It's no secret, the best way for any business to grow is through existing customers. Existing customers promoting the brand are trustworthy, authenticate, and cost-efficient.

LoudCrowd builds brand ambassador (or brand advocacy) programs to take help turn your customers into promoters of the brand. With an ambassador program, a critical component of success is your recruitment strategy. The key question:
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​How are we going to recruit brand ambassadors?

In this article, we dive into all the strategies for recruiting your existing customers to be brand ambassadors.

Your website gets thousands of visitors per month. Having a brand ambassador application on your site is just as important as having a blog or FAQs page. This page should be:

1) Indexed on Google

2) In the footer

3) Linked on your social accounts (Instagram + TikTok)

4) [Optional] Promoted on the website with pop-ups.

The best times to ask someone to create content for the brand are after positive reviews and when their orders have been shipped (confirmation email can also supplement the order has shipped email).

Excitement and energy for creating content are highest at these points. When someone leaves a positive review or is about to receive the product, let them know about the benefits of being a brand ambassador and take that next step.

Social Announcements

Many of your customers already follow you on social media. This is the perfect place to recruit ambassadors. Create a feed post calling for ambassadors, and a story post that links directly to the application page.

But wait... the job isn't done. On a regular basis, you should be shouting out your ambassadors' for their content, which creates an added incentive for ambassadors to get featured, and let's the rest of your audience to know you really care about your ambassador community.

Automated Instagram Story Replies

Some of your customers are already creating content for the brand. While it's always appreciated to send them custom messages, most brands cannot keep up.

Enter auto-story replies. For brands that want to automate story follow-ups, LoudCrowd lets you build logic that targets individuals based on how much content they've created, segment, and follower size. Many brands utilize this to target people who have created +3 stories about the brand, and automatically invite them to the ambassador program.

https://help.loudcrowd.com/en/articles/6245840-how-to-create-best-in-class-community-management-with-auto-story-replies

Your LoudCrowd social CRM details every single person that has ever mentioned your brand. This is the most powerful recruiting tool at your disposal.

Leverage the Social CRM to identify your highest value brand advocates and invite them to the program with a personalized DM.

While there are dozens of filters that can help you build recruitment lists, my personal favorites are:

1) Activity: Post count (5 or more)

2) Customer Info: Follower count

3) Post Type: Reels, TikToks, etc.

4) Bio: Regions or professions

5) Activity: First Post Date (recent first-posters)

Segment and message these users to drive more high-quality ambassadors to the program.

For brands that attend in-person events (or have retail stores), those can also be excellent places to recruit ambassadors. Signage or activations that educate customers on the ambassador program and recruit creators to sign-up are extremely effective.

Tip: If building signage, don't forget to have a QR code that links to the application.

There are dozens of ways to recruit ambassadors. Don't forget a few of these first principals when recruiting.

1) Ambassadors should feel like they are chosen... not being marketed to. Make sure all communication feels high value, exclusive, and personalized. Even when it's automated.

2) Make it easy. Always include a link to the application page. The application page should ideally educate the customer on everything they need to know. And make sure you have an FAQ link ready.

3) Be responsive. Whether its getting to applications on a regular basis, or answering high value creators when they have questions, make sure customers do not feel neglected.

Good luck and happy building!