What is a Brand Ambassador

Brand ambassadors are people who promote your brand. They are sometimes referred to as influencers or people with a significant number of followers. They are valuable because that can instantly increase the traffic and sales in your website.

Brand ambassadors are important for businesses for they drive customers to buy from you. Without them, you will just be tooting your own horn. There will be no one who will vouch for you or support you.

In this age where social proof is everything, brand ambassadors play an even larger role. This is because they support your brand with more than testimonials. They also do referrals. Referral marketing is powerful because it drives more traffic and sales to your website.

But what type of brand ambassador should you look for? Should you just open your referral program and allow just about anyone to promote you?

No. You should not do that. Think about it this way. If you allow just anyone to promote you, you may end up getting promoted by people with lower returns. Remember, it is better to be promoted by a few but selected people with a good amount of followers than to be promoted by everyone. You don’t want to risk your brand name, do you?

But what should you look for? How can you say that a particular brand ambassador is right for you business? In this article, you’ll learn about the specific characteristics that you should look for in a brand ambassador. They are listed below.

You Need Someone Who Understands Your Products and Services

You really can’t promote anything that you know nothing about. And if you try to do that, you’ll sound like you are just after the sale. People want to be promoted to. However, they’ll only act on the promotion if they can see what’s in it for them in the promoted product or service.

With this, it is important that brand ambassadors focus on benefits than features. Features are the characteristics of the product or service that may not necessarily translate into practical use. Take a camera for example. A 5MP camera with flash is a feature. But taking clearer photos even at dark areas is a benefit. As you can see, a benefit is what you can do with the feature. The feature explains what the product has while the benefit explains what the product can do for the customer.

So you need to look for a brand ambassador who doesn’t only have knowledge about your products. You need someone who has actually used the product and know how to relay their experience in a positive way to other people. Only in doing these authentic reviews can they really get more people to become your loyal customers.

You Need Someone Who Have Loyal Followers

Who would you have an ambassador? A person who have no online presence or someone who have a few thousand followers on Instagram? I am sure that you’ll choose the latter. The amount doesn’t even matter. As long as that person has some loyal followers, their promotion power is still stronger than that of other people.

Ideally, you’ll want to invite these people to promote your products and services. So instead of merely launching a referral or affiliate program and praying that these people come to you and promote you, it may be better to reach out. Try to contact them using messenger tools such as Instagram Messenger or Facebook Messenger. Then, propose that you’ll give them an exclusive discount code that is designed primarily for their followers.

You Need Someone Whose Niche is Relevant to Yours

I get it. You need a brand ambassador to promote your brand. But that doesn’t mean that you should approach the first person that has a few thousand followers. If your product has nothing to do with their niche, that would just be rude and may even sound desperate.

For this, you should just look for brand ambassadors who are passionate about your niche. It doesn’t even need to be an exact niche. A lifestyle influencer with an interest in Korean makeup for example may respond well with beauty and fashion products as well. It doesn’t need to be exactly Korean makeup all the time.

Why does it need to be niche-specific? That’s because being niche-specific is more powerful. If the influencer is already primarily interested in that particular niche, their followers are more likely to be interested in the niche as well. So promotion will be a breeze. What does this mean for you? It means more sales, of course! So keep yourself limited to your niche and it can reward you.

You Need Natural Leaders

Brand ambassadors are powerful because they lead a pack to take action. They are different from other people because they have the capability to influence decisions. This is the reason why leadership is a very important factor that you should consider when selecting brand ambassadors. While you need someone with a list of followers, you also need someone who has the power to influence his or her followers to take action.

You’ll know leadership when you see it. It is when one influencer promotes a particular item and that particular item started to sell at once. It shows how their simple promotion influences other people to do the same. That’s leadership and it is a very valuable skill that you should consider for brand ambassadors.

You Need Someone Who Loves Meeting New People

Meeting people is normal for real brand ambassadors. In fact, their influence stemmed from this relationship with other people. They would not get followers if they did not take the time to build relationships with others. So networking is essential if you are looking for the right brand ambassador.

With this, you need someone who is simply passionate about meeting other people. Why? You need someone who can easily grow his or her network with ease. Why is this beneficial? The bigger the network, the better it is for you. This means that you’ll get to promote your brand to a larger number of people.

