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Employees, customers and influencers can become low-cost, high-reward marketing assets.
Most businesses understand the importance of crafting a brand identity, creating content and developing advertising and social media marketing strategies. However, many haven’t realized the value a brand ambassador strategy can add to their marketing plan. Brand ambassadors promote a brand’s products and services to boost awareness, strengthen a company’s reputation and increase revenue.
Brand ambassadors are low-cost or no-cost investments that can pay high dividends. We’ll explore brand ambassadorship and its benefits, share why employees make particularly effective ambassadors and explain how to get started with your brand ambassador strategy.
Brand ambassadors are advocates who promote a brand to people in their online and offline networks. They use various channels, including social media, to boost a brand’s visibility, generate more sales leads and increase sales. Beyond social media, brand ambassadors often participate in events, product launches or marketing campaigns to represent the brand in person.
Brand ambassadors are often confused with social media influencers, who may be celebrities, people with instant name recognition or niche personalities with loyal audiences. While brand ambassadors are a type of influencer marketing — and some influencers can become brand ambassadors — these individuals don’t have to be famous.
Brand ambassadors are typically customers, influencers or employees:
A brand ambassador program can bring several compelling benefits to enhance your organization’s marketing plan.
Recommendations and content disseminated by brand ambassadors have a distinct advantage over company-generated marketing because they’re trusted to a much higher degree. According to Tint, 93 percent of marketers agree that consumers are more likely to trust content created by other consumers than content produced by brands themselves. Additionally, Edelman’s Trust Barometer shows that 71 percent of consumers prioritize trust when engaging with brands, with many viewing brands that collaborate with consumers as more authentic.
In other words, consumers are more likely to trust content shared by “normal people” over content businesses share. No one is forcing brand advocates to say good things about your products and services. They do it because they are passionate about your brand and that authenticity shines through.
When a brand ambassador talks about your product, it’s more than theoretical. Customer brand ambassadors have direct experience using your product. They can share their personal knowledge and explain how your offering solved a specific problem for them. Similarly, employee brand ambassadors know how a product is made and understand how consumers interact with it. Potential customers recognize that employees wouldn’t enthusiastically endorse a low-quality product or something users didn’t enjoy.
Brand ambassadors are not casual or first-time product users. They likely have extensive experience with your current and past products as well as competitors’ offerings. They can give potential customers a comprehensive view of how your product compares to alternatives and other iterations. Consumers respect their knowledge, making the brand ambassador’s recommendation credible and valuable. This expertise can also save potential customers time they would otherwise spend researching.
While customer brand ambassadors and influencers are valuable allies, many businesses overlook the potential of employee brand ambassadors. When your company has a fantastic work environment to go along with its excellent products and services, your employees can become a powerful source of advocacy, eager to amplify your efforts and boost digital marketing return on investment.
Here are three reasons why employees make great brand ambassadors.
The most obvious benefit of employee brand ambassadors — also known as employee advocacy — is boosting your company’s social reach. Research from ReferralCandy shows that 88 percent of consumers trust recommendations from friends, family and colleagues over other forms of marketing.
Your employees’ word-of-mouth recommendations online and offline will resonate powerfully with their friends, family and followers and their genuine enthusiasm will help instill confidence in your company.
Whether you have 10, 100 or 1,000 employees, you’ll have additional voices advocating for your company, sharing content and posting jobs and organically extending and amplifying your other marketing efforts.
According to LinkedIn’s employee advocacy guide, employees’ follower bases are 10 times larger than their company’s. When employees share a post, it’s considered three times more authentic — and sees click-through rates twice as high — than if the company shared the same content. While only about 3 percent of employees share content about their companies, the content they share increases engagement by 30 percent.
Further, socially engaged companies are 57 percent more likely to see an increase in sales leads and sales teams are more likely to convert leads successfully gathered via employee brand advocates.
Employee ambassadors are a valuable way to reach wider audiences while increasing lead quantity and quality. When employees promote your product, their familiarity and knowledge enhance their credibility. Additionally, enthusiastic, engaged employees signal a happy workplace and a business that treats its employees well, boosting the company’s reputation, respect and trust.
Employee ambassadors are much less expensive than traditional paid advertising channels like Google Ads and Instagram advertising. While many other marketing and advertising channels are worthwhile, employee advocates can reduce your overall advertising spend while allowing you to reach warmer leads who are already familiar with your brand.
Brand ambassadors promote trust and have a far greater reach than many traditional advertising outlets. While you shouldn’t abandon your other advertising efforts, employee brand ambassadors allow you to focus less on those channels and save money. Paid advertising can complement your brand ambassadors’ reach rather than being the star of the show.
When you’re ready to start a brand ambassador program with employees, customers, influencers and other stakeholders, follow these steps:
Brand ambassadors are a valuable addition to your marketing strategy. As social media’s power grows stronger, it makes sense to encourage the people who value your brand to drive crucial conversations online. Your brand ambassadors can boost your bottom line while also improving social recruiting, brand searches and organic public relations.