride in the car but having no clear “destination.”

Organizations often define relationship marketing by its enablers, or what types of tools are used for its implementation. In an earlier time, this was database marketing, and more recently digital marketing is often used synonymously with relationship marketing—this is a huge mistake.

In this consumer first era, we have an exciting opportunity to ground ourselves in a pure definition of relationship marketing and use this as a foundation for executing effectively, in a manner that is most meaningful and enduring for our customers. I propose a definition and guiding principles from my years of experience in this discipline, my knowledge of what drives business impact, as well some earlier thinking on this topic that is quite relevant today.

As we formally define relationship marketing, let’s first consider the dictionary definition of a relationship: “A relationship is a way in which people feel or behave toward one other, a friendship, or state of being connected emotionally.”

Building on this, Relationship Marketing, in a nutshell, is:*

A business strategy that maximizes the value of products and profitably boosts retention via 1:1 communication, customer preferences, two-way engagement, and collaboration with your customers, bringing new value over time in a manner that is meaningful to them; its primary focus is existing high-value audiences.

Relationship Marketing is Hard. Why?

Relationship Marketing is not about selling–it is about collaborating; this perceived “altruism” in approach is a culture shift for most companies who may believe a relationship is about constantly saying why their product is better than another. When implemented with excellence, relationship marketing involves bringing value in ways that may not be directly product feature-related. Its focus is consumers that already love you and you are taking their love to a new level–they no longer need to be sold.

– Most organizations do not trust their consumers. Because Relationship Marketing is not about pure selling, it involves taking a perceived leap of faith and trusting your customers—“if I don’t focus on product features multiple times, will I still get the sale?” (the answer is yes, you will!)

– The popularity of digital marketing has made it easier and more cost-effective than ever for organizations to expand their reach beyond the most attractive targets and/or increase communication frequency and type beyond ideal for a target group

– It is usually much easier operationally to focus solely on sending out communication (push) without a focus on two-way (complementing push with pull); push may be easier and cheaper to execute

– Collaborating with customers requires a heavy focus on operational excellence (databases, systems, etc.), which is a meaningful investment for most organizations

– An organization may not have a solid measurement framework for relationship marketing or lack of alignment internally on how success is defined. Therefore, relationship marketing may be executed, in some form, without clarity on what you seek to achieve at the outset or in a manner that deviates from its core definition

Additionally, organizations may start out with the assumption that all products have the same potential for relationship marketing success; however, not every product is equally well suited for a relationship marketing approach. Alignment on which of your products are ideal candidates should be part of planning discussions.

Current State of Relationship Marketing

What Relationship Marketing is not:

– Email blast

– Mobile campaigns

– Social media/Facebook page

– Offers/coupons

– Selling

The problem with these and why they are not considered relationship marketing:

– They are enablers of relationship marketing, used as part of its execution but a tactic itself is not a definition

– Communication is typically one-way, not collaborative or two-way

– They are often executed to a list, (where we pull the trigger vs. implementing based on a collaborative discussion with your customer or preferences)

– These may be executed as one-offs, in isolation of one another, not as part of an integrated relationship marketing ecosystem that maximizes customer/business impact

The Five Pillars of Relationship Marketing

Is this what relationship marketing has been in your organization? If so, you are not alone.

Relationship marketing excellence involves five defined pillars, the core ingredients that determine whether your initiative is true “relationship marketing” or a just group of multiple tactics. Those relationship marketing pillars are:

1. Consumer Engagement: Communication is two-way: communicating with your consumer and demonstrating you listening, as well as driving ongoing, sustained interest in a next interaction.

2. Consumer Experience: The how, not just the what; excellence in how a product or service is provided; differentiating your product in service-related areas, not just product features.

3. Segmentation and Customization: Segmenting customers based on preferences and executing against this in a real-time manner. One-to-one customer communication that is tailored to his/her preferences, where he/she feels understood.

4. Permission-Based Relationships/Opt-In: Requesting opt-in and/or leveraging an opt-in/permission-based relationship; inspiring trust/confidence from the consumer that granting their permission for your marketing will deliver greater value to them.

5. Community: Fostering a sense of community among your customers; the consumer perceives he/she is part of a larger, special and elite group that endorses your product/service.

Elaine Gamble is a global healthcare marketing leader with more than 15 years of relationship marketing and customer engagement experience. A proven visionary, innovator, and thought leader, she has held positions with leading healthcare companies in relationship marketing and customer engagement. Elaine’s contributions have been in enabling companies to market more effectively to an existing customer base, deepening loyalty, and driving profitability. She has worked with teams in the US, as well as teams in Asia and Europe. Elaine is a consultant to organizations in customer relationship marketing strategy and design.

Elaine received her bachelor’s degree in psychobiology from Oberlin College and a Masters in Business Administration from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. She is co-chair of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) Relationship Marketing Committee, as well as a judge for the ANA’s Reggie Awards. Additionally, Elaine serves on the Parent Leadership Committee at Amherst College, is a past member of the Parents Committee at Princeton University, and is past Chair, Alumni Engagement, for Oberlin College NY Alumni.

elainegamble6@gmail.com

*Developed with some adaptation (definition and guiding principles) from Relationship Marketing: New Strategies, Techniques, and Technologies to Win the Customers You Want and Keep Them Forever, by Ian Gordon; publisher John Wiley and Sons, 1998

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The post Here’s Why Your Definition of Relationship Marketing Could be Wrong appeared first on TINT.

