Get a Customer Brand Champion to “actively” promote your Brand

Brand Champion > Loyalty > Familiarity. How to get there.

Brand Champion > Loyalty > Familiarity, Differentiate, Attention, Feedback, Make it “easy”, Participation, Community & more

Importance of a Brand Champion. In the startup realm, certain principles stand out as essential to lasting growth in a company. Customer “retention”, for instance, trumps [not by The Donald [LoL] Wiz4biz] customer “acquisition” in terms of overall value, and Brand Loyalty is one of the most important elements that lead to higher customer-retention rates.

Brand Loyalty is worth prioritizing in any business, of course, but there’s one level of brand commitment that goes above and beyond just loyalty- a Brand Champion.

Whereas: 1) “brand familiarity” describes a customer’s awareness of a brand (and, hopefully, his/her comfort with it), 2) “brand loyalty” describes a customer’s commitment to one brand over competitor brands, & 3) “brand champion” describes customers who are more than loyal. They’re outspoken and active advocates of your brand.

a Brand Champion is not only more committed than the average brand loyalist, they’ll work on your behalf to attract more people to your brand. Clearly, brand evangelism is a nice setup; now, how can you encourage it? Here are the Lucky 7 ways:

1. Differentiate your Brand.

Some of the biggest fan bases in sports have arisen out of a response to a fierce rivalry. By similarly giving customers a diametrically opposed “enemy,” you’ll steer them into being more likely to vocally & deeply align themselves with your brand. Take advantage of this tendency, by sharply differentiating your brand from those of your competitors’ – not necessarily making enemies of them, but still making the average customer experience “dramatically” different.

 2. Give individual Attention.

If you want stand-out customers, you have to give them “stand-out” experiences. That means doling out individual forms of attention to make memorable, unique brand impressions. For example, go above & beyond the call of duty during especially tough or unique customer service cases, or call out specific social media followers and promote their material to show your appreciation. These act will make them impressed with you.

 3. Focus on Loyalty first.

Brand evangelism is the last threshold in a series of increasingly intense brand relationships; first comes familiarity (L1), and (L2) loyalty must come after that, if you hope to cultivate more champions (L3). There are several stages to this, as loyalty warrants its own article, but the basics should be under your control; give users a “great” experience, keep them coming back for more and be consistent & visible in your branding efforts.

4. Incorporate Customer Feedback.

This is the mark of an outstanding brand, and it’s going to help your company on all three levels of brand relationship. Collect and really listen to feedback about your brand, products & services. When you get pieces of information that make sense, implement them !!!  That kind of response shows that you listen to your customers and care about what they say, which in turn inspires more “loyalty”. You can even give acknowledgement to the individuals who submitted those pieces of feedback, to make them feel like an even more an important part of your brand community.

5. Make it “easy” to be an Champion.

No matter how excitable they are, most people are still lazy. [Whoops, but true. Wiz4biz] They’re not going to go completely out of their way to evangelize your brand, unless you have to make it easy for them. Offer ample opportunities for your users to post about you on Social Media (with contests, discussion opportunities, etc.), and make signup & participation in your community constructs both simple & rewarding. These strategies aren’t foolproof, and you’ll need to allow some wiggle room for adjustment & development.

6. Encourage “active” Participation.

Participation does a few things for you: 1) every act of participation makes your target evangelist more loyal to your brand (think of it as a kind of ritual action that becomes a habit), 2) every act of participation increases the overall visibility of consumer brand affection – and brand affection is contagious, to say the least. Get your customers posting frequently about your brand by making new announcements, asking engaging questions, & generally contributing to the community.

 7. Create a Community.

Brand Evangelists’ loyalties deepen the more they feel that they’re truly a part of something. As users on your app or website, they have a certain degree of personal investment in your brand. As members of a thriving community, they’ll offer a level of loyalty that’s even stronger. For example, you could create a user-driven Help forum, or have some other on-site feature where users contribute their own content & talk to one other.

 Conclusion. With these 7 tactics in place, you’ll equip your startup with almost everything you need to cultivate a community of Brand Evangelists. Don’t expect every customer to become an evangelist.  Don’t try to force it to happen unnaturally. Just know that a few nudges in the right direction can make a huge difference for your customer enthusiasm — and your bottom line.

Comment: Do you have any other ideas to share on how to Promote your Brand?

from Entrepreneur.com 19 May 16 enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4biz