I was reading an article recently that talked about evangelism. Not the Jim and Tammy Bakker style of evangelism—but customer evangelism. The article started out with this question: What is the most effective advertising tool available?

A. TV
B. Print ads
C. Billboards
D. Your customers 

If you answered “D,” you’re onto one of the hottest new trends in marketing—customer evangelism.

The concept of customer evangelism is all about creating true believers in your company. When you build this kind of loyalty, you gain two priceless assets: a pool of repeat customers and ongoing word-of-mouth referrals to new customers.

The tricky part: you can’t hire or buy customer evangelists. You have to earn them. But how? According to Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, authors of Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force, the following techniques can help you build a loyal following.

-Constantly communicate with customers to understand what they love about your products and services.
-Share knowledge with customers to increase the perceived and actual value of a service.
-Build “buzz” based on sincere, personal referrals. 
-Create a customer community, where people who care about your business, products or services can gather.
-Provide “bite-size” products or services so customers can share the experience without an expensive purchase.
-Aim for a larger cause to create emotional connections.
 
How do these techniques translate into real life? Today there are plenty of ways to build customer evangelists. For now, I’ll focus on constant communication and building a buzz based on referrals.

Constant communication. Company blogs are perhaps the easiest, most cost-efficient and widest-reaching way to stay in constant touch with clients. Blog content can be posted quickly, it is informal yet controlled, and it provides a forum for feedback on the subject matter posted. Other benefits to blogs that are often overlooked are that they can give companies higher search engine rankings and exposure to a wider, diverse customer community. An example of a company with a wide-reaching blog is Google. Their blog talks about everything from issues they think are important to society to company news. Keep blogs informative, avoid marketing “fluff,” and keep them fresh.

Another opportunity to turn clients into evangelists is through your company newsletter. Even if your client or prospective client isn’t looking to purchase your services right at that time, they are reminded of you and perhaps learned something from your newsletter that they might share with a colleague. Whether your newsletter is printed or sent via e-mail, you’ve established top-of-mind awareness and another chance to connect with clients.

Building a Buzz. Of course “word of mouth” advertising is invaluable. It says something about your reputation as people typically only recommend a company where they’ve had stellar service and have been treated well. Any opportunity to post customer testimonials on your Web site or to include them in a newsletter gives clients a taste of what other similar companies are experiencing and a look at new ways that they themselves might be able to maximize your services.
 
One final word of advice—keep things natural. While it’s important to encourage customer evangelism, don’t try to force it.

Jennifer Higgins
Senior Writer
ClearEdge Marketing

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Business & Marketing Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.