You Need Professionals

Recently, there has been an issue around a Youtube brand ambassador about his unacceptable behavior in Japan. You don’t want people like this to represent your brand. Instead, you want someone who has the integrity and the characteristics that are coherent with your brand – You need a professional.

Professionals know how to promote your brand the right way. They know how to get positive attention without ruining your brand. They know how to influence people to buy from you without being too pushy. And they will not resort to extremes just to get extra views or attention.

Also, you need someone who honors his word, The last thing that you want to happen is work with a brand ambassador who ‘promises’ to review a product only to ‘forget’ about it later on. You need someone who values his followers as much as he influences them.

How to Hire a Brand Ambassador

Now that you know the characteristics for the right brand ambassador, you may want to hire one. Here are some tips on how to approach them.

Give Them an Exclusive Discount Code

One of my strategies to instantly get an influencer’s attention is to give them an exclusive discount code. This code offers more than just a discount to their followers. It may also include their name or brand name.

Why do influencers love this? They love it because it contains their brand. It shows their followers that they are being sponsored and it boosts their ego. Aside from this, it also acts as a form of social proof for them for there is an online store that’s willing to give them an exclusive discount code.

You can give them a discount code by enlisting them as an affiliate in your affiliate software.

Host a Giveaway With Their Brand

Another approach is to host a giveaway with the brand of the influencer. You can do this by offering one of your products or services in exchange for having them promote you. Why is the idea of a giveaway appealing? It is appealing because the ambassador can build his list while he’s at it. The best part is that he gets a product that he can give away from free.

Give Them a Free Product to Review

Another way to reach an influencer is to give them a product to review. You may have seen an influencer promote a product in his or her social media profile before. This can be an unsolicited review or a review that is initiated by the merchant. How is this initiated? By sending the product, of course! Some influencers will display their contact information. Others may have a contact form in their website. All you need to do is reach out and ask for their address.

Once you give them your product, you can give them a gentle nudge to review it. You can email them or contact them through other channels. By ‘gentle’, it means that you don’t require them to review your product. You are merely asking them about what they think about the product. Ask for feedback instead of a testimonial. That’s easier to do.

Hire Them to Review Your Product

If all else fails, you can just ask them if they accept sponsored reviews. You can start by introducing your product and asking them if they are interested to review your product. State that you are willing to pay them in return. Inform them that it is a sponsored review and wait for their reply.

If they say ‘yes’, ask for their address. You can now send your product for their review. Wait for the content to go live and watch as traffic flow to your website. Pay them when it is completed.

Why does this work? This works because influencers often need a source of income to continue what they are doing. While they may have a list of followers, they still want to make some extra money on the side. Being paid to do what you love is the best thing for influencers. By sponsoring a review, you are actually contributing to making their dreams come true.  

Collaborate with Other Brands Before You Approach The Ambassador

Think that you cannot do it on your own? Approach other brands and form a group before you approach the influencer. This way, the proposal will be much stronger.

You can do this in different ways. First, you can host a collaborative giveaway. In this giveaway, all the brands in your group will contribute a product for the influencer to give away. The influencer can then build his or her list with your products.

This works for discount codes as well. You can ask other business owners to provide discounts to their products in the name of a particular influencer. You can then collect a list of discount codes and offer that to the influencer.

Third, you can group your products together for a review. You can contact the influencer that you have something to give them and it will be a group of products from different brands. Since there are a lot of products that they can try and review, they will be more likely to say yes.

Collaboration is attractive because it offers a stronger social proof for influencers. It also gives them something to miss out on when they refuse. Refusing the offer will mean that they have lost the opportunity to work with a group of brands. So they will most likely not turn down such a review.

Now that you know the characteristics and the process on how to hire a brand ambassador, it is time to choose a person who can promote your brand. It is important that you consider the characteristics that I have included in this article for you don’t want just about anyone to promote your products and services. Also, you may want to refine your approach. This way, you’ll have a greater chance of success in working with them and getting more traffic and sales for your website. 

4 Response to "What is a Brand Ambassador"

  1. Comment From Derek Ramsay

    This helps me better understand my ambassadors and cater to their needs easier. Thanks.



  2. Comment From Carter Williams

    Thanks for these great5 ideas on how to hire great ambassadors.



  3. Comment From Hanna Garcia

    Thanks for this again! I love your articles!



  4. Comment From Jonathan Cruz

    Great tips!



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