← The Digital Marketing Podcast
The Digital Marketing Podcast
Influencers Vs. Advocates - Building Brand Advocacy
00:36:35
In this episode of the Digital Marketing Podcast, hosts Ciaran Rogers, Louise Crossley, and Daniel Rowles dive headfirst into a topic that’s reshaping the way brands grow online: creating brand advocates vs. hiring influencers. 💬 How do advocates...
Loading summary
Transcript93 lines
- [00:00]
Kieran Rogers
Hello and welcome back to the Digital Marketing Podcast brought to you by targetinternet.com My name is Kieran Rogers.
- [00:08]
Louise Crossley
I'm Louise Crossley.
- [00:09]
Daniel Rolls
And I'm Daniel Rolls.
- [00:10]
Kieran Rogers
And today we are discussing creating brand advocates.
- [00:21]
Daniel Rolls
Okay, so this keeps coming up. I keep having conversations and every go, everyone is asking about GEO generative engine optimization. And I get a combination of reactions, which is one, people rolling their eyes, which is Kieran has just done, kind of shook his head a bit. And then everyone else going, I need to know the facts of geo. But it brings me back to something that we'll get to GEO in a moment, but the importance of this and how it's becoming more important and how it's becoming something that is touching lots of different areas of digital marketing. So I should start by clarifying what we mean by advocates versus perhaps talking about influencer marketing and things like that. So influencers are those people that have access to your potential audience. Two types of influencers, the ones that Kieran hates, which are.
- [01:10]
Kieran Rogers
Hate's a strong word.
- [01:11]
Daniel Rolls
It is a strong. Has a pathological dislike for. Yeah, so this is the. The old kind of view of like lifestyle influencers and all that kind of stuff where I am an expert in this field, as opposed to creators, which is a slightly different thing, where people are creating kind of original content to work within the algorithms. But the influencers, your traditional kind of, I have a huge audience and you should pay for access to my audience. Now you've also then got your micro influencers that people have got smaller audiences, but they could still be really valuable because the fact that actually it might be the right people. And then as I say, you've got this kind of creators thing, which is what influencers are now calling themselves when they are creating content on a particular niche. Okay, it doesn't matter what we call it, but the difference between that is those people have an audience. You might like access to that audience, whether you agree of the level of engagement they have with that audience or not, or the influence they have and so on. Whereas advocates are just people that say nice stuff about you. Now, that nice stuff, they might have a huge audience to say that to. They might have an audience of one or zero even possibly. Okay, but the point is they're the people that say nice stuff about the things that you do. And that's always been important, but I think increasingly it's more important in different places because the power that they have. And also it's one of those things that actually allows you to amplify Your social media really effectively. And I've come back to it a few times, this idea of a thousand true fans, which is that, you know, if you can get a thousand people that really loved and cared about your stuff, they would all speak about, they'd amplify it and that would lead to amplification of the type that we're always desiring to get in social media.
- [02:56]
Louise Crossley
Now, I also feel like it's a big trust thing, right, because everyone's become so aware of, like, authenticity and quite often now it's just very obvious when you've paid for influencers to post about your product, so people can just see straight through it. Whereas people who are actual advocates of your brand, they're doing it for free because they actually really believe in what you're selling.
- [03:16]
Daniel Rolls
Yeah, I think that's it. I think it's a brilliant point. And I think that influencers, the cynicism level that goes with influencers has increased for very good reasons, because we know how many people are buying followers and all that kind of stuff. They may just be doing it for the payment that they're getting. There's no real depth of engagement, potentially. Not that it doesn't always work, but it's potential.
- [03:34]
Kieran Rogers
It's not just that there was a period where everybody was an influencer, everybody would become an influencer. It's just like it just became tardied.
- [03:44]
Daniel Rolls
Well, to be fair, it became glamorous. Right. It became a thing of like, I have a level of fame and I guess that's really, you know, everyone. I ask my students every year, each cohort, how many of you would like to be an influencer? And a lot of hands go up and then I just try and work out why. And it is that fact that actually it seems like a fairly glamorous thing that you get sent free stuff and you get social media and you project yourself in a certain way. Now, that appeals to lots of people that are very ambitious and are young and are trying to set where they sit in the world. I would say I. I can see all the flaws in that, as you could see from Kieran's face, if you were looking at it right now as well, but kind of get why that was the case. But there has become a level of cynicism in it as well. Now, before we continue, I'm going to massively digress. But listeners, you'll understand why if you listen to the previous episode. Louise, Kieran and I had to do an episode in your absence, and we did it about tools and Techniques. We went over. We did one of our Tips and Tools episodes, Right. And we went through loads of tools and Kieran did a good analogy. And I wanted to share this with you because normally your analogies are rubbish, Kieran.
- [04:52]
Kieran Rogers
But, yeah, when Louise is here, she has to suffer.
- [04:55]
Daniel Rolls
Finally.
- [04:55]
Kieran Rogers
She's not here. You've come up with a really good one and it's just a travesty. I was like, oh, they're rubbish.
- [05:02]
Daniel Rolls
They're just pretty out there sometimes.
- [05:04]
Louise Crossley
Yeah, they're just normally quite wacky.
- [05:05]
Daniel Rolls
Yeah. Or verging on the offensive, I would say.
- [05:09]
Louise Crossley
We have to remove them.
- [05:10]
Daniel Rolls
We have to remove them most of the time so the listeners get they are actually offensive.
- [05:13]
Kieran Rogers
Yeah.
- [05:14]
Daniel Rolls
But he did a good one and I'm not going to get him to repeat it now. But if you want to hear it, go back to the previous episode. It's our previous Tools and Tips episode. And you will hear this amazing analogy that he came up with, and it involves a box of cereal, a wooden spooner and a pencil, amongst other things as well. So, yeah, don't even go there. You're gonna have to listen to it as well. So there you go.
