One of the fastest ways to boost brand sales is forming long-term partnerships with people who identify with your brand goals and can connect with your target audience.
This is where brand ambassadors come in.
The right brand ambassador can do wonders for your sales by building community, encouraging first-time buyers, expanding your reach, and fostering brand loyalty.
But what exactly does a brand ambassador do? And how can you find one that aligns with your company image? I answer these questions and many more in this post.
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What Does a Brand Ambassador Do: Quick Glance
A brand ambassador is a person who promotes a brand’s products and services with the aim of increasing the brand’s sales. Think of them as brand advocates.
They don’t always have to be paid professionals, and you don’t always need a formal agreement. You can reward them with free products, discount coupons, gift cards, and even social mentions.
People are more likely to buy from brands they connect with—people buy from people, not companies. Brand ambassadors, in this case, ensure that your brand has that human connection, hence their necessity.
5 Primary Roles and Responsibilities of a Brand Ambassador
A brand ambassador’s role can vary depending on the organization, but they often perform these duties.
1. Representing the Brand Positively
Brand ambassadors serve as the public face of the brand. They must embody the company’s values and maintain an approachable front while interacting with several parties, including customers, stakeholders, or the media.
And if the link between the brand and the ambassador is not immediately apparent or you want to control the angle, you can absolutely do that through extra promotional material, like Rolex did when they partnered with Roger Federer as they wanted to peak into the sports market.
2. Promoting Products or Services
They actively promote the brand’s offerings through various channels. These channels could include social media, live events, or partnerships.
Ambassadors can also help you expand your customer base. When your brand ambassadors post on their social media channels, they expose your brand to new audiences in their follower base.
3. Building Relationships with Audiences
Building a close relationship with your audience can inspire brand loyalty. One way to achieve this is through a brand ambassador.
Brand ambassadors engage with your audience to create a sense of trust and loyalty, often by sharing authentic stories or providing firsthand experiences with your product.
4. Providing Market Feedback
While an ambassador’s role might seem more directed toward promotion, they’re also closer to the consumers and can get direct feedback. They can often relay valuable insights about customer preferences, complaints, and emerging trends for you to consider.
Information like this can be vital in improving your products or services.
5. Social Media Engagement
Many brand ambassadors are active online influencers. They’re tasked with posting regularly about the brand.
This not only ensures that they keep a close human connection with your customers, but also helps create a consistent digital presence.
How to Find an Ambassador For Your Brand
Brand ambassadors are usually long-term partners; hence, it’s important you carefully select one whose personal brand and values align with yours. Consider these tips.
- Check Your Base of Loyal Customers: One of the easiest ways to find potential ambassadors is within your loyal customer base. Invite your customers to share content that highlights their experience with your brand online in exchange for incentives. You can add an invitation to join your brand ambassador program to your promotional emails or post it on your social media pages.
- Use Influencer Discovery Tools: Another way to find potential partners is by using influencer discovery tools like PopularPays. These tools help you find content creators and influencers whose personal brands align with your ambassador program.
- Recruit Your Employees: Lastly, you can find brand ambassadors by recruiting your best employees. Teach them personal branding and encourage them to produce content for your brand. You could also ask other ambassadors for recommendations.
Types of Brand Ambassadors
There are different types of brand ambassadors. I’ll highlight four here.
Celebrity Ambassadors
Celebrity ambassadors, as the name implies, are famous people with a large fan base who can be affiliated with your brand. An example is Nike’s lifetime partnership with Lebron James.
The major advantage of using a celebrity brand ambassador is the level of exposure and recognition their presence would bring your company. Many brands use celebrities to raise a significant level of awareness for their brand.
However, contracting a celebrity brand ambassador can be expensive. Also, they are heavily tied to their reputation. When a celebrity’s reputation tanks, the reputation of the brands they’re affiliated with is more likely to tank as well.
Another flip side of celebrity brand ambassadors is the lack of trust. While potential customers may be willing to try out the brand affiliated with their favorite celebrity, there is still a hint of mistrust spurred by the underlying truth: these celebrities are being paid heavily to represent the brands in question.
Customer Ambassadors
Customer ambassadors are everyday customers, college students, nursing moms, and regular people who have used your product over time and have decided to advertise your brand through their social media accounts.
They achieve this by creating user-generated content that demonstrates the value of your brand. Sephora uses customers who align with its values of “belonging, acceptance, and beauty of all kinds,” often featuring its UGC content in its brand campaigns.
Content created by a customer ambassador is generally perceived as more authentic because of the absence of financial compensation. Most brands compensate their customer ambassadors with free products, discount coupons, tickets to exclusive events, and the like.
Customer brand ambassador programs are great for building brand loyalty. However, they aren’t very effective in expanding your brand’s reach since they may not have a large audience on social media.
Influencer Ambassadors
Brand ambassadors and influencers, though similar, are not the same. However, an influencer whose personal brand aligns with your brand image can also act as your brand advocate. For example, Ethan Payne is big on fitness and so partners with Gymsharks.
Note that brand ambassador partnerships are usually long-term as opposed to influencer partnerships, which may involve a select number of posts.
However, influencer ambassadorship often occurs when an influencer loves working with your business and finds that your brand aligns with their values. Soon, what was meant to be a short-term influencer deal can evolve into a long-term ambassadorship partnership.
Gymshark has several long-standing partnerships with fitness influencers on TikTok and Instagram. Some ambassadors even have their own Gymshark line.
Influencer ambassadors, especially micro-influencers, can help you attract the right audience and build a community around your brand. Through content creation and paid ads, they spark online conversations about your product and company.
They also inspire loyalty through discount codes and rewards, which you can use to track their engagement rates and measure ROI.
Influencer ambassadors, especially mega influencers, are often great for reaching a larger number of people.
Employee Ambassadors
Dunkin’ Donuts sales skyrocketed when they implemented an employee brand ambassador program. Their customers assumed the workers were leaking new drink ideas, and their app downloads increased by 57%.
Employee brand ambassadors actively promote their brand’s image, values, and vision on their social media platforms. They are very effective because of their depth of knowledge about the company and the services they offer.
Often, this depth of knowledge positions them as thought leaders in that industry, making it easier for consumers to value their judgment. Employee ambassadors are a great way to get customers to really understand your brand’s values and motivations.
Let Vivian Agency Handle Your Brand Ambassador Program
Brand ambassadors add a layer of relating and trust that’s often missing in traditional marketing. They can help you boost brand awareness, inspire loyalty, and build a community. However, there are different types of brand ambassadors, and knowing how to leverage each is instrumental to the success of your ambassador program.
Vivian Agency is a digital marketing firm that focuses on specialized influencer, affiliate, and ambassador marketing strategies.
Our team has tons of experience handling ambassador programs for B2C businesses. You can easily book an appointment to discuss the next step in your ambassador program, or you can contact us with any questions you have.
