Starting your ambassador marketing journey is usually very exciting but also there can be a lot of pressure to get it right on the first go. The expectation is usually to get significant results from the get-go - a high volume of sales, and lots of social buzz. We’re here to help you to put your best foot forward and increase your chances of success. We have put together 7 steps to help you plan the perfect brand ambassador campaign that helps you drive revenue and see results.
One of the key signs your company is ready to take the plunge into ambassador marketing is when you have a large following of loyal customers, followers and fans across your social channels and customer database. When you’ve built a community that’s big enough - then you’re ready to start inviting that community to become your brand ambassadors.
I’m sure you’ll agree that there’s no point in spending hours on planning an ambassador marketing campaign that may be unsuccessful just because your community wasn’t quite ready. Your first focus when it comes to planning an ambassador marketing campaign should be to build a strong foundational community first.
It may take a couple of months but it’ll be worth it and secure your likelihood for success.
We know this may sound like a tough thing to do in the beginning, but you’ve got to start things off slowly. Your first ambassador marketing campaign is going to be a learning curve for both you and your ambassadors, so you’re going to want to take the time to observe and learn instead of expecting unreasonable results.
Questions will come up around whether or not you’re using the right social channels or if your ambassadors are motivated to create cool content in exchange for some rewards more than others. You won’t know the answers to these off the bat, so you’re going to have to learn as you go along and make adjustments to your campaign accordingly.
The only way to have a successful ambassador marketing campaign is to actually ensure that your customers have made the switch from becoming ordinary followers and fans to actual brand ambassadors. It’s worth spending a few weeks planning a variety of activation methods to enlist ambassadors.
Be sure to clearly highlight the benefits of joining your ambassador community and make the sign-up process as easy as possible so there’s no barrier to entry. .
This is where making adjustments should come easy. During your first campaign, as well as in the ones that follow, you should always strive to listen to and learn from the experiences of your ambassadors and the way they impact your audience.
If your customers aren’t receptive to weight lifters as ambassadors, for example, you may want to look into who they’d rather listen to. Or perhaps the ambassador tasks you enlist your advocates to do aren’t particularly exciting - it could be a number of things!
Your job is to try and find that golden ticket among the many routes ambassador marketing can take that will improve sales. Keeping an eye on the analytics of your campaign is something that will help you keep tabs on this.
Just like an ordinary relationship with a friend or loved one, communication with your brand ambassadors is key. Checking in with them and making sure they know exactly what you expect is so important as it ensures less room for error.
Having the right ambassador marketing tool is super helpful when it comes to maintaining communication as it creates a centralised space where fitness apparel brands can easily stay in touch with their ambassadors on a one-to-many or one-on-one basis.
We’d recommend you even structure an exclusive community for your ambassadors (and give it a sweet name!) so they can learn about and support each other. This will guarantee engagement levels are high and form a buzz around your brand, which may inspire more of your customers to apply for an ambassador role.
Remember that ambassador community we were just talking about? Here’s another way they can help you drive sales: user-generated content (UGC). If there’s one thing fitness ambassadors can offer brands that is solid gold, it’s great quality UGC.
Getting content straight from your ambassador community will decrease the amount you spend on creating content, while also making your ambassadors feel rewarded and empowered to create even more wonderful posts for your brand. It’s a double score! You get free fitness content while building brand loyalty.
Tip: Be 100% transparent with your community about how your plan to use their content and credit their work. If the policy states that in exchange for free products, you expect to use ambassador content without crediting them - that’s totally ok but ensure you cover your bases so you don’t run into any copyright issues down the line.
UGC images, first: @lojohnson_08 for Wodbottom, second: @natalie_mckee_uk for Fabletics, Cover: @priscillamoy for Onepiece
Always aim to keep the rewards that you offer ambassadors for completing their tasks as fresh and exciting as you can. It doesn’t always have to be tied to sales, but you’ll be missing out on more ambassador engagement if you only reward your ambassadors based on tracked sales.
Reward them for simply completing tasks too. Something like an exclusive discount or a gift card will do the trick! Unfortunately, only rewarding tasks that resulted in sales may discourage your ambassadors to keep going. This is especially the case for newly-recruited advocates.
Ambassador software platforms can help you maintain your ambassador marketing campaigns by automating everything from ambassador recruitment and distributing rewards to one-to-many messaging features.
You can plan your campaign around what you’d most like to achieve, whether that’s driving sales or simply generating more local brand awareness. The targeted goal is up to you, and our ambassador software platform can help you attain it.