In the age of social media and internet marketing, consumers have forced businesses to get creative when selling products and services. With so many new methods of marketing for salons and spas, don’t overlook one of your most valuable assets – your brand ambassadors.
What Are Brand Ambassadors?
Brand ambassadors are cheerleaders for your business. They enjoy being engaged with your business and are willing to promote it through social media and by word-of-mouth. A brand ambassador goes beyond someone who gives you a good online review. Brand ambassadors are passionate about your business. You can call on them repeatedly and have confidence they will endlessly share their great experiences with others. Happy clients will say nice things in a survey. A brand ambassador will say nice things for years.
How Brand Ambassadors Help Grow Your Business
Brand ambassadors can influence their own niche audience that you may not have had access to otherwise. Here are 5 ways they can help grow your business:
Cost-Effective Marketing Tool
Research shows that word-of-mouth is the most impactful and trusted marketing tactic. Because your brand ambassadors truly enjoy what your business has to offer and want to spread it to the whole world, most are happy to be compensated with perks, swag, and great customer service. Now, you have yourself a cost-effective and powerful marketing asset.
Humanizes Your Brand
Brand ambassadors can create real, personalized interactions between your business and your clients, strengthening your brand and customer relationships. Whether it’s sharing experiences, commenting on social posts, etc., brand ambassadors give a human face to your business in which your clients can relate.
Provide Client Referrals
Recent surveys reveal that people are 90% more likely to trust a business recommended by a friend. With the rising costs of acquiring new clients, brand ambassadors can alleviate your marketing budget and help bring new clients through your door with a simple referral. Don’t forget to reward them for this!
Increase Your Social Reach
Let’s do some quick math. If you have 10 brand ambassadors, each with (a relatively modest) 300 followers, that is a total of 3,000 unique followers. By asking your brand ambassadors to share promotions, tag or mention your business, and more, you can potentially boost your social audience by the thousands instantly.
Add Credibility to Your Business
Brand ambassadors can reach your audience with more credibility than you. This is because they don’t make money as a result of recommending or mentioning your business. Additionally, research shows that positive word-of-mouth marketing is more credible than negative, so your customers are more likely remember the positive remarks about your salon or spa.
Increase Your Frequency of Visit and Cultivate Brand Ambassadors
The first step to create an army of brand ambassadors is to ensure your clients visit often. The average salon client visits just 4.88 times a year. As a result, building customer retention and loyalty is essential to grow a thriving business. Tune in to our next Coffee Talk with Robert Cromeans, Global Artistic and Business Director for JPMS, as he spends the afternoon with our Founder and CEO John Harms to discuss how you can improve your Frequency of Visit. Register here and watch live on Wednesday, April 25 at 1 PM EST.
