How to build a Successful Ambassador Community for Your Brand (Clone)

“Our ability to harness the power of our customers as growth drivers, I think that’s going to be the future of social as it intersects with commerce.”

Alicianne Rand     

Rent The Runway,  VP of Growth Marketing    

Decades ago, the thought of creating a group of fans to drive growth for your brand was a distant dream. Now with the social media, the possibility of sucessful community is open to everyone.

Your brand can connect with millions of people globally for only a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing. Plus, finding and connecting with your target audience is easy with social media.

If you want to fully take advantage of a brand ambassador community, then strap in. We'll cover everything you need to know about starting a community for your brand, why you should do it and a 5 easy steps guide to help you along your journey.

• What Is A Brand Ambassador? 
• Why Should I Have A Brand Ambassador Community?
• 5 Easy Steps Guide to Help You Along Your Journey.
  
  

What is a Brand Ambassador?

brand ambassador (n): a person who is invited by an organization or company to represent a brand in a positive light and by doing so help to increase brand awareness and sales.

The term “ambassador” can be vague and ends up meaning different things to different people.  There are many terms to describe ambassadors that cover a variety of tasks; but really, it’s simple: 

An ambassador is a person who represents and helps promote your brand to reach your sales and marketing goals.

Read more: What is an Brand Ambassador?

What roles can Brand Ambassadors play?

Advocate

Your “diamond in the rough” consumers. Every brand has them, and every brand should be tapping into them. They are passionate and help sustain the conversation around your brand through UGC and word-of-mouth. They’re intrinsically motivated to talk about your brand to their inner circle because of their genuine love for the brand and the desire to help their friends. This person can be a customer or even an employee. 

Influencer 

Influencers are people with an audience who have the ability to affect their decisions. This group lives primarily in the digital space. From nano to macro, influencers give brands access to a broad audience, though they may speak to a specific niche or demographic. 

Affiliate

Living 100% online, affiliates typically have a broad audience and use their platform to drive leads and referrals. Often getting paid per click or conversion, their main purpose is to drive awareness to your brand.

Field Marketer / Street Teamer 

People who are hired and paid to represent your brand in the real world, primarily creating physical impressions. They complete tasks like hanging flyers, passing out samples, and hosting events. 

City / College Representative

City and College reps have some online presence, but are hyper-local and really help your brand develop a pulse with REAL people. These are key opinion leaders who give brands access to their circle of influence in the real world. Building relationships with these reps is important, because they want to feel like they’re a real part of the team. 

Brand Ambassadors can be any and all of these things, depending on the specific needs and goals of the brand they represent. 

An ambassador community will help your brand drive awareness, generate UGC, break into new markets more effectively, boost sales, get feedback and insight into how to market your brand in their world, and more.

But the best ambassadors are always people that are genuine fans of your brand.  This is because it makes the partnerships feel much more authentic and trustworthy.

It can be difficult to understand the value of an ambassador community in comparison to a traditional influencer campaign, which many brands will implement in order to drive awareness. 

So, what separates an ambassador community from your typical influencer campaign?

90% of consumers say that authenticity is important when deciding which brands they support.

What's the difference?

Traditional influencer partnerships are usually online only and campaign-based, meaning they are short-term and only require the influencers to make 1-2 pieces of content. 

On the other hand, ambassador programs focus on authentic long-term partnerships with multiple ambassadors at the same time (even thousands).

Ambassadors are tasked with online activities such as creating social media content, just like in an influencer campaign. But they can also participate in offline activities and give feedback. This depends on the brand’s goals.

Why should I have an ambassador community?

What is the value of an ambassador community?

An ambassador community gives your brand the ability to market through your customers, rather than to them. 

It allows you to assign tasks to a group of your biggest fans as well as online content creators that help you achieve your marketing goals. Tasks such as:

• Posting on social media
• Writing a review for your products
• Sharing affiliate links
• Referring friends
• Hosting events, classes, etc.
• Using brand hashtags
• Providing feedback

5 Benefits of building an Brand Ambassador Community

1. Create a scalable & low cost CAC channel

   Cost of Acquisition (CAC) is the total cost associated with acquiring new customers. Word of mouth is your most valuable and least expensive CAC channel. Loyal customers are by far the best ambassadors because they have the greatest influence on their friends’ purchase decisions.
   
   

2. Enhance Your Content Strategy

   People trust real people with real opinions. User generated content (UGC) affects 90% of shoppers’ purchasing decisions. Ambassador created content that reflects a positive consumer opinion of your brand tends to be the most engaging, compared to paid ads — helping you drive organic reach and enhance the brand’s content strategy at a fraction of the cost. 
   
   

3. Harness the power of the passionate customers 

   Steer the conversation your brand fans are already having -- from the inside. A dedicated community allows you to direct your ambassadors to share relevant information, post specific content, and help your brand achieve marketing & sales goals.

