The success of a brand in the future depends greatly on its reputation and popularity. In today’s world, promoting a brand alone is not sufficient – it needs genuine and trustworthy influencers to support it. The opinions and feedback from real people hold more weight than brand advertisements.
This post will delve into the world of brand ambassadors – who they are, the benefits they bring, and how companies can leverage their employees to create successful ambassador programs. We’ll also explore the differences between brand ambassadors and influencers and provide tips on how to start an effective ambassador program.
Definition of Brand Ambassadors
Brand ambassadors are individuals or entities who are hired by a company to represent and promote its brand. They act as the face of the brand and work to increase its visibility, awareness, and credibility among their followers and other potential customers. Brand ambassadors are often experts or influential figures in a particular field, and their endorsement of a brand can have a significant impact on its reputation and sales. They can be either paid or unpaid, and may promote the brand through various channels such as social media, events, and content marketing.
Brand ambassadors are influencers who have agreed to promote a company on a long-term basis and for that reason, become the “face” of the brand.
Many people perceive ambassadors as the “face” of a brand. These people often have developed networks and relationships to promote a certain brand with help of a word of mouth marketing methods such as referring family and friends or discussing a brand on communication channels such as social media.
Brands are looking to attract new clients beyond traditional ad campaigns. They are finding new ways to leverage their advocates to increase brand awareness and drive better business performance.
Many people may consider brand ambassadors as influencers hired by a company. However, an ambassador can be anyone who adores the products of your company and make some efforts to support and promote an organization’s growth.
Because of their great communication and interpersonal talent, ambassadors have the power to affect people’s opinions and impact their purchasing decisions.
The New Era of Marketing
Social media platforms have forever changed the way we create, distribute and consume information. However, one thing has stayed the same throughout the years – users trust other users more than they trust companies.
Brands have always known how strong social proof can be, and with the availability of different content in the digital era, social proof has become one of the most important elements of a successful company.
Instead of remaining impersonal, businesses are choosing to collaborate with influential personalities that align with their brand image and values.
These influential personalities are called brand ambassadors.
Many years ago, companies worked with “brand managers” who were also sometimes called “product managers”. In the early 2000s, the role of a brand manager was substituted with a brand ambassador.
Brand ambassadors were typically celebrities (mostly they were musicians or actors) who were rewarded for brand promotion and participating in different commercials and promotional material.
With the rise of social media, those who were once considered “ordinary people” now have the opportunity to build a following and have an extraordinary impact on the people by producing, publishing, and sharing information online. Today, brand ambassador contracts broaden much more than celebrity branding.
Become a PRNEWS.IO Brand Ambassador today! Join our mission to promote exceptional brands and amplify their stories. Apply now: Brand Ambassador Application Form
Why Do You Need a Brand Ambassador?
Interrelationship, trust, influence – whatever you want to call it – is the key.
These are the currency of business: the more trust and influence you have with someone, the most commonly you are to profit from their business. This is the merit of a brand ambassador.
Attracting brand ambassadors as a part of your marketing strategy, social media, and communication plans can a long way out in driving more brand awareness and generating more profit.
Developing brands are facing competition on an extraordinary scale. Markets are getting more saturated, and clients have the opportunity to choose between many different products and services. Hence, companies are now turning to make ambassadors out of their current clients, partners, contractors, and employee base.
3 reasons why every business needs brand ambassadors:
More trust and brand awareness
One of the most common motives why companies like to partner with ambassadors is to increase brand awareness, improve social engagement, and establish trust among users and followers. When the majority of an organization’s communication comes directly from the company, messages are not as trustworthy as when they come from real people.
Today, people are exposed to content overload daily. Hence, they’ve learned to cut through the noise and ignore what they consider inappropriate—including company ads.
That is to say, people trust the opinions and suggestions from others who have used the products and services in real life, and someone’s personal review is the source of information clients trust most.
For brand ambassadors, it is much easier to influence their audiences in a genuine and authentic way, gain the audience’s attention and enthusiasm about your products and services.
Cost-effectiveness
As mentioned above, advocacy marketing can be far more cost-effective than traditional promotion and other marketing or sales campaigns. While some brand ambassadors may be paid with cash, free products, or gift cards, the most successful ambassadors tend to be those whose biggest motivation is to see the brand is developing.
In many cases, the brand ambassadors are your own employees. Even though many companies also have paid ambassadorship programs, they are still very expensive. Compared to costly promotions, ambassadors can do a much better job in gaining the audience’s attention, reaching a wider audience, and making more sales.
Improved employer brand and more high-quality job candidates
Besides driving more visibility, brand awareness, and sales, brand ambassadorship can be a very effective way of improving your organization’s employer brand and, therefore, attracting more high-quality candidates for your open vacancies.
Employees who are proud to be part of your company can spread the word about your key brand values, EVP, and their own employee experience.
