By Syed Balkhi
We know that word of mouth is one of the most beneficial forms of marketing for a business. The best customers are the ones who have so much faith in your company that they want to endorse it to others.
While you can’t force this sort of loyalty, there are many ways you can encourage it.
It’s essential for any business to make customer advocacy a key part of the business, especially if you’re trying to promote your business with a small budget.
If you engage your existing customers the right way, you stand to generate a positive reputation and sell your products with less effort and expense. Here, you’ll learn six ways to get your customers to promote your business for free. Dive in!
1. Create an amazing product
First, you need to build a great product that makes customers care enough to share about it.
To make a product that is awe-inspiring and truly great, you have to really listen and understand their pain points.
Also, study your competitors to find features that could bridge any gaps and create something memorable.
Consider incorporating personalized touches into your product line to enhance the overall customer experience. For example, you could offer custom printed items with their names and initials on. This will make your customers feel special and appreciated.
After you build something revolutionary, don’t forget to help people achieve their goals with it, too. Putting in the effort initially with a fantastic product can kickstart customers advocating for your brand and gaining more attention to your business.
Damian Grabarczyk, the co-founder of PetLab Co., says, “In the journey of PetLab Co., we realized that creating an amazing product isn’t just about what’s inside the package; it’s about the story it tells. We decided to embed a narrative in each product – a story of sustainability, ethical sourcing, or community support. This approach transformed our products from mere items to symbols of values our customers cherished. They didn’t just buy a product; they became part of a story they were proud to share. This narrative-driven approach turned our customers into advocates who didn’t just use our products but loved and talked about the ethos behind them. It taught us that when your product carries a story, it doesn’t just sit on a shelf; it lives in the hearts and conversations of your community.“
2. Offer outstanding customer service
It won’t matter if you have the best product in the world if people don’t get the right support before, during, and after purchasing it.
Ensure your staff members have excellent communication skills and product knowledge to help customers in real-time.
Also, give your customers an easy way to reach out to you with any questions or concerns.
One powerful tip to boost customer service team productivity is to use the right suite of tools like forms for customer feedback, email automation software for seamless customer onboarding and interactions, or a reliable CRM to gain insights into customer data.
Integrate them with your communications channel, like Slack, to make sure that your customer support team is on top of any updates.
These steps will build trust in your brand and have customers telling others about it, too.
Provide service so excellent that people talk about it online, like in the image above. Source
3. Create buyer personas
Now, we get to building a customer advocacy program. That is a program that rewards loyal customers for promoting your business.
Before you create an advocacy program, you need to know who your existing customers are and understand their wants and needs.
And to do this, build out a buyer persona. This is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. Once you have this in place, it’ll be much easier to produce content and products they’re likely to love.
An example of a buyer persona template. Source
Here’s what to do.
- Use a buyer persona template to make your work easier.
- Think about the traits of your target audience, like their demographics and buying habits.
- Look at customer feedback to uncover any patterns or trends.
- Research the types of interests and hobbies your customers have.
Once you combine all of these elements, it’ll be much easier to create an effective customer advocacy program.
4. Give first
Gary Vaynerchuk’s advice in his book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook is key to getting customers to take action on behalf of your brand.
When you build and deliver products, don’t focus on your product or service as the beginning and end of your relationship with your customers.
Provide more than just a product to your customers. Here are some ways how:
- Create educational content using online membership sites and LMS platforms
- Provide free templates and ‘recipes’ for using your products and services
- Create ebooks, checklists, and guides and give them away
- Host contests
- Engage your audience online
When you get your customers to love your brand and products first, they’ll respond positively when you ask them to promote you.
5. Add share buttons and social media assets
Always remember to make it easy for your customers to share information about your business. You can do this by adding share buttons to your web content. Create social media assets, such as images, social media templates, branded hashtags, and so on and make them available to customers.
One great tip is to add a social media feed to your site with a social media feed plugin like SmashBalloon.
You can automatically add social media posts from Facebook, Instagram, and other places to your website. And users will get the experience of seeing a curated social media feed on your site where they won’t get distracted by competing content.
Add a social media feed to your site to encourage customers to engage and share your content. Source
They’ll also be more likely to spread the word about your brand and draw attention to you through their social media activities.
6. Create incentives
Another way to get your customers to market for you is by creating incentives. Offer rewards and discounts when they share and promote your products.
You can also create referral programs to incentivize customers to refer their friends and family to your business.
For example, you could create an affiliate program so that customers can earn a commission when they refer their friends to your business.
You could offer free upgrades, discounts, or other rewards to customers who actively promote your brand on their social media channels.
These incentives will motivate customers and make them more likely to market your business.
7. Harness Reviews
Customers trust other customers. When making purchase decisions, they often rely on the experiences shared by others about your product or service.
It’s essential to collect and respond to reviews to demonstrate your business’s commitment to trust and quality. Engaging with customers on third-party review platforms can amplify their positive impact.
Additionally, when unhappy customers post complaints on consumer advocacy websites, addressing these publicly can showcase your business’s proactive approach to conflict resolution. This not only resolves issues but also enhances your reputation by demonstrating a commitment to customer satisfaction and transparency in a competitive market.
Conclusion
By following these tips, you can get your customers to do your marketing for you. From adding share buttons and social media assets to creating incentives, you can use these tactics to encourage customers to spread the word about your business.
The key is to engage people and, of course, to build a great product that gets people talking.
By getting your customers involved in your marketing efforts through these tips, you can reach a wider audience and grow your business.
About the Author
Syed Balkhi is the founder of WPBeginner, the largest free WordPress resource site. With over 10 years of experience, he’s the leading WordPress expert in the industry. You can learn more about Syed and his portfolio of companies by following him on his social media networks.
