How do you identify and recruit potential brand advocates from your customer base?

Start by defining the characteristics of an ideal brand advocate. Consider factors like their level of satisfaction with your product or service, their influence within their social circles or online communities, and their willingness to promote your brand voluntarily. Identify potential advocates using your customer relationship management (CRM) system or other customer data sources. Look for customers who have repeatedly purchased, provided positive feedback, or engaged with your brand on social media. Begin engaging with potential advocates by responding to their comments and feedback on social media, emails, or customer reviews.

Totally agreed. To sum up, I would say that a brand advocate is loyal to your brand. With that in mind, we always need to filter brand advocates that will add value to your brand, have a positive influence over your audience, and they should be aligned with your brand values, mission, vision, etc.

Remember buyer personas? Develop detailed advocate personas to better target and nurture potential brand advocates. Just as you create buyer personas, construct profiles for your ideal advocates.

Implement an advocate scoring system that combines various metrics into a single advocacy score. Assign numerical values to NPS, CLV, social media engagement, and other relevant data points.

NPS promoters have literally said that on a scale of 0-10 they rate themselves a 9 or 10 on being "likely to recommend you to a friend or colleague." So make it easy for them to do so.

I recommend conducting a full research study to identify not only the behavioral segments, but also the value propositions that appeal to the target audience. Such a study, if done properly, should include both a quantitative and a qualitative analyses. The quantitive portion should be done with surveys which should compare the actual customer database — divided into subs categories of current, regular and lapsed customers — to the general population. The qualitative analysis should consist of focus groups, in-depth interviews or similar. Once the quantitative and qualitative analysis has been done and audience segmentation created, I recommend creating value proposition statements would to serve up to the potential brand ambassadors.

An “invite” can be done in the form of another survey, which can be distributed as an email or as a post post purchase survey for e-commerce brands. An incentive stated upfront typically helps recruit the required number of responders.

This does not necessarily have to be done just actively. Gen Z'ers especially are on the lookout for affiliate programs and will happily promote a brand they believe in simply because it helps their friends, not just themselves. Make sure that people can easily find out about any affiliate or loyalty programs, and that the benefits of joining one are clear.

Get a program together. Implement a tiered loyalty program specifically designed for your advocates. As they achieve different milestones in advocacy, offer them exclusive rewards, badges, or even monetary incentives