Our executive team were being led through a workshop by communications agency RAW Unlimited. It reached that point in the day for ‘Show and Tell’ – each participant had been asked to pick a product or service they love and say why. Someone picked the private car hire business Uber and spoke passionately about the whizzy iPhone App for choosing and tracking cars, the friendly service sometimes providing a bottle of water and a chocolate and not to mention the extraordinary good prices. As a brand advocate they had won twenty new Uber customers and were rewarded with twenty vouchers of £10 each for future Uber travel.

What products can you think of that have effective brand advocates? I would be surprised if Apple doesn’t cross your mind. Apple have an incredible ability to turn customers into brand advocates who love their products so much that they want to tell the world about them.

There is much advice out there about how to create brand advocates and as a result win new business. It seems to me that businesses that turn customers into brand advocates have achieved one or more of the following:

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• A product or service with an outstanding customer experience.
  
• The opportunity to be part of an engaging community either online or physically.
  
• A really meaningful loyalty and rewards programme.
  

Growing your business through brand advocates is not an easy task. It takes a significant investment of time and resources. There is however a huge up side to having a network of brand advocates who despite being unpaid spend their lives talking up and persuading others about the brilliance of your product or service. On the back of this enormous good will you naturally win new business.

Question: What are you doing to create brand advocates out of your customers and win new business as a result?

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