How to Leverage Happy Customers to Promote Your Brand

Even with all of the advances and changes in the world of marketing, word-of-mouth is still the most effective tactic. People trust the recommendations of their friends and family when it comes to products.

Now, there are customers who like a product and will give a referral if asked, and then there are promoters. Brand promoters go out of their way to talk about their experience and recommend it in normal conversation. Creating more promoters as a part of your marketing strategy can help your business gain more attention and bring in more customers.

By all means, boost your sales with new leads and create the best digital marketing tactics, but if you want to keep promoting your brand, your most significant assets are your existing customers. After all, happy customers are vital for running a business. They will help promote your brand via reviews and testimonials both by word of mouth and social media. It’s free marketing for you, too!

Quick Takeaways:

• Don’t stop at the sale. Keep engaging with your customers and turn them into raving brand advocates.
• If a customer is happy, don’t hesitate to ask them for a testimonial or review.
• You can turn customers into salespeople too! Put in place a win-win referral program.
• UGC adds freshness and frequency to your content strategy.

Make Customers Your Brand Ambassadors

Every day, your target customers consume hundreds of pieces of content, so how can you stand out? During these times, the best thing to do is to promote your brand by leveraging happy customers and making them your brand ambassadors.

Happy customers become your brand ambassadors with their authentic testimonies. It’s better to let your customers take charge of your brand.

Email customers who post positive reviews about your product on their blogs or on your website. Ask them to become brand ambassadors and, if they have a significant following, you might consider creating influencer marketing campaigns that leverage these happy customers.

Show off Customer Reviews & Testimonials

Testimonials and customer reviews are very influential in promoting a brand. After all, your potential clients trust the words of happy customers more than your advertisements. Always make it a point to feature some reviews given by your clients.

You take advantage of leveraging happy customers when you add photos and names that make the reviews and testimonials a bit more credible and authentic. Dedicate one page in your website for reviews and testimonials.

Further leveraging happy customers, you can share their reviews via newsletters sent your email lists. Positive feedback encourages a potential client to buy from you.

Control Expectations, Then Exceed Them

It’s easy to oversell when marketing your product. After all, your end goal is to make sales and earn money. Overselling creates high expectations in your consumer that leads to a difficult situation.

If you meet those high expectations, then you did what you promised and they aren’t surprised, or you don’t and your customer is disappointed.

By controlling your consumer’s expectations, you have a better chance of exceeding them. If they expect a typical business transaction and you go out of your way to wow them, they’ll be much more likely to share the experience with others.

Hopefully, because of that great experience, they’ll either send friends to you or come back themselves. If you continue wowing your customers, then they’ll keep sharing with those around them.

To exceed expectations, you have to do something unique. It has to be worth talking about. Simply giving them a coupon or an insignificant freebie isn’t enough. Do something helpful and unexpected that leaves an impact both in your marketing and in your delivery of the product.

Provide Truly Helpful Customer Service

People dread having to contact customer service. Over the years, it’s been ruined by overseas call centers, long wait times, and unhelpful support employees. It’s gotten to the point that customers are willing to simply swallow the problem support should solve instead of contacting them.

Be a part of the solution. Outstanding customer service can transform a negative experience into one worthy of talking about.

The bare basics of good customer service include over-the-phone, email, and instant messaging. If you provide a 24-hour service, consider having a 24-hour customer service.

But we aren’t doing just bare basic customer service, we’re going for amazing service. It’s hard to control wait times outside of hiring more customer service helpers. But you can ensure that they are well-trained, happy, and friendly.

Good customer service employees need to be able to defuse the situation, solve the problem and make the whole experience pleasant or even entertaining. If they can do this reliably, people will start to talk about how good your customer service is.

Create Referral Campaigns

Promote your product with a referral program. Give happy customers a valuable incentive for inviting their friends and relatives in buying or trying your services and products. It doesn’t have to be big. A small one is good enough. It keeps your old clients satisfied and happy while increasing your sales, so it’s a win-win situation.

One survey found that as much as 92 percent of consumers trust referrals more than advertisements. Make an effective referral program and start growing your business.

Keep Engaging Consistently on Social Media

It’s not enough to simply impress your promoter once and call it good. Promoters need frequent contact, and the best approach is through social media.

The first step is to connect with promoters online. Somebody might love your business, but not follow you online because they don’t feel a need. Create a need.

Tell them what type of content they might miss out on if they don’t like your Facebook, follow your Instagram, and connect on Twitter. If your product/service solves a problem, share helpful content to solve other problems your customers might have. They don’t even have to be related to your business but be something relevant to your target market.

Don’t be afraid to use humor or snark in your content marketing, but don’t jump on an internet bandwagon just to be along for the ride. Know what your target market enjoys and follow that type of humor.

Engage and listen to your followers on social media. Take the first step. It’s easy for a business to put up a post asking what people think but rarely gets meaningful results. If you know a specific follower is a customer, ask them how they like the product. Be friendly and personable.

Finally, if somebody mentions your brand or product online, you need to be talking to them. If it’s negative, you can help soothe the problem. When somebody is praising you, get in touch and thank them. It shows you are paying attention and you care what they think.

Leverage Customers for User-Generated Content

One of the best and effective ways of promoting your brand is leveraging user-generated content. Get your happy customers to share some of their positive experiences in purchasing and using your services and products. Starbucks is great at regraming their users’ best posts!

Reach out to a group of people and utilize user-generated content to improve your online presence as well as gain the attention of new clients. Not only are you boosting your sales, but you are also increasing your site’s conversion and traffic.

Thank Them for What They Do

Every purchase is valuable and should be properly thanked. Thank you pages are a good start to making each customer feel special, but it shouldn’t stop there.

After a short while, send a thank you email, again showing your gratitude to the customer. It’s tempting to include a request for a review or fill out a survey, but be willing to not do that. Instead, add additional value to the email with some sort of offer, anything from a coupon to a ticket in a raffle for a prize. Don’t ask for them to do anything else, just say “thank you” to them.

Thank you emails aren’t a new thing in marketing, and it’s gotten to the point that many consumers are skeptical of them. They see the thank you and expect that pitch for a review. A heartfelt and honest thanks with no ulterior motives could make them feel special and connect them with your business.

As you experiment and find the best ways to create promoters, integrate it into your normal campaigns. It’s very unlikely that you will keep a promoter for the rest of their life, but you can make getting new ones and extending how long they love your brand a focus for your marketing.

Have any questions about getting promoters for your brand? Have a different tactic you want to share? Let us know in the comments below.