Creating an Ambassador Program: The 5 ROIs You Can Benefit From

According to the Elan Edelman International Trust Barometer, one in two consumers in France declares that they do not trust traditional marketing messages from companies… Nowadays, customers are better informed, they spend time researching and consulting reviews from other customers before deciding to purchase products or services.

As a company or brand operating on the web, it is essential to take this into account and realize the role that your customers can play at all levels, to place them at the heart of your marketing strategy. Indeed, the members of your community are your best allies! Among all marketing tools, one can help you significantly increase the ROI of your digital marketing: the ambassador program. Trustt does the calculation for you.

What Is an Ambassador Program?

In the era of affinity marketing, many companies are implementing ambassador programs, whether through social networks or their website.

The ambassador program is a marketing tool that aims to recruit individuals to participate in the development and promotion of your product or service offering.

Ambassadors are people from your community, satisfied customers, or influencers who become the spokespersons for your company. Through their commitment and actions, they promote your company to their surroundings and their community on social media.

They are generally carefully selected for their affinity with your products or services, their values, and their ability to influence a large number of people.

As part of an ambassador program, the recruiting company usually sends one or more products for the selected ambassadors to:

• Use the products in real conditions,
• Share their feelings and opinions on the experience of using this product;
• Create and share detailed reviews on the brands’ website, comments, posts (photos, videos, stories) on social media.

In exchange for their contribution, companies thank them with free products they receive, gifts, promotions, and other exclusive benefits.

Trustt has developed the first software for creating proprietary communities via an ambassador program that easily integrates into companies’ websites. Thanks to Trustt’s ambassador program, you can directly connect with your target consumers! To do this, the machine learning algorithm, SophIA, helps you identify consumers or influencers who perfectly match your offer and have a real affinity with your brand.

Finally, all your data is centralized on the “tool via a centralized dashboard that gives you a 360° view of all your live data: product campaigns, usage tests”, customer reviews, collected opt-ins, collaboration with your ambassadors…

The 5 ROIs of Creating an Ambassador Program

1- Collect Proprietary Data Directly from Your Community

Launching quantitative studies is often very expensive and the results quickly become obsolete… However, knowing your customers inside out inevitably conditions the success of your company!

By setting up an ambassador program, you recruit consumers and influencers who perfectly match your core target. Thanks to their feedback and detailed reviews, you easily collect valuable data on your customers.

All the information and data you collect about them is a real gold mine for the development of your company in every aspect:

• This live data allows you to continuously refine your customer knowledge and targeting strategy.
• By having a sharp understanding of who your customers are, their needs and expectations, you are able to respond to them in a much more suitable manner.
• You develop products that consumers expect since you know how to meet their expectations,
• You build an engaged proprietary community and quality spokespersons,
• All the marketing actions you implement thanks to the analysis of this data are much more relevant, which allows you to maximize your results and therefore your ROI.

With Trustt, the data you easily collect through your ambassador program is yours! It doesn’t come from a third-party company and is therefore much less expensive and much more profitable for your marketing strategy.

2- Boost Your Visibility and Awareness on the Web and Social Media

According to an Infolinks study, “only 14% of consumers remember an advertisement and identify the offer it was promoting…”

Today, consumers are no longer sensitive to brand advertising campaigns at all! They don’t believe in them anymore. They now trust digital word-of-mouth more, that is, reviews and comments from other customers who have already experienced a company’s product.

Given this observation, it is pointless to launch a large mass media campaign that is often very expensive for a lower ROI (Return on Investment)…

To promote your product offering, implementing an ambassador program allows you to quickly and effectively make yourself known through recommendations from those who experience your products.

It’s your ambassadors who, by becoming your spokespersons, convey your values to their own community and boost your brand image and awareness.

Thanks to the web and social media, the viral effect is powerful! These authentic comments and reviews, these sincere and engaged social posts (photos, videos, stories…) are much more effective than an advertising campaign in traditional media and can be seen by thousands of people very quickly.

Indeed, the engagement of your ambassadors is your best communication action! They contribute to the development of your visibility and brand image at a lower cost.

Thanks to the connection created with your consumers, they help you build a solid and invested community around your products and services.

3- Reduce Your Research and Development Costs

As part of an ambassador program, you enter into a community co-construction approach for your product offering. You recruit ambassadors based on their profiles, their specificities related to the characteristics of your target audience, as proposed by the Trustt tool.

Through the implementation of product campaigns, you give them a voice and place their opinions at the center of your business strategy.

Their experience feedback and detailed reviews are valuable data that allow you to:

• Identify what works and doesn’t work currently in your offering;
• Quickly correct your products and make necessary improvements;
• Understand the real needs and expectations of your target consumers.

Thus, thanks to this co-creation approach and working hand in hand with your consumers, you are able to develop a consumer goods offering that corresponds to the real market expectations and always satisfy your customers.

Implementing an ambassador program allows you to go faster and further in developing your products and especially to significantly reduce your research and development costs, because it’s your consumers who help you co-construct your products!

4- Significantly Increase Your Sales and Commercial Success

Today, consumption is driven by recommendations. Detailed reviews and social media posts from other consumers play a huge role in the purchasing decisions of internet users.

Indeed, according to a Duel Tech study, “12% additional brand ambassadors allow a company to double its revenue!”

This is why, rather than investing in costly communication campaigns touting the merits of your products or services, opt for implementing an ambassador program that will optimize your ROI.

As you can understand, faced with the multitude of competing companies available in the market across all sectors, today’s customers need reassurance before making a purchase to ensure they choose the right product or service.

The qualified reviews & UGC you obtain through the implementation of an ambassador program are valuable reassurance elements that have the power to significantly increase the conversion rate of your e-shop.

Comprehensive and authentic reviews integrated into your product pages, user-generated content (UGC) such as before-and-after photos, tutorial videos, and blog articles, help you reach new customers and develop your sales.

Trustt helps you collect authentic and free content to share on various social networks and on the brand’s product pages to encourage internet users to make a purchase.

Moreover, implementing an ambassador program helps you create a special relationship with your customers. This relationship of trust, this feeling of belonging to your brand is very beneficial and allows you to engage and retain your customers in the long term.

Thus, when you launch a new product, you multiply the chances of success of this launch thanks to a base of fans with solid engagement.

In short, implementing an ambassador program boosts your company’s sales in the long term.

5 – Gain Market Share

Competition is fierce for all companies, regardless of the market. To stand out from the competition, implementing an ambassador program is a key strategic tool.

Indeed, it allows you to:

• Continuously collect data to understand the needs of your customers;
• Develop a trusting relationship, a close and engaging connection with them by asking for their opinions and involving them in the life of your company and its development;
• Offer consumer goods products that are totally adapted to your customers, thanks to the feedback you receive following their usage tests and product tests.

All these actions resulting from the implementation of an ambassador program allow you to:

• Differentiate yourself from the competition,
• Protect your existing market share by preventing your current customers from turning to the competition
• Increase your company’s market share by reducing that of competing companies.