Generating publicity is important if you’re looking to grow your business, and these days it requires a strong understanding of the digital landscape. One such way that many brands choose to grow their presence is through developing some sort of brand ambassador program. These generally involve choosing celebrities or online creators to ‘fly the flag’ of the company in campaigns.
The influencer marketing industry value alone stands at around $10 billion, and that’s not to mention all the larger celebrity-driven campaigns that major corporations have run over the years. What do the most successful campaigns have in common? They make sense. That’s why the selection process for these ambassadors needs to be considerate and sensible, which is what this article is going to offer guidance on.
Understanding what a brand ambassador does
A brand ambassador should be a limb of your overall marketing approach, alongside SEO, link building and Google PPC ads management. This means, they should be advertising your business for you in one way or another. A more traditional format includes high-profile people in marketing materials, while the modern approach is often based on paying online figures to make their own content promoting the brand.
Again, these people have to make sense in the context of your business.
Choose relevance over reach
You might think that the best brand ambassadors are the ones with the biggest audience, but this isn’t strictly the case. It’s better to choose someone with a highly engaged audience that relates to your brand, rather than a wide-spanning figure who seemingly has nothing to do with what you do.
For example, if you’re selling fitness equipment, a bodybuilding influencer is likely to be a better ambassador than someone who’s known for doing makeup tutorials. Make sure to back this up with data, checking their engagement rate through likes, comments, shares and things of the sort.
Search for authenticity among ambassadors
In the same vein, a good strategy is to find ambassadors who are already customers or fans of what you do. This way, you can be more confident about how they’re going to endorse your product or service, as they’ll have a better awareness and understanding of what you do and who you are. At this point, it’s worth doing an audit of their values, ensuring they align with what you and your brand believe on an ethical level.
Do your due diligence on their history
Who is this person? Are they the kind of figure who will take any brand ambassador jobs thrown their way with no thought for conflicting interests or competition? Or are they the type to stick with a brand and build a long-term relationship? If it’s the former, they’re not necessarily the right person to invest in.
Similarly, you need to consider if they have any skeletons in their closet. Working with someone whom you later discover to have acted unconscionably can lead you to scandal, which will make the entire process a waste.
Make sure your ambassadors are professional
At the end of the day, remember that your ambassadors are being paid to do a job, which is why you need to make sure that they have:
- Great communication skills, both with you and their audience
- Reliability, meaning they’re going to deliver what they promise on time
- Capacity to learn, so they accurately portray what it is that you do
When you hire a brand ambassador, you’re essentially adding a limb to your business. What they do is going to reflect on you directly, so make sure to take the time to do proper research into who they are and what they can offer. That way, you’ll make the right choices.
