DNVB Brand: How to Structure Your Ambassador Program to Accelerate Your Business?

Say goodbye to invasive advertising! Today, consumers largely follow the opinions and recommendations of their close ones before making a purchase. As a DNVB (Digitally Native Vertical Brands) brand, your main strength is the desire to be ever closer to consumers and to place your customers at the heart of your concept. You’ve understood that your customers don’t just represent purchasing power, but that the conversations they generate around your brand are a powerful acquisition lever for your business. In this context, you want to set up an ambassador program on your website, but don’t know where to start? We give you all the keys in this article.

Ambassador Program: Definition

First, let’s revisit the concept of the ambassador program! It’s a marketing device that aims to recruit prospects, satisfied customers, or influencers so that they participate in the development and promotion of your product or service offering.

The implementation of this marketing device can be done in different ways, particularly through the installation of a module on your e-commerce site.

Thanks to this online platform, you’ll be able to carefully select your ambassadors, organize product tests, and manage the operations.

As part of this marketing program, participants will test your products and give their feedback in return. Through their various actions, these ambassadors will convey your brand’s values and mission to their respective communities, generate engagement, and ultimately contribute to the positive representation of your brand.

In exchange for their collaboration, you can reward your ambassadors by sending gifts, promotional offers, referral codes, etc.

Don’t forget to thank them and value them by highlighting their work on your website, your marketing and communication materials, as well as on your social networks.

The ambassador program is a powerful marketing lever that allows you to make your brand known through the recommendations of those who experience your offer every day. It’s a win-win relationship between your brand and your ambassadors that aims to develop over the long term.

How-to Guide for Creating an Ambassador Program on Your E-commerce Site

Now that you know more about the role of an ambassador program, discover the steps to follow to set it up on your website and ensure its success. Let’s get started!

1. Set Objectives

The first step in this approach is to clearly define the objectives of your marketing strategy. Why do you want to create an ambassador program? What is the desired effect?

As a DNVB brand, your priority is to always provide the best possible experience to your customers.

Among your priority marketing and business objectives, you can find the desire to:

• Collect data to continuously refine your customer knowledge;
• Get closer to your prospects and customers to co-create an offer that meets market expectations;
• Grow your community on social networks and reach new target audiences;
• Develop your business through digital word-of-mouth (reviews + experience feedback);
• Conquer a new niche market and take leadership through the connections you’ll build with your ambassadors;
• Increase conversion on your e-commerce site;
• Etc.

The marketing objectives can be multiple, complementary, and must align with those of your overall business strategy. Moreover, it’s important that each objective is quantified, quantifiable, and measurable in order to regularly monitor the performance of your ambassador program and continuously improve it.

2 – Define the Content of the Program

Now that you know which direction to go, it’s time to focus on the content of your program.

Ask yourself the following questions and take the time to answer them in detail:

• What are the key steps to participate in your program? What types of products do you want your ambassadors to test and at what frequency?
• What benefits will you highlight to encourage your ambassadors to join your initiative?
• What messages do you want to convey and what values do you want to promote?

• What are the characteristics of the ambassadors you wish to recruit? What do you expect from each of them? What are the mandatory and optional deliverables?

When you set up a product testing campaign through your ambassador program, you send the product to be tested to each selected candidate. In exchange, the deliverables requested from ambassadors can be:

• Share their experience by publishing a detailed review on your e-commerce site, on your social networks and/or other specialized sites;
• Publish various content on social networks (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn…);
• Write blog articles;
• Create a video tutorial to talk about their experience;
• Leave comments on your articles or posts on social networks;
• Etc.

How will you reward your ambassadors to thank them for their collaboration?

Keep in mind that your candidates are not necessarily professional influencers: they are not participating in your program in exchange for payment, but rather with the aim of receiving benefits. It’s about playing on the exceptional and emotional nature of your partnership and seeking to please your ambassadors in the form of targeted rewards.

This reflection stage is crucial, as you will need to formalize each element that makes up your program before moving on to the technical part.

3. Create the Mockup of Your Ambassador Program

Once the content of your program is clearly defined, let’s move on to the form!

As a 100% digital DNVB brand, the visual aspect of your ambassador program is extremely important. The UX must be polished, the design and aesthetics rigorous. Emotion must also be present at every stage of navigation. The journey must be smooth and optimal to attract users and make them want to join your initiative.

Create several mockups to visualize:

• Access to the program on each page of the site,
• The presentation of the different stages of membership,
• The wording,
• The visual identity,
• Etc.

Know that Trustt assists you in creating an ambassador program on your e-commerce site. Thanks to a customizable template created by our UX designers, you only need to adapt it to your messages and visual identity. Using the tool offered by Trustt represents a precious time-saver for you and the guarantee of implementing an effective ambassador program for your business.

4. Integrate the Ambassador Program on Your Site

In the previous steps, you took the time to clearly define the different elements that make up your program. You can now move on to integrating your program on your website.

Obviously, this step cannot be improvised and requires either in-depth development knowledge or assistance from the Trustt teams.

Setting up an ambassador program on your website with Trustt is very simple. Our software guides you step by step and allows you to integrate it in just a few clicks.

Thanks to the implementation of the Trustt module on your e-commerce site, you just have to follow the steps, starting with adding a new category in the main menu of your website.

Then, the module allows you to customize the form that each candidate will fill out, as well as the layout of each product test, etc.

5. Promote Your Ambassador Program to Maximize Its Success

Your ambassador program is finally ready, all that’s left is to make your prospects and customers want to join you in the adventure!

– Highlight Your Ambassador Program on Your E-commerce Site

The first thing to do is to ensure that your program is clearly visible and identifiable for all visitors to your website.

Our first advice is therefore to give it a relevant name such as “become a tester”.

Then, make sure it is accessible on the homepage of your site, directly in the menu or via a pop-up to attract the attention of each internet user.

Set up an adapted communication strategy to bring your program to life

In order to recruit committed candidates who have a real affinity for your brand, the challenge remains to activate the right levers to activate this community and engage it in your approach.

Let everyone know on all your social networks that you are looking for ambassadors to join your program.

You can also use sponsored posts on your Instagram and Facebook accounts to multiply the reach of your message.

Don’t forget to talk about it to all your collaborators, employees, and partners. You can also publish a communication on your company’s LinkedIn account: your employees will take care of spreading the message to their entire professional network.

Also communicate the information to your entire email database and inform your prospects and customers about the implementation of your program by sending a newsletter.

As you can see, the benefits of developing an ambassador network for your company are numerous! Your ambassadors are the spokespersons for your brand, they create engagement and bring your offer to life and make it shine. You now know all the best practices and actions to take to implement such a program on your site and ensure its success. As with any marketing campaign, remember to regularly analyze the results in order to continuously optimize your strategy.