Every business wants to grow and gaining new customers is the goal. Businesses employ different techniques and strategies to achieve this. One important tool that brands can use to achieve this is brand evangelism. I dare say that, for any brand, its most effective marketing team is the satisfied and excited customer base, that echoes the brand’s messages, and promotes the products and services to the people they know. This is the crux of brand evangelism, and it is one of the most powerful types of marketing a business can have.
Who is a Brand Evangelist?
Brand evangelists are brands’ customer ‘super fans’. What sets them different from other customers is their willingness to stretch themselves and spread the word about the products and brand. They consistently extol products and services to friends, come to the brand’s defence and share its messages anywhere; physical or virtual spaces. Infact, someone says “customer evangelists are more than loyal—they’re out there converting new customers
What Makes Brand Evangelists Unique?
Business owners and brand managers, as well as custodians should know that loyal customers regularly buy their products or use their services. Brand evangelists are loyal customers who go the extra mile by telling everyone about the products. They use their own personal brand and social media to promote the brand. They are passionate and get other people excited about the products or services. They are a source of authentic ongoing content marketing—and they do it all for free.
Brand evangelists are different from brand ambassadors who are mostly paid influencers. Brand evangelists push the frontiers of the brand with strong recommendations borne out of satisfaction and conviction. They are unlike brand ambassadors whose endorsements are only transactional and not experiential. Evangelist marketing is incredibly effective. It is word-of-mouth taken to the next level. This type of passionate and authentic support of the brand creates new loyal customers. Evangelists don’t just push messages out there—they convince people that the messages of the brand are worth listening to.
How to Encourage and Grow Brand Evangelism
To encourage brand evangelism, the brand must become more than a brand. It must forge an emotional connection with consumers. Brand evangelism might start with an appreciation for the functionality or image of a brand, which can create a loyal customer. However, brand evangelists go out of their way to talk about the brand, which occurs when they feel a connection.
There are many ways to forge a strong connection with consumers, and which is best will depend on who the ideal customers are. You must have a good understanding of your market, including demographic information, as well as what they care about, how they think, and challenges they face. For example, millenials are more likely to pay more for sustainable products, indicating a strong environmental stance may resonate with this group especially. However, these initiatives are less likely to inspire brand evangelism in older or younger demographics, and might even turn some customers away. With a good understanding of your customers, you’ll be able to choose which of these strategies is best for inspiring brand evangelism.
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Start Internally: The people that interact with your brand the most are already working for you. If they’re not excited about the brand, it might be because there isn’t a unified understanding of what that brand is. As a first step, businesses should clearly define their mission and core values and communicate them to employees. Creating this sense of alignment will ensure that each employee is representing the business in a consistent way that is unified with their brand’s commitments and goals. This will probably require culture changes and may involve significant growing pains, but getting employees on board is the first step to building a strong brand evangelist base.
Focus On Your Existing Customer Base: Every business is set up with the goals of growing the business as well as getting new customers. But if you’re a business looking to gain brand evangelists, it helps if your existing customers are happy and excited. This might involve upping your customer service game and adding personalised touches to your business. Most businesses already have potential brand evangelists within their existing customer base that can be easily converted by creating a culture of going the extra mile.
Create a Strong Brand Identity: Get a good understanding of your customers’ identity, what they want to display to the world, and how your brand might fit in. Use attributes that your customers aspire to or exemplify, such as fairness, toughness, prestige, or environmental stewardship.
Perform Extraordinary Customer Service: Great customer service starts with the people who interact with your customers every day. Give your staff the tools, power and training to go above and beyond for customers, and make it clear that you want them to do so. It must be part of your business’ DNA.
Highlight Customer Stories: Show that you are listening to your customers. Create closeness by highlighting their stories on social media, through your blog, or testimonial videos.
Align Your Interests with Your Customers: Customers are more tapped into social and environmental issues than ever. If you feel that this will make a strong impact on your customer base, show support for causes that your customers support. Brands in Nigeria have a lot to do in this wise. A good number of brands in Nigeria do not count this as important and that is why they downplay corporate social responsibility initiatives.
Consider Your Employees: Happy employees are your first and best ambassadors. When you create a positive work environment, your employees can pass their positive experience on to customers. Above-and-beyond customer service is unlikely to happen if your employees are unhappy.
Create a Community: Brand evangelists have the potential to drive communities and movements. Help your fans connect and foster a community around your brand. This might include giving free products to established groups, creating a community forum, or creating a loyalty programme for club members.
Last line: Understanding how brand evangelism happens is just as important as understanding what brand evangelism is. Consider your customers carefully when working on earning these super fans. The catch is that, if a brand can meet the needs of its customer base, and go above and beyond as it does it, the brand may find itself with a loyal and enthusiastic following that will amplify its messages in different ways.
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