Developing Brand Evangelists

You’re probably asking yourself what the heck is a brand evangelist. The best way to describe a brand evangelist is a loyal customer who feels so strongly and passionate about a brand that he will market to others with no gain to himself. A brand evangelist is not an affiliate marketer. It is based on a deep connection with the brand.  They are the early adopters and believers in your product or service.

How do you develop or create brand evangelists for your brand? Here are just a few of the many ways you can develop brand evangelists.

Provide Value for Free

From the very beginning of my journey as a solopreneur I knew I needed to provide value. How I did that was through sharing my knowledge in web design, social media, marketing,  for free in the form of blog posts, videos and podcasts. Providing value through content markets your brand to potential customers and develops brand evangelists.

For example, two years ago I created a video to show how WordPress owners can add social media icons to the top of their website. The video to this day as received close to 16,000 views, but that is not what is important. The important part is that I reply to every comment, answering questions and assisting those that get stuck along the process for free and two years later I continue to help. Sure I could have charged a nominal fee, but building a brand is not about financial gain – it is about providing value.

Guy Kawasaki, a former evangelist at Apple, spoke at a recent webinar that I attended and stated that there are three forms of value:

• Information,
• Analysis and
• Assistance

Information is what just happened, its important things that you should know about. Analysis explains the information and Assistance explains how your company can help your clients avoid situations. These types of value should be unique to you and your brand and should have a positive influence.

Provide Exceptional Customer Service

Last week there was a story that hit the newswires about a 7 year old boy, who, after losing his Lego toy, wrote an email to Lego customer service explaining that he used is Christmas money to pay for the toy, how he lost it and promised that if it was replaced that he would be more careful with his toy.

Not only did Lego replace the toy, but gave him another one of kind toy. There was no legalese, no “show me your receipt” and I’ll see what I can do type of attitude.

Tell me that kid and all the kids he tells won’t become brand evangelists for Lego – maybe even the parents too.

Be Accessible

Just recently I created a video demo and review of a relatively new web/mobile social media monitoring tool called Mention. I posted it to YouTube and shared the link via Facebook and Twitter. Two days later I received an email from the Co-Founder and CEO of Mention Edouard de La Jonquière thanking me for the review and asked if I had any questions about the app. I replied with a few questions and he replied back with the answers – not within hours or days but within minutes. We went back and forth with a couple of more emails. He answered all of my questions without hesitation and with complete honesty.