The Role of Brand Ambassadors in Upholding E-A-T Principles
E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) is crucial because it forms the foundation for establishing credibility and reliability online. It ensures that content is accurate, valuable, and trustworthy, fostering trust among users, influencing search engine rankings, and ultimately enhancing the overall reputation and success of a brand or website.
Here’s how Brand Ambassadors can help align their content with E-A-T principles:
Expertise
Brand Ambassadors should showcase their expertise in the industry by creating content that reflects a deep understanding of relevant topics. They should share informative content that educates the audience, positioning the Brand Ambassador as a knowledgeable resource in the field.
Authoritativeness
Encourage Brand Ambassadors to express their opinions and insights on industry trends, challenges, and innovations. When applicable, include references to authoritative sources to support claims and strengthen the credibility of the content.
Trustworthiness
Brand Ambassadors should maintain an authentic and genuine voice in their content, fostering a sense of trust with the audience. It si good to be open about any affiliations or partnerships, ensuring transparency in content creation and maintaining trust with the audience.
Consistent Brand Messaging
Ensure that the content created by Brand Ambassadors aligns with the overall brand message and values, reinforcing a consistent brand identity. Provide Brand Ambassadors with clear guidelines and training to ensure that their content reflects the desired brand image and maintains E-A-T principles.
User Testimonials and Success Stories
Brand Ambassadors can incorporate user testimonials and success stories into their content to highlight the positive impact of the brand on real users. Present case studies that showcase tangible results, reinforcing the brand’s trustworthiness.
Compliance with Guidelines
- Ensure that Brand Ambassadors adhere to ethical standards and industry regulations in their content creation.
- Provide ongoing training to Brand Ambassadors regarding compliance and ethical considerations to maintain trust.
By empowering Brand Ambassadors to create content that aligns with E-A-T principles, brands can not only benefit from increased credibility but also foster a community of loyal followers who trust the brand and its ambassadors. This symbiotic relationship between Brand Ambassadors and E-A-T principles contributes to a positive and trustworthy online presence.
Who Can Be A Brand Ambassador?
Employees as Brand Ambassadors
One of the most effective ways for companies to establish a strong and credible brand image is through their own employees. Employees can serve as valuable brand ambassadors for their company by promoting its products, services, and culture to their own networks and communities. This can be particularly effective because employees are seen as more trustworthy and credible than traditional advertising or marketing efforts.
Employees in sales, HR, marketing, communications, product, engineering, and management can turn to be effective brand ambassadors.
Here are some examples of the results employees within these people can bring:
- Sales: new opportunity creation, reduce the sales cycle, increase revenue and lead pipeline
- Human Resources: builds your employer reputation, increase recruiting and retention, improved talent pool,
- Marketing: brand awareness, lead generation, social shares, web traffic
- Product & Engineering: product awareness, thought leadership
Generally, employees who usually communicate with people outside the company are the ones who will bring the greatest results. In this digital and social new era, virtually every employee has a large professional network. Besides that, many are already sharing about your business, whether executives realize it or not.
Between social media, email, and other services, B2B employees have a significant number of people they communicate, and with whom they have good relationships and trust.
On average and given the nature of their roles (e.g., the requirement to network with people outside of their company), sales, marketing, and management are going to have the largest professional networks and can bring the biggest results.
Customers as Brand Ambassadors
Customers can also become brand ambassadors, and they can be just as effective as employee brand ambassadors. In fact, customers who are loyal to a brand can be even more influential in promoting a brand to others. Here are some ways to turn your customers into brand ambassadors:
- Provide an exceptional customer experience: Providing a great customer experience is essential for building customer loyalty. When customers have a positive experience with a brand, they are more likely to talk about it with others.
- Encourage customer reviews: Encourage customers to leave reviews on your website or social media pages. Positive reviews can help to build trust in your brand and encourage others to try your products or services.
- Offer rewards: Offer rewards or incentives to customers who refer others to your brand. This can be in the form of discounts, free products or services, or exclusive access to events or promotions.
- Build a community: Building a community around your brand can help to foster a sense of belonging among your customers. This can be done through social media groups, forums, or events.
- Share user-generated content: Share content created by your customers on your social media pages or website. This can help to showcase your brand in an authentic way and encourage others to share their experiences with your brand.
By turning your customers into brand ambassadors, you can harness the power of word-of-mouth marketing and build a loyal customer base that can help to promote your brand to others.
Influencers as Brand Ambassadors
Influencers can make effective brand ambassadors for several reasons:
- Established audience: Influencers already have a loyal following of people who trust and value their opinion. By partnering with an influencer, a brand gains access to that audience, and can potentially reach new customers who may not have been aware of the brand before.
- Expertise and credibility: Influencers typically specialize in a particular niche, such as fashion, beauty, or fitness. They are seen as experts in that area and have built up a level of credibility with their audience. When an influencer promotes a product or service, their endorsement carries weight and can be seen as more genuine and authentic than traditional advertising.
