Who Makes a Great Brand Ambassador?

Finding the perfect community of ambassadors to represent your brand can be a tedious process unless you know where to look and who to look for.

Anybody can be a brand ambassador. From customers to employees, ambassadors can be found for any company both internally and externally. But what makes a perfect ambassador? Is it how many followers they have on social media? What about the presence they garner in public? Are they willing to engage and establish relationships with potential buyers?

If you’re not sure where to start when recruiting ambassadors then keep reading to learn more about who makes a great ambassador and where to find them.

Check out our ambassador program template playbook to learn how brands scaled their ambassador program to 500+ participants generating thousands of new customers and putting them on track to $100,000/month in measurable referral revenue in the next 12 months.

Employees

The first place to look when recruiting a community of ambassadors is internally at your brand. Look to your employees whether they’re new or senior. Any employee can be shaped and molded into a great brand ambassador. With their current knowledge of the brand’s products and services, employees are the perfect people to act as educators for potential buyers. An employee can also act as a spokesperson out of the workplace and provide a medium that people can seek advice from. Finally, employees have close followings on social media that usually consist of their friends, family members, and close acquaintances. A smaller engaged following is great for a brand because 92% of consumers turn to people they know for referrals above any other source.

Take the following into consideration.

• According to the Edelman Trust Barometer study, employees rank higher in public trust than a firm’s PR department, CEO, or Founder.
• GE started an employee ambassador program with a budget of $0 and trained the employees to tell GE’s story through their own experience. With the increase of online presence from employees, over $3 million worth of social media engagement was created.
• 41% of people believe conversations with company employees to be the most credible specialist sources of information.
• Brand messages are eight times more likely to be shared on social media when first distributed by employees than when distributed by the brand.

Customers

Of Course! Customers! First, look for the customers that have purchased from your store frequently over the past year. Avid customers make the best ambassadors because they’re the most inclined to produce content for your brand in exchange for the rewards and discounts you can offer them. At the end of the day, you want brand ambassadors that are truly excited about the opportunity to acquire products and discounts for promoting your brand to their followers. A loyal customer is always up to the challenge especially when it involves free and discounted swag from your brand!

If your company has a reward or loyalty program, reach out to the participants of your established programs to see if there are any interests there.

Consider these benefits for customer-centered ambassador programs

• Customers referred by other customers have a 37% higher retention rate.
• Marketing induced consumer-to-consumer word of mouth generates more than 2x the sales of paid advertising.
• 90% of people consider consumer recommendation to be the most credible form of advertising.

Micro-Influencers

Micro-Influencers have a niche following and promote a certain subject (food, travel, sports, etc). They’re the people that your potential buyers look to for advice when considering your brand’s products. These influencers usually have 1,000 to 100,000 followers.

One example of some micro-influencers could be the members of a 4×4 offroading club for a 4×4 accessory store. Why? When potential buyers see the members and all their connections, they are provided with social proof that your brand is credible and used by other consumers.

Here are some stats on why Micro-Influencers are so important in today’s marketplace.

• Influencers with less than 35K followers have the highest engagement rate (5.3%). As the number of followers increases to between 35K and 50K, the engagement drops by more than 50% to 2.5%. See chart below.
• 7 out of 10 Americans seek out the opinions of others before making a purchase. Of that group, 72% use their contacts on social media to find recommendations to buy goods and services.
• Micro-influencers drive 22.2 times more weekly conversations than the average consumer

Conclusion

There you have it. 3 categories of people to seek out before or during the process of building an ambassador program. Start internally then reach out to your brand’s avid customers and the micro influencers that are already covering your niche. By searching for these 3 groups of people, building an ambassador program will become less of an obstacle than expected.

Learn how to start a brand ambassador program and scale with BrandChamp’s ambassador software.

If you need help onboarding and managing an ambassador program or are looking to start a program, click here to chat with us 1 on 1.