Yep, that’s the one. This graphic began in 2011 with only 150 companies and has since grown to around 5,000 technologies – and it’s not stopping there. One look at this graphic and it’s clear that endless options exist for marketers who are looking to make their lives easier and their performance better.

The mix of marketing technologies a team uses is called a Marketing Stack. According to Optimizley, a marketing stack is “a grouping of technologies that marketers leverage to conduct and improve their marketing activities.” Many times, the goal of a marketing stack is to make processes more efficient and to measure the effectiveness of current marketing campaigns.  

However, for your marketing stack to be successful in driving the overall effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, your team must choose the right technologies to utilize. Traditional marketing stacks have typically involved the following areas: Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Insights and Analysis, Experience Optimization, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Advertising Technology.

For marketers looking to the future, there’s one more critical tool to add: an online brand community. Read on for four ways an online brand community enhances your marketing stack.

1. Consumer Relationships are No Longer a One-Way Email Push

There’s no doubt that a CRM is an essential tool in the marketing toolbox, tracking the consumers who opt-in to your communications. However, although many brands have huge databases with regularly scheduled email campaigns, these emails are often a one-way push to consumers – the brand isn’t receiving anything in return. In fact, research from eMarketer says only 30 percent of US email subscribers actually make purchases from the brand’s list they are subscribed to. Even when consumers are engaging with emails from brands, most interactions are simply a transactional experience, lacking the crucial component that delivers long-term loyalty and advocacy. Or even worse, a CRM simply becomes a behind-the-scenes database desert with no engagement.

When marketers create an online brand community, they create a social CRM, turning their communication with consumers into a two-way relationship. Like a CRM, consumers are opting-in to a online brand community – they want to hear from the brand, engage with the brand and advocate for the brand. Housing consumers in an online brand community allows you to ask consumers: What do you want to hear about? How often do you want to hear from us? Brands can then send more personalized communication and consumers can provide feedback to the brand.

2. Insights & Analysis Turned into Enhanced Experience

The ability to measure marketing campaign activity is crucial for any brand, and most teams have third-party technologies dedicated specifically to uncovering this data such as Google Analytics or HubSpot.

But when a brand creates an online community, third-party data becomes zero-party data – given directly by willing consumers and taking only days to gather results, not weeks or months. This means brands can optimize their marketing campaigns more efficiently and make business decisions even quicker.

For example: if you’re launching a new product and you need ideas on which packaging to choose, you can turn to your community of consumers, who represent your target audience and ask their opinion. Using the data from your online community will enable you to ensure a successful user experience in the market.

Enhancing user experience, however, goes far beyond packaging. Today’s consumers are looking for an enhanced experience through personalized communication and offers from a brand. In fact, our research shows that 90 percent of consumers are willing to share personal information with a brand in exchange for personalized communication and are more likely to engage with a personalized offer.

Many marketers say the biggest challenge to delivering personalized content is gaining the right insights about their consumers. Experian says that 40 percent of marketers can’t gain insights quickly enough and 39 percent of marketers don’t have enough data.

Choosing an online community management software that consistently builds out members’ profiles through their responses to surveys and actions taken in the community allows marketers to segment members through both demographic and psychographic data. Creating these micro-audiences ensures that each member sees personalized and relevant content.

3. Optimized Ad Spend With Ideal Target Audiences

Advertising is a key customer acquisition technique, and it’s not slowing down anytime soon: Magna, the research arm of IPG Mediabrands, says digital ad spending will grow 13 percent in 2018 to $237 billion. That’s a lot of spending, which is why most marketers use third-party technologies to monitor the efficiency of these campaigns and marketers are always looking for ways to optimize their spend.

Enter: an online community. Cultivating an online community helps marketers refine their audience targeting for more effective media spend. After all, what better lookalike audience is there than your most ardent community advocates?

An online brand community that uncovers granular data to identify your most engaged members allows marketers to create ideal lookalike audiences and retarget existing, highly-engaged members to enhance engagement and ROI.

4. Using an Online Brand Community to Boost SEO

It’s  2018, and we all understand the continued importance of SEO: HubSpot says “61 percent of marketers say improving SEO and growing their organic presence is their top inbound marketing priority.” As SEO trends are constantly changing, online brand communities are a surefire way to ensure authentic and quality user-generated content.

Building a community of people who love your brand allows you to easily activate consumers to produce fresh and unique user-generated content, leading to an ongoing portal of content – this is helpful for both getting new eyes on your products.

Forty-eight percent of consumers say user-generated content is a great way to find new products, and 25 percent of search results for the world’s 20 largest brands are links to user-created content. This is exciting news for marketers. Not only does content your advocates create hold a higher probability of showing up in search engines, but it also ensures the first thing consumers see is content they will trust.

Ready to get started on your own online brand community? Give us a shout. TINT’s online community platform allows you to mobilize and activate your brand’s advocates. Through TINT, brands can easily create a branded online community to generate engagement, collect feedback and spread content across social media – driving awareness, loyalty and advocacy, all with always-on audience segmentation, comprehensive analytics, and insightful visibility.

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The post 4 Ways an Online Brand Community Enhances Your Marketing Stack appeared first on TINT.