And now back to our regularly scheduled program.
We’ve received a lot of feedback regarding our last ambassador entry (thanks to WOMMA!), and so I thought we’d follow up with a look inside what it takes to keep ambassadors ambassadoring – incentives.
Let’s be honest with ourselves – while many people are so passionate about your brand they’re willing to promote it out of sheer adoration, most will need an incentive to encourage increased participation. Simple reward programs are a great way to provide motivation for die-hard fans to go above and beyond their day-to-day casual recommendations. When combined with easy-to-complete, natural buzz tasks, incentives can help keep your evangelists actively involved and feeling like they’re part of an exclusive, Little Rascals-like club.
I asked our incentive guru, Saralyn Jones, to speak to a couple of methods that MGH has used in several of our ambassador programs. Here’s how we keep ambassadors feeling appreciated and empowered to spread their thoughts, experiences and insight.
1) Educate:
Provide each ambassador with a starter kit full of exclusive materials. It’s a great way to kick off your relationship, and gives ambassadors the tools to increase and improve their WOM’ing abilities. Although you want their conversations to remain organic, there’s no harm in fueling the engine a little bit. The tool kit can be filled with messaging points, tactics and ideas for entering conversations. But, even more importantly, it should be filled to the brim with exclusive brand gear, available only to your ambassadors. This keeps your evangelists feeling like they’re a part of something special, while making their friends/family a little jealous.
2) Entice:
Create easy and accessible ways to reward your ambassadors. These can come in the form of smaller incentives that are given out regularly, and/or larger prizes that reward the most active, successful evangelists. Each unit is unique, so be sure to tap into the interests and likes/dislikes of that particular group when determining what to offer. And remember, you can only fit so many LED lights, whistles and bobble heads on a keychain at once, so feel free to spice it up a little! Many of MGH’s unique ambassador programs use a points system, where participants earn strength in the group or get rewards for buzz tasks completed. The idea is to encourage natural conversations and get the most possible feedback on those discussions. Incentives help accomplish both.
3) Engage:
Create an environment where your ambassador unit can communicate with one another and share their successes. A simple blog or easy-to-use message board can provide a place to share ideas, tactics and unique strategies that have worked for each person. Let them profile their own ‘brag book” of their successes. A little friendly competition never hurt anyone and will only motivate your ambassador team to “keep up with the Jones’.” Additionally, profiles or intra-ambassador group communications allow each participant to learn from other’s experiences. This makes them more effective and balanced evangelists while improving the quality of their recommendations.
The real key to any ambassador program is keeping your people happy. Anything you can do to make them feel like they’re a part of something special will help extend the life and success of your ambassador unit.
Now I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – I’ll do anything for a T-shirt. And I just did, in fact. Wendy’s is in the midst of creating a new ambassador program, known as Wendy’s Underground (very chic, huh?). And, to encourage people to sign up to become an “Underground Agent,” Wendy’s is offering one of two T-shirts. To top that, if I post a picture of myself sporting my new “Wanna Spoon?” T-shirt to my MySpace page, I’ll get some free Wendy’s food.
Free T-shirt AND free Frostys!?!?!? I’m going to be the best ambassador Wendy’s has ever seen. I might have to grow out my Pippi Longstocking pigtails again (pictures to come).
