{"id":2718,"date":"2011-03-07T18:59:47","date_gmt":"2011-03-07T18:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=2718"},"modified":"2011-03-07T23:38:55","modified_gmt":"2011-03-07T23:38:55","slug":"brand-advocates-are-people-too%e2%80%a6-nurture-that-relationship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/brand-advocates-are-people-too%e2%80%a6-nurture-that-relationship\/","title":{"rendered":"Brand Advocates are People Too\u2026 Nurture that Relationship!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is true that Brand Advocates have value in part due to the\u00a0reach of their relationships<\/a> within and across their social networks. \u00a0When they encourage their friends and colleagues to buy our products, our brand\u2019s buying power increases exponentially, and it simply makes good business sense to leverage those opportunities.<\/p>\n

The risk here is that we can become so focused on our Brand Advocates\u2019 social reach that we see them only as a means to an end (sales) and stop seeing them as people.\u00a0 We might get greedy and start looking right past them to market directly to their networks, ignoring our Advocates themselves.\u00a0 While that marketing method can still be\u00a0somewhat t<\/em>effective, it costs more, it is more difficult to implement and maintain, and it is dangerous to our brand.\u00a0\u00a0We cannot de-value our Advocates and expect our brands to thrive!<\/em><\/p>\n

No matter how great a buying power their networks provide us, we still need value our direct 1-1 relationships with our Advocates.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Research shows that\u00a0Brand Advocates are<\/strong> more likely to repurchase after recommending brands and products:<\/strong><\/p>\n

76% percent of Brand Advocates said they were more likely to repurchase after recommending a brand or product to someone else, and 79% said they would be more likely to repurchase in the future. (source: the Harris Poll, June 2009<\/em>).<\/p>\n

In other words, with our Brand Advocates, the\u00a0ROR (<\/a>Return on Relationship<\/em><\/a>)<\/a> is high.\u00a0 A strong relationship with a Brand Advocate is likely to not only increase the Word of Mouth impact, but also to increase their own likelihood of repeat purchase.\u00a0\u00a0 And if we continue to delight our Advocates<\/a> with each of their own purchase experiences, they have even more reason to recommend our products and services to others.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get greedy and interact with your Brand Advocates just to \u201cmobilize\u201d them for the buying power of their networks.\u00a0 They are valuable in and of themselves. Treat them that way! <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ted Rubin
\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ted Rubin<\/a> Ted has a deep online background beginning in 1997 with Seth Godin, as CMO of e.l.f. Cosmetics, & recently as Chief Social Marketing Officer, Open Sky.<\/p>\n

Originally posted at\u00a0ZuberRants<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is true that Brand Advocates have value in part due to the\u00a0reach of their relationships within and across their social networks. \u00a0When they encourage their friends and colleagues to buy our products, our brand\u2019s buying power increases exponentially, and it simply makes good business sense to leverage those opportunities. The risk here is that … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,7],"tags":[928,32,480,479,30,1029,897,565,3],"class_list":["post-2718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-tedrubin","tag-brand-advocate","tag-marketing","tag-return-on-relationship","tag-ror","tag-social-media","tag-social-media-marketing","tag-social-media-strategy","tag-social-reach","tag-ted-rubin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2718"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2734,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2718\/revisions\/2734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}