How can you make customer advocacy programs engaging and fun?

1 Define your goals and metrics

Before you launch your customer advocacy program, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and how you will measure it. Do you want to increase your customer retention, upsell, or cross-sell rates? Do you want to generate more referrals, reviews, testimonials, or case studies? Do you want to enhance your brand awareness, reputation, or authority? Depending on your goals, you need to define the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will help you track and evaluate your program's success. For example, you might use metrics such as net promoter score (NPS), customer lifetime value (CLV), referral rate, conversion rate, social media mentions, or website traffic.

2 Segment and target your customers

Not all customers are equally willing or able to advocate for your brand. You need to segment and target your customers based on their level of satisfaction, loyalty, engagement, and influence. You can use tools such as surveys, feedback forms, email marketing, or CRM software to identify and categorize your customers into different groups. For example, you might use the loyalty ladder model to segment your customers into prospects, customers, clients, supporters, advocates, and partners. Then, you can tailor your customer advocacy program to each group's needs, preferences, and behaviors.

3 Offer relevant and valuable incentives

One of the key elements of a successful customer advocacy program is to offer relevant and valuable incentives that reward your customers for their actions and contributions. Incentives can be monetary or non-monetary, tangible or intangible, depending on your budget, goals, and customers' expectations. For example, you might offer discounts, coupons, freebies, gift cards, or cash rewards for referrals, reviews, or testimonials. Alternatively, you might offer recognition, appreciation, access, education, or community for social media mentions, case studies, or feedback. The key is to align your incentives with your customers' values and motivations, and to make them easy to claim and redeem.

4 Gamify and personalize your program

Another way to make your customer advocacy program engaging and fun is to gamify and personalize it. Gamification is the use of game elements and mechanics to motivate and reward your customers for their participation and performance. For example, you might use points, badges, levels, leaderboards, challenges, or quests to create a sense of progress, competition, or achievement. Personalization is the use of data and technology to customize your program to your customers' individual needs, preferences, and behaviors. For example, you might use segmentation, targeting, automation, or AI to deliver relevant and timely messages, offers, or content to your customers.