Brand Ambassador Program Template to Launch Quickly
Direct-to-consumer businesses are constantly competing with each other to grow their customer base. It’s ruthless and expensive. A surefire way to spark awareness and get new consumers (before your competitors do) is to get spokespeople talking about you and recommending your products. The strategy is so successful that it has become a formal marketing channel known as “brand ambassador marketing.” It’s powerful and cost effective. Therefore, this article presents best practices for a brand ambassador program template.
Why start a brand ambassador program?
The effectiveness of brand ambassador marketing has broad business acceptance and is an incredible way to expand a brand’s customer base across informal channels.
Companies organize brand ambassador programs to spread recognition and increase revenue through conventional word-of-mouth marketing and social networking.
In general, most industry professionals concur that the most successful method of using an influencer’s network is to partner with ambassadors, build a relationship, and leverage that connection to promote your business.
Ambassador program stats
Tapinfluence and Altmeter conducted an online survey of 1,753 influencers and 102 marketing experts to examine how ambassador marketing programs perform in comparison to other methods of marketing.
Marketing through ambassadors is, by far, the most successful kind of influencer marketing a company can employ.
Long-term collaborations with brand ambassadors outperform affiliate links by a factor of seven and brand-produced content by 50%.
One more thing before we get started, let’s cover the definition of a brand ambassador program.
What is an ambassador program?
Using a brand ambassador program ensures your company’s approach to working with individual ambassadors is consistent. Typically, objectives are designed to grow revenue, maximize conversions, or boost brand recognition. An ambassador will use social media and word-of-mouth to promote your business to its followers.
Organizing corporate champions via ambassador programs has many exciting benefits, such as strengthening the company’s image while retaining brand authenticity. Another consideration is that companies take advantage of peer-to-peer communities that affect half of all buying decisions. (NIELSEN)
Ready to tackle your own word of mouth and ambassador program? If so, this blueprint is certain to give you a huge jumpstart.
Brand ambassador program template
This guide will save you dozens of hours and many headaches when you want to start planning and organizing your brand ambassador marketing strategy. You’ll understand how to determine the roles of your advocates and how they can support your business and message.
We will also cover ambassador program expectations and the steps to finding ambassadors. Not only will you know how to recruit ambassadors, but you’ll also learn what comes next. An example is automating a welcome campaign followed by incentives for participation.
The goal of this guide is to give you everything you need to start running ambassador programs for your brand as quickly as possible.
Launch date
Have a goal or vision of what you want your ambassador program to look like and what you want it to accomplish before getting started. Determine the date you would like to begin your new brand ambassador program. Once you establish a launch date, you can work backward to ensure the program kickoff is on time and successful.
Brand ambassador KPI’s
Before you begin a brand ambassador program, specify the overarching intentions and goals. Clarify how you will measure progress and define your key performance indicators, or KPIs.
Your brand ambassadors should have a direct tie to marketing and sales performance. Make sure you have a clear plan for what they will do and why they matter.
Some of the most common purposes of ambassador programs are to improve awareness, trust, word of mouth, and sales. Many influencers and brand ambassadors use social media, especially Instagram and blogging, to share information and recommendations about brands. They do this through posts, stories, video reels, blogs, and vlogs.
The following are some primer questions to get you thinking about the primary responsibilities of your ambassadors.
- What types of results do you want brand ambassadors to produce?
- How will spokespeople communicate with their networks?
- What expectations do you have for your ambassador?
- Goals for your program?
- Who is the best type of person to help accomplish your goals and meet your KPIs?
Types of program templates
Perceptions of influencers have changed during the past year. It’s no longer an all-or-nothing proposition for more prominent labels where influencers must have a massive follower base.
Attracting huge audiences is much less important than establishing trust with authentic engagement.
One increasingly common theme in ambassador programs is that there is a place for everyone. Instead of creating a single influencer marketing strategy, companies design more inclusive programs that bring all their supporters into the fold.
The trend is to make space for all of your brand supporters to participate, from celebrities and mega influencers to customers and micro-ambassadors.
Think of all the possibilities and levels of influence. Choose the influence type that most closely matches your needs when putting together your ambassador program.
The following is a recap of main categories in a brand ambassador program template.
Pro team
The face of the brand
Influencers
One-off posting or placement of brand alliance
Brand ambassadors
Long-term relationships with key metrics and often involves customers
Content creators
People making and sharing content such as photos, videos, and blogs
Partners
Social extension of natural partnerships, including media, retail, affiliate, or brand partnerships
Employees
Good for internal advocacy and a friends and family program
Industry professionals
Online and offline industry advocates such as coaches, trainers, physicians, teachers, shop owners
Customers and fans
Open to all customers and people who like a brand
Expectations with a brand ambassador program Template
The requirements and responsibilities of each ambassador program vary depending upon the goals and the product line. To better comprehend the expectations of brand ambassadors, we studied 50 top organizations that rely on Roster to handle their ambassador programs.
Being a brand ambassador means taking on the responsibility to share and engage with others in your social circles.
As you consider the expectations you have for your ambassadors, this article will be very beneficial. What Does A Brand Ambassador Do?
