How to grow your brand with an ambassador program

Word-of-mouth marketing remains one of the most effective tools at a company’s disposal; 74 percent of consumers identify word of mouth as one of their top points of influence. Rather than hoping word-of-mouth marketing occurs organically, many companies are taking matters into their own hands by creating brand ambassador programs. A brand ambassador program takes advantage of the passion of your most enthusiastic fans. By giving them exclusive benefits and the autonomy to carry your message to consumers, you can create a word-of-mouth marketing campaign that thrives for years to come.

Successful Brand Ambassador Programs

Lululemon

Lululemon does more than sell athletic gear. The company’s target audience is youthful, active, vibrant and hip, and its brand ambassador program reflects this. Lululemon’s brand ambassadors have the kind of lifestyle the company encourages, and they do so in a public way. In return, Lululemon rewards…

Instagram to Launch New 'Paid Partnership Tag' for sponsored content

Instagram are launching a new feature for influencers. This feature described as the 'paid partnership' tag is aiming to make it clear to consumers which posts are sponsored and which are not. Allowing influencers and brands to tag the partners who have paid to be featured in the posts in some way. The tag will clearly mark the image as paid and it will also do the same on stories. It has also been reported that influencers using the tag will be able to track insights allowing both parties view its metrics to track how the content is performing. The paid partnership tag is currently only been rolled out to a select few influencers, brands and businesses but we may see a wider roll-out in the coming months. This new feature is a great move on Instagrams behalf…

4 Video types that will help you generate brand trust

Trust is imperative in whether your prospects make a purchase or not. Your prospects want to know your brand, they need to feel connected to your brand on some level, and that’s why building trust is so important! A big part of building trust is to really know your clients and their needs. Show them that you are aware of their problems and that your brand is committed to solving them. The way to do this is through video content, as video is one of the strongest types of online content out there. Let’s see which types of videos work best for generating trust!

Types of videos that generate brand trust

1. Explainer videos

An explainer video is a short video, usually lasting less than two minutes that explains your brand or your product in an engaging and simple way. It’s aimed to let your…

Chatbots are now key to increasing engagement rates and motivating users to buy

Whether you’ve realized it or not, it’s very likely that you have spoken or corresponded with a bot at least once in your life. In fact, chances are you’ve had long and insightful conversations with a bot, some of which you couldn’t possibly have had with a member of the human race. Chatbots are on the rise, and it seems that in 2017 they’re becoming more effective, more engaging, and easier to use than ever before. The rise of bots could be plainly attributed to an increasing usage of messenger apps and is built on the premise of instant messaging. Predictions show that by 2019, more than one-quarter of the world’s population will be using…

How often should businesses mail their subscribers? Research reveals the average number of monthly contacts.

These are classic 'tough questions' for email marketers which always raise a lot of debate. A question on our LinkedIn group about email reminder frequency for events had 20 comments. Choosing the best frequency for sending email emails is challenging since we are looking to maximise response, but avoid 'over-mailing' which can lead to unacceptable levels of unsubscribes and an increase in inactives since our audience may feel they are being spammed. Even if they don't unsubscribe they will become "emotionally unsubscribed". Worse still, with overmailing, the business may have email delivery problems and messages aren't getting through to the inbox at all. On the other hand, with 'under-mailing', opportunities to explain the proposition and promotions or to get the right product in front of the right subscriber and sales may be lost. The DMA's National Email Client Report now known as the 'Marketer Email…

Learning from 6 layered targeting options used by online retailers that can be applied to any business

There are many different levels in sophistication of targeting for email marketing. In this post I'll run through some of the most common examples used by retailers since I think they can often be applied to companies who don't sell online like relationship-building or B2B companies. Here, I will outline what I see as the 6 most common segmentation approaches. More details are available in my book Total Email Marketing and my more recent 7 Steps to Email Marketing Success Ebook on Smart Insights.

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Engage the right influencers to get results from your Instagram marketing

When Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger set out to create what we now call Instagram less than a decade ago, they just wanted to make a simple photo and video-sharing app. What they never anticipated is what Instagram has evolved into—a top marketing platform that has attracted startups and top global brands alike. The spoil is an immense consumer audience that recently hit the 700 million mark. Instagram’s response was decisive through ad campaigns in the mould of sponsored posts tailored for specific target audiences. Quite evidently, the owners of Instagram have not been the only parties to tap into the incredible financial benefits from advertisements. The meteoric rise of Instagram as a marketing tool has overseen an equally remarkable rise of Instagram influencers who can be likened to online marketing executives. In fact, currently, up to 12% of Instagram influencers…

75% of your email list is inactive and therefore useless. You need to win them back.

Reactivation is aimed at attempting to reintroduce lapsed subscribers to your content and re-engaging their interest in your brand, most commonly by creating a specific strategy and utilising specific content that aims to bring people back into your pool of active customers. There are many elements and variables involved in the process of creating an email marketing reactivation strategy, but every brand that uses email marketing as part of their digital marketing strategy should look to build in an email reactivation strategy, as its potential to create impact for brands in any sector, should not be underestimated.

Why focus on reactivation and re-engagement?

75% of your email subscriber list may be inactive. This is a worrying statistic, as it means that three quarters of your subscriber base may not currently be engaging with your marketing content. Many of…

Your influencers need to be able to effectively represent your brand

Influencer marketing is more than a passing craze for brands. According to a recent eMarketer survey, 84 percent of marketers said they have an influencer campaign in the works that would launch within a year. When utilized correctly, influencers can help companies achieve immense returns without heavy startup investments. For every dollar companies spend on influencer marketing, they see $6.50 in revenue, according to another recent poll conducted by Tomoson. That doesn’t mean brands can simply throw money at an influencer, sit back, and watch the profits pile up, though. To execute a successful influencer marketing strategy, you have to understand how to identify effective influencers and make the most of their talents.

What Makes a Good Influencer?

When brands think about partnering with influencers, they usually think about macro influencers — big celebrities with millions of followers — not those micro influencers who have 10,000…

Chart of the Day: 47% of the 100,000 most popular sites now contain one or more Facebook technologies, giving Facebook unprecedented access to data and web traffic.

The results of a recent study from SimilarTech shows the scale of Facebook operation beyond its own domain, with insights on the platform's reach and exposure through the use of Facebook technologies, giving Facebook its competitive edge on audience data and referral traffic to its site.

This enormous audience reach has been achieved through the widespread popularity of the company's technologies and plugins such as ‘share buttons’ or ‘comment boxes’ on 3rd party sites which deliver traffic to Facebook and strengthens the presence of the Facebook brand across the web.

The most popular technologies from Facebook being used on the top 100k sites are Facebook Connect, followed by Facebook Social Plugin and Facebook's Like Button. 

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