Help your customers to be successful with your product and beyond.

According to Gartner Digital Markets, "Customer advocacy is when buyers actively promote and support your brand because they believe in your products or services. It involves engaging and empowering customers to become brand ambassadors, spreading positive word-of-mouth and influencing others."

I think it's important for customer advocacy practitioners to focus on the "engaging and empowering" of customers to become brand ambassadors, but how do you do that?

At, perhaps, an oversimplified level you have to talk to your customers, and/or at the least, pay attention to their behaviors that provide signals about what would help them be successful with your product and beyond...and I would argue that the real value to customers that can unlock their advocacy for your product or brand lies in the "beyond."

Think about how you can help individual customers (not just the account -- their employer) be successful in their career (and perhaps with your product).

As soon as you appeal to the individual, what they care about in a professional context, and provide real value to them within that context, what you're doing from an advocacy standpoint becomes a useful, "sticky" proposition to them, that they will more likely want to take advantage of.

From there, be transparent about how the relationship you're building is mutually beneficial...

When you're honest and transparent about what you're doing, AND you provide customers with great value, they are empowered to make a choice to advocate on behalf of your product/brand.

Because it's their choice, their advocacy is far more valuable than a transactional, bait 'n switch, short-lived "relationship."

Here's the link to the Gartner Digital Markets article - there are some good nuggets of info in there.

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Recommended Reading:
Building Brand Communities (affiliate)

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