Additionally, some helpful questions to consider are the following:
- What will your ambassadors do?
- What results do you plan on getting?
- How will you communicate with them?
- How often will they share about your brand?
Program rewards
It is an effort to place brands in contact with individuals who value them to build mutually beneficial relationships. Ambassadors need to represent organizations within a set of parameters. They must present relevant and valuable messages. The content needs to be meaningful, particularly for their target audiences. And most importantly, they actually have to communicate these messages.
Brand champions are fundamental for businesses to thrive. By networking with customers, ambassadors develop an intimate relationship of confidence. It isn’t easy to reproduce this association, and thus, vital to motivate. Rewards and perks are not only expected but also imperative for a strong ambassador program. Often these types of incentives are used in place of a brand ambassador salary.
For a comprehensive collection of rewards for brand ambassadors, be sure to read this article: Perks of Being a Brand Ambassador. You can also use a formal referral rewards program to promote your brand while encouraging your loyal customers to spread the word about your company.
Although the benefits and perks are limitless, there are 14 general types of rewards.
- Product discounts
- Free stuff
- Product seeding
- Gift cards
- Prizes
- Special offers
- Referral rewards
- Chance to be featured on website, social media, events, and more
- Sponsorships
- New and exclusive products
- Insider access and product development
- Live events
- Virtual events
- Employment
- Long-term partnerships
Enlisting ambassadors
The primary aim of an ambassador program is to engage and work with people who are enthusiastic about your brand. It’s quite a process and requires steadfast commitment.
Ambassador application form
Having an official application form for ambassadors formalizes the relationship. The application can be a form fill on your website or a list of questions in an email. You can keep the details in a Google Sheet or Excel. If you use a platform such as Roster, an application or recruitment form take a few minutes to create, and all the applicant information is automatically organized and stored in a CRM.
You need to know the following essential things about people who apply to your ambassador program.
- Name
- Phone Number
- Address
- Social profiles
Also, it is a best practice to outline your expectations for brand ambassadors and the rewards they will receive on the ambassador application form.
Automated Emails
Hopefully, you have an email platform already. If so, create a few emails to open the communication channel with applicants. Here are the emails you will need.
- Application received email: Thank you for applying to our ambassador program.
- Acceptance email: You’re in! Detail the responsibilities, rewards, and next steps with a brand ambassador welcome letter. (NOTE: Ambassadors expect rewards, and you should provide discount codes.)
- Non-acceptance email: Thank you, but not a fit. Please try again.
- Campaign emails: This month’s activities and requests.
Recruit People To Join Brand Ambassador Program
Enlisting ambassadors can take a bit of time. We suggest that you use multiple touchpoints to attract people to your program.
A natural and easy way to grow your program or community is to get customers to become brand ambassadors.
Without a doubt, post the application announcement on social media with a link to the form. Also, have a link on your website, such as in the website footer.
You can send an email to all your customers and your marketing lists. Including ambassador invitations and application links in your newsletters is an excellent recruitment practice.
Review and Vet Applications
To manage your new ambassadors, you’ll want first to define their primary abilities and audiences. Next, organize them into similar groups.
The strategy for expanding the brand’s scope and impact can differ for each of the various influencers.
One thing to consider is that your community becomes more accessible to all demographics when you have several functions or segments.
If you group ambassadors according to the goals of your organization, some qualifications include:
- Number of followers
- Quality of their content
- Fit with your brand
- Frequency of posts
- Impressions and engagements
- Inbound traffic
- Revenue from referrals and links
As the applications begin coming in, send automatic emails letting people know you received their form and when they can expect an acceptance response.
After selecting who is in the program and who is not a good fit, send the follow-up emails.
Welcome campaign
The welcome campaign is your first official communication with your newest advocates. Get them excited!
From the day they join the program, greet the latest advocates. Provide people with information about the program. Let them know their first task or job. Briefly describe the campaign, identify the goals, and what they get for participating.
Summary
Starting your new program from scratch is an enormous undertaking. The purpose of this brand ambassador program template is to help shorten your learning curve and provide the process to get you up and running quickly.
It’s common for companies to experiment with ambassador marketing. However, they often become overwhelmed with the tasks and requirements. It doesn’t take long to discover it is too much work for them to maintain and scale.
Managing all the campaign KPIs without an automated solution is messy and tricky. Additionally, things get even more challenging when determining the ROI for ambassador marketing programs by hand. The telltale symptoms are two screens with hundreds of windows active and hours spent entering data into an enormous spreadsheet.
Frequently brands are forced to ask influencers to submit screenshots of their social posts and metrics. Not very professional or efficient. Experts like Roster offer specialized software and features that help companies start entirely new ambassador programs in a few days. Also, most brands spend just two or three hours a week managing their programs and scaling their ambassador marketing. You can see how it works by signing up below for a custom demo.
We hope that this brand ambassador program template is helpful. Explore the Roster blog and check back often for more tips on working with ambassadors and managing an ongoing program.
We would love to hear from you. If you have any questions, we would love to chat. Schedule a demo with us.