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Today’s digital landscape has seen a great deal of food and beverage brands turning to eCommerce in the hopes of reaching a wider audience online. Such digital ventures may seem promising at first, but navigating online spaces already saturated with reams of products just like yours may result in your brand needing to think outside the box when it comes to your marketing strategy.
Naturally, your goal as a food and beverage brand would be to generate consumer interest that will result in sales. But with the overwhelming amount of product options available online and in-store, consumers have started questioning the products they are exposed to through social media.
Online shoppers claim they don’t know who to trust anymore, since traditional advertising isn’t feasible in online spaces. Perhaps they’ve come across one-to-many paid influencer posts that are simply inauthentic or a little too good to be true. And let’s be honest, we’ve all been there! That’s why so many food and beverage brands are continuing to capitalise on ambassador marketing strategies and software to drive sales and build trust among their customers, followers and fans.
We’ve seen first-hand how sales increase with ambassador marketing when the audience of the ambassador truly believes in what the ambassador is saying on their social media stories, reels and feed. Because brand ambassadors are already customers of your food or beverage brand, they are more likely to speak from the heart when they talk about your product.
5 Ways to Build the Perfect F&B Campaign
1. Outline Your Goals with Clarity
This may sound obvious but it’s a fundamental step in starting an ambassador marketing campaign. There are great examples of ways an ambassador marketing campaign can succeed, but without the right tools, ideas and ambassadors your campaign may not run as smoothly as it could. This includes:
- Find ambassadors that are in tune with your brand.
If your ambassadors don’t align with your brand’s goals and values they are not going to stick around.
The people you need to be focusing your energy to activate into your ambassador community are your customers, followers and fans. They already love your product and likely make up the core of your social media presence, therefore they should be your brand ambassadors.
- Deciding on what your ambassador marketing campaign should achieve.
Maybe the main objective is more followers? You might be looking for more engagement on your social posts such as likes and comments?
When it comes to ambassador marketing, the sky's the limit and your ambassadors are the people who can make it all happen for you!
- If you’ve dabbled with ambassador marketing campaigns in the past you’ll know how time-consuming and tedious handling all your ambassadors at once can be, when handled manually. When outlining your goals, think about exploring ambassador software tools that will help to achieve those goals.
2. Ascertain Your Brand Ambassador Fit
For the most part, Instagram influencers are the first to come to mind when thinking about who your ambassadors could be. Although this has become a standard practice for brands, it’s important to note that anyone can be an ambassador for your food and beverage brand. From YouTube vloggers to aspiring fitness gurus, if they have a like-mind community of followers on their platform your brand will be exposed to like-minded, potential consumers of your product.
What your brand should really be doing is turning your loyal customers, followers and fans into your brand ambassadors. They already love your product and have paid for it out of their own pockets, so they have a layer of authenticity when it comes to shouting about it online.
3. Request User Generated Content (UGC) & Video Content
Great user-generated content and video content sets your food and beverage brand way ahead of your competitors. When others see UGC of your products with happy, trustworthy ambassadors it instils a sense of hope that your product can do the same for them.
From hyping up a party with their favourite drink to starting a healthy lifestyle with tasty treats, if your ambassador’s images scream the message of your brand, others will hear it!
4. Post Food & Beverage Content That Is Value Driven
It’s all quality over quantity. Consumers are looking to connect with your food and beverage brand on a personal level. They want to feel like they can relate to your brand and your brand’s persona.
Loads of posts with meaningless information or figures won’t attract this type of connection you should be looking for, that’s why ambassador marketing is so important for value-driven content. People trust people and their positive reviews, so best believe you want value-driven, positive feedback about your brand on social media and beyond.
5. Create Long-Term Relationships With Your Ambassadors
Using a customer loyalty program is one of the most effective ways of keeping your fans smiling. In this case, your customer loyalty program would be an ambassador marketing program that all your ambassadors can jump on to earn meaningful rewards and perks! We’re taking cash rewards, points and even discount codes for their audience and themselves.
A brand forming strong, stable relationships with its fans would make any ambassador feel special, like a piece of the brand’s success is because of their advocacy! Furthermore, a brand that treats their fans as VIPs are automatically better off than brands who don’t.
UGC images, first: @tejfightingthefat for NUTRAVITA , Cover: BLK.
Where to next?
Our ambassador software platform has everything you need to create the perfect ambassador marketing campaign. From a top-notch automation system and a built-in message feature for your ambassadors to a user-friendly reward distribution system, there is no doubt you can have a smooth and successful ambassador marketing strategy.
