The best form of marketing communication is to leverage the recommendation of a brand by satisfied customers. In the digital context, it is also about like, share, and so on. Advocacy is linked with the clarity of the brand promise and the brand’s ability to deliver on this promise. The more the satisfaction, the more positive the advocacy.
Brands are trying to build advocacy through different means such as
- Customer meetings,
- Loyalty programmes, etc.
Customers need to buy a brand with a clear understanding of what the brand is offering as this gives perspective to their exceptions and consequently enhances their satisfaction levels. Often one finds that there is no sustained program for building advocacy because of the lack of a clear understanding of the factor that drive advocacy. This is not that people don’t want to talk about brands. Often enough customers like to recommend brands as a means of displaying their knowledge as well as to help others.
When a brand does not articulate its promise with clarity, consumers buy the brand for the wrong reason. This is because the brand delivered not what the customers expected. This can lead to negative word of mouth. Brands need to deliver on their brand promise without exception or incur the wrath of their consumers. Brands trying to grow on advocacy, need to focus on delivering on their brand promise impeccably. Brand advocacy helps create immense savings as it would largely reduce the cost of acquiring new customers, a cost that constitutes a large portion of the marketing budget.
FACTORS THAT DRIVE ADVOCACY
Two key factors that drive advocacy.
(a). the level of involvement that the consumer has with the brand.
(b) the customers’ level of satisfaction with the brand’s performance.
There is a close relationship between the advocacy level displayed and satisfaction/involvement levels of customers who exhibit different degrees of advocacy from being aggressively supportive of the brand, to being extremely deprecatory towards the brand. Dissatisfied with the performance of the brand, but the involvement is low. So expression of their unhappiness is not stated very often unless prompted. The average person would not make a hue and cry about a roll of defective sand paper or a packet of flimsy tissue papers.
DISINTERESTED SUPPORTERS
Recommend a brand, but more often than not would do so in a grudging manner with the recommendation made only when prompted.
DISRUPTIVELY DISGRUNTLED
A nightmare for brands, this group can create havoc for a brand.
These customers have high involvement, and when they are dissatisfied, they express their dissatisfaction without pulling any punches.
The segment is every marketing manager’s dream come true. The larger this base – the more robust the brand equity and the potential for sales. Customers are enthusiastic advocates of these brands because of the high level of involvement they have with them and the high level of satisfaction that these brands deliver.
IMPACT OF ADVOCACY ON THE BOTTOM LINE
Brand managers want customers to move up the advocacy ladder. While it may not be possible, it would be ideal for a brand to have all its customers as ‘enthusiastic advocates’.Every movement up the advocacy ladder has a strong impact on the bottom line and earnings. A reduction in the number of ‘disruptively disgruntled’ customers eases the load on the customers-care department, reduces the cost of freebies/discount given to pacify. The cost of acquiring customers is calculated to be six times that of retaining customers.
When delighted customers bring in other customers without any cost to the brand simply based on their positive word of mouth, the impact of the profitability of the brand is significant. Brands need to look at their customers and understand how many of them feature in the different advocacy clusters. The change in the composition of these clusters can significantly impact profitability, brand equity and future sales. By influencing customer involvement and satisfaction levels a brand will move customers up the advocacy ladder. increasing involvement without increasing satisfaction can lead to customers being vociferous in opposition of the brand.
Enhancing satisfaction without building involvement will reduce vocal dissatisfaction but will not help in building powerful advocacy for the brand.
Brands that want to build advocacy must examine the brand to see whether they are delivering satisfaction understanding the factor that lead to advocacy of their brand will help them understand which specific feature of delivery they need to focus on to create a disproportionate level of advocacy.
DETERRENTS TO ADVOCACY
While moving customers up the advocacy ladder, brand managers must take into consideration.
These aspects are:
- The risk involved in advocating a brand
- The knowledge level of the customer.
THE RISK IN ADVOCATING A BRAND
The probable risk involved in advocating a brand is what often deters customers. The average man on the street is less likely to recommend an investment brands of mutual funds or a high power diabetes tablet as he would a brand of apparel. Because of the fear that a recommendation that goes wrong can cause immense harm to the referee and the referee and the referrer would not want to be held responsible for that harm.
THE KNOWLEDGE LEVELS OF THE CUSTOMERS
The product knowledge levels of the person recommending the brand come into play while advocating a brand. The lower the knowledge levels, often the lower the confidence levels to advocate a brand.
OVERCOMING THESE DETERRENTS
To overcome these deterrents brands must try to educate consumers about their brand. The more the consumers know about the brand and what makes it deliver superior performance, the greater the chances of the customers recommending the brand to others. Information on the rigor of the product testing the superiority of the technology used, experts who endorse the brand, celebrities who use the brand, all work toward increasing involvement levels and building knowledge-based confidence that works to the brand’s advantage.
This education also works toward building the brand’s equity by establishing the brand’s differentiation from competition and its relevance to the consumers. Relevance and differentiation and critical components of brand equity. brand equity is an important factor in inducing advocacy as it provides connotations of the product/service’ consistency and quality.
Consistency and quality are necessary aspects for any brand that excepts advocacy. This is especially true in the case of service brands where a bad experience is not forgotten on forgiven easily. Complex as it may be, brands must look at building advocacy as an offshoot of the brand equity. Branding is a business process, and advocacy is a wise business tool.
Image Source / Credits: https://referralrock.com/blog/brand-advocate/