Launching a brand ambassador campaign, so that you can turn your greatest customers, fans and followers into brand advocates that authentically promote your company is really exciting. But what happens when you don’t get the results you were hoping to see? In our experience, bad results don’t mean it's time to throw in the towel. You may just need to switch things up a bit.
Although there are a number of things that may contribute to a failing brand ambassador marketing campaign, we believe the following 5 reasons are the standout contenders.
Why You're Not Seeing Results
1. You’re Not Listening to Ambassador Feedback
One of the great things about starting an ambassador marketing campaign is that you suddenly have a large amount of customers-turned-brand-advocates ready to give you product or service feedback at a moment’s notice.
The only real dilemma is that if you’re not listening to what your brand ambassadors have to say, you’re missing out on what could potentially make or break the success of your campaign. Brand ambassadors are super close with their followers, so they may pick up on customer experiences with your products or services that could really help you when it comes to improving your brand.
They’ve got their ears on the ground right in the centre of your target audience, so making the time to listen to what they have to say will help you keep in touch with your customers and fans in an ongoing, relatable way. Give your brand ambassadors the space to say what’s on their mind, so that you can learn how to make your products or services better. This will strengthen your relationship and retain your ambassadors instead of pushing them away.
A long-term partnership with your ambassadors is also better for ROI as it leaves more time and space for their ambassador content to reach and convert new or returning customers. It’s a solid plan!
Fabletics | @natalie_mckee_uk
2. Not Incentivising Brand Ambassadors With The Right Rewards
Maintaining a consistent line of communication for feedback is incredibly important to retain your brand advocates for as long as possible, but keeping them engaged in ways that speak to them as individuals is equally as important.
If you’re setting up ambassador missions with rewards that don’t really appeal to your ambassador community, they aren't going to feel motivated to create content around your brand.
After improving your rewards by hearing what they’d prefer in a feedback session, for example, you’ll be able to amplify ambassador engagement and their motivation to complete ambassador tasks in the space of a few days. It really is that simple. Sometimes, the only thing people need to get the job done well is a proper incentive with rewards that will bring them joy and make them feel like they’ve earned something extraordinary.
With the right incentive, your ambassadors will stick around much longer, leaving you with an ongoing marketing strategy that will have more time to generate more customers and fans.
3. You’re Choosing The Wrong Ambassadors
If there’s one definitive reason you’re not seeing results with your ambassador marketing campaign, it’s because you’ve got the wrong ambassadors speaking to the wrong people.
Think of ambassadors as you think about brand graphics or logos. Your brand advocates need to be as on-brand as the visual content you maintain across your social media channels, otherwise, it just isn’t going to work.
Sometimes, searching for potential brand ambassadors manually can lead to making quick and ill-informed decisions about who you partner up with. If you don’t actually fully align with the right ambassadors, you won’t attract the right kind of customers that would find interest in your brand.
Brand ambassadors need to meet you on many levels in order for it to be a perfect fit. This includes matching your company values with their lifestyle, the kind of content they make, who the majority of their audience is, what they do for a living, and what they potentially advocate for or shy away from.
Casely : @blushandbashfullifestyle
4. You’re Investing in the Wrong Marketing Channels.
In some cases, you’ll find that your target audience isn’t necessarily active on the marketing channels where you’re investing most of your marketing budget. Younger audiences are especially prone to jump from one trendy platform to the next, and it will be your job to check that you’re working with ambassadors on the very platforms where your audience is spending most of their time.
In other cases, testing the waters on new platforms may actually work better. Don’t be afraid to partner with micro-influencers across varying marketing channels - it doesn’t have to only be Instagram. There are podcast hosts, YouTubers, TikTokers, and bloggers on Twitter that could all prove invaluable to the success of your ambassador marketing campaign.
Another option is to hire a marketing freelancer with expertise in identifying the right marketing channels for you.
5. You’re Not Creating a Community For Your Ambassadors.
Our last tip on why you’re not seeing great results with your ambassador marketing campaign is all about the idea of community. By enlisting anything from 50 to 500 brand advocates to shout about your products or services online, you create a community of people that share one thing in common: they love and authentically support what you do. And that’s awesome! But what are you doing to make sure they all feel like they belong to your brand family?
People always want to feel like they belong to something and that they’re part of something bigger, so you should capitalise on this and assign ambassador tasks that will strengthen that feeling of community.
You could give your community of ambassadors a special name and set small missions ‘for the whole family’ in order to make everyone feel like they’re working towards one amazing goal together.
In this way, you’ll improve ambassador retention and extend your chances of gaining new customers through ambassador marketing, because your brand advocates aren’t going to want to leave the family!
Finding the right ambassadors to ensure your ambassador marketing campaign is successful can be really tough, but using our ambassador software platform will help to match you with the people who share your brand values so you can start building your brand community today.
