How do you reward and recognize your brand advocates without compromising their authenticity and credibility?

As we all know, brand advocates are the backbone of any successful marketing strategy. They spread positive word-of-mouth, increase brand awareness, and ultimately drive sales. But the challenge lies in finding ways to reward and recognize them without compromising their genuine support for your brand. The best way to acknowledge them is, Encourage when doing great Understand when making any mistake Correct them without harming their dignity and respect Respect them in a manner they respect you Give rewards as per their performance This will not only increase their interest in working but also they truly feel acknowledged.

Reward and recognize brand advocates by offering exclusive perks, access, or recognition, while ensuring their endorsements remain genuine and authentic.

By creating a program it allows the brand to identify the right people its customer base, employees, or influencers who align with the company's values and vision, making them ideal brand ambassadors. Having the program sparks powerful word-of-mouth marketing, leveraging the personal networks of these individuals.

Providing meaningful branded merchandise is a game-changer for a brand advocacy program. When you offer well-designed and appealing branded products, it not only attracts potential ambassadors but also motivates existing ones. These tangible gifts serve as recognition for their support, encouraging them to proudly showcase and share the brand with their followers. Branded merchandise becomes a potent tool for building awareness as ambassadors naturally integrate the products into their daily lives, creating authentic and visible endorsements that resonate with their audience.

A big opportunity today is to recognise the ability for the community to become the market. It helps to solve the problems for others. The community becomes a place of trust and validation. This is where the idea of community as service (CaaS) comes into play. Mark Schaefer in Belonging To The Brand defines CaaS as ‘access to a group of people is valuable enough to be considered a marketable product.’ The community is the business. The group has a powerful voice when the community has trusted status. It takes time, which is why the small steps are worth the effort. This is new for all of us but highlights new opportunities for those who have the drive to build, unite people and activity to be seen through a much wider lens.

Tied to transparency, two-way dialogue acknowledging feedback in the public ether with a closed loop addressing that feedback is a great way to drive engagement with authenticity. Often negative feedback when something goes wrong presents an opportunity to correct or right the situation leading to an even more positive outcome than all sunshine and saccharin would have !