Introduction
Advocates are invaluable assets to your business, amplifying your brand’s credibility and driving growth. To sustain their enthusiasm and loyalty, it’s critical to recognize and reward their contributions. Whether they participate in case studies, leave glowing reviews, or join speaking engagements, acknowledgment builds stronger relationships and inspires continued advocacy. This article outlines how to implement a structured approach to recognizing and rewarding customer advocates.
Step 1: Acknowledge Advocates for Their Contributions
Show immediate appreciation for advocacy efforts to strengthen relationships.
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Send Personalized Thank-Yous: Use Journey Orchestrator to automate thank-you emails, highlighting their specific contributions, such as participation in a webinar or completing a case study.
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Publicly Recognize Advocates: Feature advocates in blog posts, newsletters, or social media. For example, spotlight their success stories in Success Snapshots.
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Highlight Advocates Internally: Share advocate achievements with internal teams using Timeline to inspire alignment and collaboration.
Step 2: Build a Structured Rewards Program
Design a formal program to incentivize advocacy and deepen engagement.
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Create Tiered Recognition Levels: Use advocacy milestones, such as number of referrals or completed case studies, to create levels like “Advocate,” “Ambassador,” or “Champion.”
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Offer Exclusive Perks: Provide incentives such as early access to new features, event invitations, or branded swag to top-tier advocates.
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Track Rewards in Timeline: Record rewards and milestones for each advocate in Timeline to maintain a clear history of their engagement.
Step 3: Track Advocacy Metrics and Refine Rewards
Monitor the impact of your rewards program to ensure continuous improvement.
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Measure Advocacy Impact: Use Dashboards to track advocacy activities, such as references provided, case studies completed, or speaking engagements attended.
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Collect Advocate Feedback: Use surveys to understand how advocates feel about your recognition efforts and what additional incentives might motivate them.
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Iterate Based on Insights: Adjust the rewards program based on feedback and data trends. For example, refine tier benefits to better align with advocate preferences.
What's Next
Recognizing and rewarding advocates is just the beginning. Use the momentum from these efforts to deepen relationships through automated and structured engagement strategies, such as those described in the next article, Automate Advocacy Engagements with CTAs and Playbooks.
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