Building a lasting B2B program requires a few steps.
Partnering with the most trusted and influential voices in your industry to advocate and collaborate on content that customers actually want can be a game changer for B2B companies. Beloved business brands including Adobe and LinkedIn have achieved business impact ranging from increased relevance to the kinds of advocacy that can drive leads and sales. It’s no mistake that some of the most successful world-class B2B companies have brand advocates that customers trust engaging on their behalf.
To build a world-class ambassador program for your B2B brand, follow these 5 steps.
1) Plan to Succeed
Unlike B2B influencer activations which are often intermittent, ambassador programs are planned, ongoing relationships focused on collaborating in ways that engage audiences to drive business objectives. Your plan should include the purpose of the program, technology needed and goals as well as steps to identify, recruit, onboard, support and measure ambassador performance. Common goals include:
Brand Awareness - Using benchmark measurements as a starting point, growth of brand or product mentions can be measured amongst the group of ambassadors, industry influencers and the industry at large.
Brand Relevance - Ambassadors can be engaged to create brand content specific to customer needs making the brand a more credible, trusted source on the topic of focus. As part of their ongoing influencer engagement LinkedIn Marketing Solutions has engaged in numerous activations with influencers that provide deeper insights and expertise into topics around B2B marketing and advertising for which LinkedIn is increasingly relevant.
Drive Leads, Sales and Revenue - With special tracking links to brand content, ambassador sharing activity can provide information about the value of referred visitors that ultimately make inquiries and become customers of the brand.
Inspire Customer Loyalty, Retention and Advocacy - Ambassadors are not limited to industry experts. Internal staff including subject matter experts and even clients can be a part of a brand ambassador program. Clients that are empowered to advocate for the brand by providing authentic insights can effectively support retention and advocacy goals.
2) Identify Your Ideal B2B Ambassadors
It’s vital to start a B2B brand ambassador program by identifying advocates that satisfy criteria essential to reaching your business goals. Not all B2B ambassadors start as brand fans. They may be strong advocates for the types of solutions the brand offers and through education and relationship building become strong brand advocates. Beyond brand affinity, subject matter expertise and popularity, here are some common characteristics of the most successful B2B brand ambassadors:
Passion - According to Lee Odden, CEO of B2B Marketing Agency TopRank Marketing, “It’s not enough for B2B brands to simply inform customers, it is increasingly important to help them feel.” The most successful brand ambassadors are often enthusiastic, charismatic and persuasive in their communications. They are great storytellers that inspire, not just sources of content distribution.
Publishing - Ambassadors that have effective reach and engagement often do so through their own channels including podcasts, episodic video shows, blogs, columns in business publications and active engagement in the industry through public speaking, authoring books and reports.
Promotion - Competition for content visibility is at an all-time high, so ambassadors that are effective at promoting their own as well as brand content is important for successful reach with customers. Audiences that are accustomed to the influential experts they follow promoting ideas, resources and solutions will respond much more favorably than those who do not often promote.
Once you have an ideal ambassador profile, you can search for them using the topics of expertise desired. This search can be done using the search function of social networks as well as social media monitoring tools like Sprinklr and Meltwater or influencer marketing platforms like Traackr.
3) Create a Value Proposition That Inspires
Motivations for brand ambassadors range from transactional to inspirational. It’s important to discover during ambassador recruiting and onboarding what their main motivations are. Brand fans are often happy to engage organically without compensation every time. In most cases, incentives are important including public recognition in brand content, early access to information, exclusive previews to products and availability of internal experts. Compelling value propositions include:
Being a part of an exclusive community - The Adobe Insiders program provides industry experts and brand advocates with exclusive opportunities to participate in events like Adobe Summit and Adobe MAX. Influencers are engaged individually, in small or large groups depending on the activation need. The specialness of being a part of a community inspires higher quality content, engagement and advocacy.
Compensation for work product - When ambassadors are engaged to perform work such as speaking at an event, writing a series of blog posts or performing specific tasks with a notable time commitment, compensation is appropriate. These are professionals that can deliver high quality content and authentic advocacy with the appropriate disclosures compliant with FTC guidelines.
Compensation for performance - Another form of compensation is through the performance of tasks or an affiliate program that pays based on outcomes. Pay for performance is a growing form of compensation for B2B brand ambassadors as more professional influencers have established networks for promotion. It is important that while compensation is in play, that content is authentic. Otherwise, audiences may lose trust.
4) Manage the Program, Support the People
With clear goals and direction for advocating your brand, ambassadors will need support to be successful. That means briefings and training, a communication system with the brand and other ambassadors, and tools for managing activations, content and campaign participation.
The way you bring new ambassadors into your program will make a very strong impression and can set everyone up for success if done correctly. Odden advises, “Avoid treating ambassadors as special during recruiting only to treat them as a commodity after they are on board. When you create a great ambassador experience, they will be inspired to create a great experience for your customers.”
Set expectations, provide support and content resources they can use for advocacy including social message ideas, graphics and other media.
While some brands choose to engage ambassadors on a 1-to-1 basis, a multiplying effect can be achieved when a platform for communications is provided where ambassadors can communicate with each other. This way support can be provided to the ambassadors as a group and they experience the program as part of a VIP community.
5) Track, Measure and Optimize
Effective marketing programs track performance and ambassador programs are no different. Activating ambassadors can take many forms with B2B brands from social media advocacy to participating in online webinars or offline events. Creating content and publishing on the ambassadors’ own social networks or channels such as a podcast or an episodic video series that includes links to brand content are also opportunities for tracking performance.
Regardless of ambassador activation format, goals and metrics along with a means for tracking must be agreed upon. Systems must be in place for trackable links to collect data on KPIs such as the reach and engagement with shared content on social networks, referred traffic to the brand website, downloads, trials, subscriptions, leads, conversion rates and metrics that compare to benchmarks like topic share of voice and brand sentiment.
Being clear about expectations, support and providing ongoing feedback as well as receiving feedback from ambassadors will reinforce a productive relationship for everyone involved. An effective B2B brand ambassador program truly is an everybody wins opportunity. Brands benefit from trusted industry experts advocating for their solutions, ambassadors benefit from working closely with brands they believe in and customers get useful information from people they trust.
By following these 5 easy steps, you’ll be on your way to creating a world-class B2B ambassador program that can create real impact for your business. Remember, the key to success for such a program relies on being clear about the why, how and who of your program and having a system that provides support from onboarding to advocacy.