4. Get Feedback

   Ambassadors can provide valuable feedback not just on what they want to see more of, but can also help you test new products through tasks like sampling, hosting events, and participating in activations. Ambassadors can help you learn more about what your community loves and what your brand needs to work on.

   
   

5. Give Passionate Customers a Home

   Your brand’s Super Fans want to feel close, connected, and valued by your brand. Giving these customers a home allows them to connect with your brand and each other in a community setting where they can express themselves, talk about the brand, and develop deeper relationships with other like-minded people.

   Investing the time to create a home for your brand’s community will enable you to develop a stronger sense of connection for your brand within your existing customer base.

Here's the 5 easy steps guide to help you along your journey

1. Define your goals
2. Set your budget
3. Create a schedule
4. Identify ambassadors
5. Set up your community
   

Step 1. Define Your Goals

Figure out what you want to achieve with your ambassador community. Are you looking to drive brand awareness or word of mouth marketing? Double down on user generated content? Create a fan community? 

Here are a few questions to consider while defining your goals:

• What is the objective of your ambassador community? 
• What strategies will you implement to meet your goals?
• What is your CAC? What is your LTV? 
• What is the lowest CAC channel for your brand?
• Where are you currently spending your marketing dollars?

LTV (Life Time Value): This is the metric used to determine the total revenue a given customer is bringing your brand. The LTV of your ambassadors increases as they become more connected to your brand & make new purchases. 

CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): You will want to figure out the CAC by taking the cost spent on acquiring more customers / # of customers acquired. We help brands amplify their lowest CAC channel - WOM Marketing. SocialLadder tools enable brands to control these costs by amplifying WOM & using the gamified points/ rewards system.

Step 2. Set Your Budget

Figure out how much you can spend on your ambassador community. Determine the value that each completed ambassador task is worth to your brand. What does the ambassador return on investment % need to be for the program to be a success

Here are the items to keep in mind for budgeting your ambassador community:

• What task do you want your ambassadors to complete?
• How much is each task worth to your brand?
• What rewards are you offering? Will you be using cash payouts?
• How much time per week does your brand need to spend managing the community?
• What marketing channels can you cut down on costs with SocialLadder?

Be sure to consider the cost of the rewards for your community. Take time to think of the rewards that don't require a high cost from your team or the offers that money can't buy like exclusive experiences. If you are using cash payouts for affiliates, influencers, or any ambassadors incentives, figure out what that compensation model looks like.

SocialLadder’s Budget Calculator will help you create a budget so you can make ambassadors a scalable acquisition channel 

Step 3. Create A Schedule

Set aside time each week to focus on the goals, strategy, and plan you’ve defined for your ambassador community. 

From scheduling tasks to reviewing the ambassador trends, it’s important to have a routine in place that gives your team enough time to communicate with your community, analyze insights, and develop further plans for growth.  

A successful ambassador community manager spends anywhere from 3 to 10+ hours per week, depending on the goals of your community.

Step 4. Identify Ambassadors

In order to create your ambassador community you will need to ask:

• Who will be a part of your ambassador community?
• What are their duties?
  
  

Your ambassadors should be a group of passionate individuals looking to support your brand. These individuals can be your brand’s top fans, customers, affiliates, influencers, team members, campus leaders, college athletes, or anyone that matches your brand’s ethos. Your community can even consist of multiple groups that make up your ambassador community. 

Once you have identified your ambassadors and their segments, be sure to specify the goals or KPIs for your community. We recommend creating goals for each segment of your community along with high level goals for your brand ambassador community as a whole.   

Checklist for choosing successful ambassadors

• A true advocate of your brand
• Has influence online and/or in the real world
• Talks about your brand from an authentic perspective

Step 5. Set Up Your Community

Name your community:

Now that you’ve identified your ambassadors, what do you want to call them? Recall some of the traits and tasks laid out in your ambassador identification process to help create a name that encompasses the essence of your community. You can be as simple or creative as you’d like to be here.  Ex. The Met Reps, ImagineNation, Yoga Club, KD’s Loyalty Community

Define rewards:

How will you reward your ambassadors for supporting your brand? There are a variety of incentives you can give your ambassadors to keep them motivated to promote and feel closer to your brand.  Ex. merch, apparel, experiences, products, store credits, services, etc. 

Define incentives:

What kind of incentive will help your ambassadors drive referrals & support your business goals? For instance, you can incentivize your ambassadors to drive sales by offering a discount to new buyers on their first purchase or payouts for every referral. 

Gather Information: 

Think about what information you’ll need to share with your ambassadors. The goals and schedule you created earlier in this process will guide the information you can include in materials to educate your ambassadors and ensure that they stay active.  Ex: Guidelines, handbooks, schedules, opportunities, deadlines, etc.

About SocialLadder

SocialLadder is an end-to-end creator management platform for managing, engaging, and tracking brand ambassadors, influencers and affiliates.  Our platform empowers your team to discover creators, streamline collaboration, assign tasks online and offline, generate affiliate links, monitor engagement, track ROI, & reward successful creators for helping to promote your brand.