- Social media reach: Many influencers have a strong presence on social media, which can be a valuable tool for brands to increase their visibility and reach. Influencers can create content featuring a brand’s products or services, and share it with their followers on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
- Cost-effective: Compared to traditional advertising methods, partnering with an influencer can be a cost-effective way for brands to reach their target audience. Brands can negotiate with influencers for sponsored posts or other promotional content, which can be less expensive than traditional advertising channels like TV or print ads.
Influencers can be an effective way for brands to reach new customers, increase brand awareness, and build credibility and trust with their audience.
Brand Ambassadors vs. Influencers vs. Brand Advocates
When companies consider collaboration, their ideas usually jump to influencer marketing and partnering with celebrities and influential social media users that may not have received a celebrity status, but still, keep up a loyal following.
However, a partnership with an influencer for a campaign varies from a partnership with a brand ambassador.
Influencers are usually used for a single campaign, and once that campaign is finished, they finish their partnership with this company. They may agree to work again on future campaigns together, but they are not exclusively advertising a single brand.
Remember, a brand ambassador is always an influencer, but an influencer does not belong necessarily to a brand ambassador.
Another expression that usually adds to the confusion is “brand advocate”.
While brand ambassadors and influencers get compensated for their work and collaboration with the company, brand advocates promote a brand not because they are paid, but because they are their true fans.
Brand advocates, unlike influencers and brand ambassadors, do not necessarily have significant social influence.
Read more: How Micro-Influencers Help Brands Do Better Marketing
Where to Start?
The sky’s the limit when you decide to launch an employee ambassador program.
Whether you choose to hire ambassadors or collaborate with influencers, a great place to start is with your company’s human resources. With time and success, it is possible for your program to reach a point where most of your company’s workers are then taking part.
However–and at the start–it’s better to take things one step. Start small, analyze, iterate, show success, improve, and repeat.
Especially when you’re starting, it’s important to focus on attracting employees to your program that actually want to participate and who like and have experience with social media and other modern communication and networking platforms.
Even though this seems like a very organic thing to do, it is not so easy to execute successful employee advocacy programs. Here are the must-follow steps for creating a successful ambassadorship program in your company:
- Identify the rules of your brand ambassadorship program
- Teach your employees how to be ambassadors (the do’s and don’ts)
- Choose your current internal ambassadors
- Offer to pass a survey to reveal who is your potential ambassadors
- Clearly claim the benefits of brand ambassadorship for both individuals and your company as a whole
- Create and distribute content relevant to your internal audiences (only then they will want to share it with their networks)
- Facilitate for ambassadors to share the content externally
- Estimate the impact of brand ambassadorship
- Recognize and reward your brand ambassadors
Creating a Brand Ambassador Program that Fits Your Goals
Think about what you’re trying to reach with your brand ambassador program, and how much you can invest. Different businesses have different requirements for their ambassadors and different requirements for their programs.
There are lots of ways to start your brand ambassador program:
- Provide your ambassadors with complementary products.
- Send your ambassadors a discount on your products.
- Pay the ambassadors on a regular basis:
- With such a payment model, the brand ambassador agrees to promote the company and fulfill their agreements for a fixed monthly fee.
- This payment needs to be provided no matter if you’ve tasked your ambassador with work or not.
- Create an affiliate program.
- Ambassadors get some fee on purchases linked to their promotional activities. Affiliate programs typically cover a unique discount code that serves as an incentive for the followers to buy.
You can also mix any of these methods to create your unique ambassador program or order publications via such services as PRNEWS.IO, which will increase your population and build a good reputation. PRNEWS.IO offers the guaranteed distribution of content in publications across the globe. The PRNews.io platform can help you to drive awareness among your potential clients, partners, and investors and increase your sales. It will help you not to waste time in searching and pitching yourself lots of media outlets to publish your press release, news, or story there. PRNews.io is a service that connects brands and journalists.
Become PRNEWS.IO Brand Ambassador and Join Our Team!
Are you passionate about brands that make a difference? Do you love spreading the word about exciting products and services? Become a Brand Ambassador for PRNEWS.IO and be part of an amazing team that drives innovation and growth!
Join us on our mission to promote exceptional brands and amplify their stories to the world. As a PRNEWS Brand Ambassador, you’ll have the opportunity to collaborate with industry leaders, gain valuable experience, and unlock fantastic rewards.
Take the first step towards an exciting journey by filling out our Brand Ambassador Application Form here. Let’s make a powerful impact together!
Don’t miss this chance to be a part of something extraordinary! Apply now and become an essential part of our brand’s success.
Bottom Line
A successful brand ambassador program can be a game-changer for businesses. Brand ambassadors help to increase brand awareness, create a positive brand image, and ultimately drive sales.
Potential candidates and users trust real referrals more than traditional advertisements. And since the ambassadors occupy a specialist position, the trust of potential customers is even stronger.
The success of employer branding and recruiting depends more than ever on the employer’s good reputation on social platforms – corporate ambassadors can help there. If brands rely on their brand ambassadors, they achieve many benefits. If you don’t have them now, it’s always a good idea to use the help of professional services, like PRNEWS.IO.
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