If you want to build a steady and loyal customer base for your product or service, it is
essential that you enable them to develop a relationship with your brand. If you want
customers to keep coming back to your company and checking in with your latest offers and
products, you need to engage and communicate in fresh, authentic, and targeted methods
which your demographic will respond to.
In today’s economy, customer expectations are more nuanced than with any other generation.
Customers respond to stories, personalities, and recommendations from real-life people. A
one size fits all print ad, or generalized TV or Radio ad is no longer enough – customers want
the individualized touch.
For this reason, more and more business owners are becoming attuned to the money-making
opportunities created by diversifying their marketing strategy to include new and effective
marketing methods – one of the most important being brand ambassador programs.
You don’t need to get a big-name celebrity or spend thousands of rand to develop a successful
strategy with a brand ambassador in South Africa. Brand ambassadors come in different
shapes and forms and can become an extremely effective part of your overall marketing
strategy for the next year.
Below we will talk you through everything you need to know about brand ambassadors and
what they can do for your company.
What are the Benefits of Using Influencers as Brand Ambassadors in Business Activations?
Businesses leveraging influencers in brand activations can reap numerous benefits. Influencers have established credibility in their respective niches, enabling them to effectively promote products or services to their followers. By partnering with influencers as brand ambassadors, businesses can tap into their extensive reach and engage with a wider audience. This can lead to increased brand awareness, trust, and ultimately drive more conversions. Furthermore, influencer collaborations can provide an authentic and relatable touch to business activations, which can resonate with consumers on a deeper level.
What Are the Benefits of Having Brand Ambassadors for Your Business?
Unleash your business potential with brand ambassadors. By having brand ambassadors, you can amplify your brand’s reach and increase brand awareness. They serve as authentic advocates who can build trust and credibility with your target audience. Brand ambassadors can also generate valuable user-generated content, engage with customers, and drive conversions. Ultimately, they can play a crucial role in boosting your business’s growth and success.
What Are Brand Ambassadors?
A brand ambassador works to spread the word about a company, product, or brand that they
feel positively about and will share all the reasons why with potential customers. Using word-
of-mouth marketing, they will work towards generating brand awareness through social
media accounts and other public forums.
The brand ambassadors you choose will be the “face” or embodiment of your company. They
will usually be remarkably close to the aspirational avatar of your target demographic and
will represent your company in the best possible light to your potential customers.
Different types of brand ambassadors include:
What are Brand Ambassador Influencers?
This is what comes to mind when most people think of brand ambassadors. Influencers are
people with a social media following who develop relationships with companies to promote
products. These are usually paid partnerships and will involve the promotion of products,
sharing affiliate links, sharing videos talking about using the product, and representing the
brand at events.
These types of brand ambassadors can be either well-known social media personalities with
huge followings or “micro” influencers who have a smaller, niche following of highly
engaged followers who fall within a target demographic or interest area.
Although they may not be household names outside of their platform, influencers have a huge
pull on the social media platform they have successfully built an audience on. Their followers
like and trust them, and because of this brand ambassador partnerships can be incredibly
effective for companies looking to improve brand awareness.
What are Customer Brand Ambassadors?
Customer brand ambassadors are brand advocates for your brand or company who advertise
products and offers on their social media platforms and encourage their followers to purchase
your products. These forms of brand ambassadors tend to be unpaid fans of the company and
receive benefits such as referral benefits, gifted products, and higher customer service levels.
These relationships tend to be longer term than those with high-profile influencers who will
usually only promote your product for the period that is contracted.
What is an Expert Brand Ambassador?
An expert brand ambassador is someone who has already developed expertise on a subject or
area related to your brand and is known publicly as a knowledgeable person in the field.
These can include health and fitness personalities, professional makeup artists who share
tutorials, or doctors who issue health advice. Their audience trusts their expertise and is likely
to consider the brands and products these ambassadors promote.
What is an Affiliate Brand Ambassador?
An affiliate brand ambassador will receive a commission on all new
customers they manage to direct toward your company. This is a hugely effective way of
marketing your company on social media and can provide a good return on a low-stakes
investment.
Affiliates can either share a special referral link on their social media platforms or else give
followers a referral code which they input at checkout. Both methods allow you to track how
effective your affiliate marketing efforts have been and which brand ambassadors have been
most successful in promoting your product.
Why Are Brand Ambassadors Important for Your Company?
Brand ambassadors can be incredibly effective in increasing brand awareness on social media
platforms, encouraging their followers to become new customers, and increasing revenue.
Because of this many forward-thinking companies are integrating brand ambassadors in
South Africa into their overall marketing strategy. Local influencers with loyal followings
can prove invaluable in building awareness, trust, and loyalty for your company.
Humanise Your Brand and Products
Your potential customers will relate better to a person, rather than a business. A brand
ambassador will show how your products look and function in real life and will extoll their
virtues to a loyal and trusting audience who already like and follow them.
When you pick the right brand ambassador for your company, you will get a positive,
engaged, and effective face for your brand. A passionate and likeable human being will be an
effective way to increase your revenue and improve company perception.
Online Competition Has Never Been Higher
Whether you are a local concern or a global operation – online competition has never been
higher. Online marketplaces are saturated with thousands of options, each google search for a
product or service comes up with pages containing hundreds of different options and all your
local competitors have their own online marketing strategies aimed at snapping up your target
customer base.
For this reason, many companies are turning toward brand ambassadors as a way for them to
stand out from the crowd and approach their target demographic using a more personal and
trusted method. Picking a brand ambassador who fits your company image, has great selling
skills, and has a highly engaged audience can prove incredibly effective when it comes to
meeting your revenue targets.
Increase Brand Awareness and Customer Trust Levels
One of the main benefits of using brand ambassadors in South Africa is that you will be able
to increase brand awareness amongst your target demographic by engaging with them
through a personality they already like and trust.
A list of benefits and reasons to buy which come directly from the brand is unlikely to be as
trusted as the same information when it comes out of the mouth of someone they look up to
on social media. A real face, personality, and living breathing person who they feel they
already know will have much more of an impact.
People are exposed to slick marketing messages on TV, radio, in posters, magazines, and banner
ads from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep – and have learned to
ignore most of the noise. Today’s customers are a lot more cynical and only a third of
consumers trust traditional ads, and most of your target customers are more likely to respond to a
personal recommendation than a slick mass-market campaign.
Save Money Using Brand Ambassadors
Hand in hand with a more personal targeted approach through social media – is a cut in the
costs of your marketing budget! Using brand ambassadors can help to increase your revenue
at a much lower price point than a nationally run TV, radio, or print ad. And when you factor
in affiliate brand ambassadors and customer brand ambassadors who are paid either in
commission or freebies, then the cost-effectiveness is even more apparent!