- [05:34]
Kieran Rogers
She's in a tragedy. It's not mine.
- [05:36]
Daniel Rolls
It's not. But you explained it in such a way. I thought it was a beautiful thing. It was a good thing. So that's a reason to go and listen to this previous episode. Right, let's get back on track.
- [05:44]
Kieran Rogers
You wait, that episode's gonna go viral now anyway. Surely not.
- [05:48]
Daniel Rolls
Yeah, just people won't believe it. Exactly. Okay, so what. Why are advocates so important? Well, this is the obvious things, like, they are the people that will leave online reviews. Okay? Now, it never mattered if the person that left an online review was an influencer, a celebrity, and that could be helpful, but actually, an online review on Amazon or TripAdvisor or in Google Reviews is a review. And as long as it's genuine, it's of equal value, I would suggest, from that point of view. So these are the people that will bother me to make the effort. Now, that starts us off on this, where you can encourage advocacy. Like if we go to the podcast and we say, if you would like to leave a review, good or bad, go to this place, leave a review, and then let us know you've done it and we will send you some free merchandise. Now, what I would say is that to think that a Target Internet mug is an exciting thing to get, you'd have to have some level of brand advocacy in the first place. It's not like.
- [06:44]
Kieran Rogers
Or you'd have to actually get one. Right. Not that I'm bitter, but we're still waiting.
- [06:49]
Daniel Rolls
Is it your birthday yet? That's all I'm saying.
- [06:51]
Kieran Rogers
Nearly end of this month.
- [06:52]
Daniel Rolls
Nearly. So we had this last time. He accused me in the last podcast, Louise as well. You missed a lot. Right? He accused me of always missing his birthday and then every year phoning him and saying, I'm such a terrible friend. Which is possibly true up until this point. But you're like, he's only been telling me for six months that he wants one of these mugs that we should have sent him.
- [07:09]
Kieran Rogers
So sorry, we're digressing too much now. Come on.
- [07:11]
Daniel Rolls
Not really. I don't want to ruin your birthday present, so you'll never guess what it is. Anyway, so this point of, you know, there would have to be a level of brand advocacy there already for you to want a Target Internet mug in the first place. Therefore, it's not an act of bribery, because no one's going to be bribed by a mug of a thing they don't care about in the first place. Okay. So it's just that thing of kind of including you in the conversation, making you part of it. So those reviews can be really powerful.
- [07:38]
Louise Crossley
I also feel like it's sort of an untapped opportunity for a lot of people, whereas there they're maybe not monitoring who's talking about them online because. And some brands do it really well, but quite often, like, I see loads of TikToks where people are hyping brands up just because they love the products and no one's responded to it. Whereas in reality, you should be straight on that, even if it's just, you know, sending them some more free things or inviting them into your warehouse. But that's then experiences that they're going to post about again. And the more content like that other people see, they're going to be thinking, okay, well, if this is what could happen when I start posting about brands, it might encourage them to do the same. And it's just all about the buildup of attention organically that you can get online, isn't it?
- [08:19]
Kieran Rogers
See, I just think there's a really strong correlation between content that gets engagement and people that are passionate about what they do. Like, these two just go hand in hand. And that's why, I mean, we jest a lot. Like, I don't really hate major influences, but it just annoys me that they just dine out on fame. And it's like fame for Fame's sake. And you have to stop at some point and say, look, what is real influence? Is it that you just famous? And just because you're famous, does that mean you have influence on everything in my life? No, not at all. You're famous for being famous. Okay. So, you know, you might get a lot of minuscule bits of attention, right? But if somebody's really passionate about a particular subject and they've got a following because their content's great, that's magic. And if you can engage with. And I tend to turn them advocate influencers because they're both a fan of the brand and they have an audience who listen to them, but they under. This is the thing. They really understand that audience. They don't just post a ton of stuff out because they're famous and it's all about me. No, that's not what it's about at all. Like, most people can't stand people like that. You avoid them at parties, don't you? It's like, oh, God, so full of themselves. No, we're talking about genuine, genuine people here with real passions and really great content. And they understand their audience and they look really great. Influencers monitor what their audiences love. They look at the metrics and they do more of what works and less of what of what doesn't. It's definitely never been about, you know, buying influence. Buying influence and buying likes and buying followers and stuff. You know, now that's what they do to sort of fraudulently game the whole kind of marketing industry. And I think it's. That's awful. But these, like, influencer advocates. Awesome. Absolutely awesome.
- [10:09]
Louise Crossley
I do also think the funnel in this has changed slightly in terms of. We're so used to just looking at it in terms of, like, push a message out, we push our product out, want to get conversions, then we measure the effects of that. Whereas I feel like now a lot of it is trying to dominate that space online and having loads of people talking about you and all this brand advocacy and then the conversions would sort of speak for themselves.
- [10:33]
Daniel Rolls
Yeah, look, I think this reviews piece, for example, is kind of like, naturally someone leaves a review that's going to influence someone else's purchase journey. Okay. But very often you just don't see that because you don't know they've taken that step. That's not part of your recorded marketing funnel. You can't understand that people have been online looking at reviews. And I think this has always been the case in terms of brands. You know, brands for years were built offline and that's because word of mouth and people speaking to each other and they had brand advocacy and, you know, it's not a new thing at all. But I think you're absolutely right. That journey has changed. And it. I still believe in the funnel completely because I think it's a really nice way of compartmentalizing where people are on their journey. I just think the idea that it's completely linear, the idea that people are traveling through this funnel and your job is just to push them next stage is kind of nonsense. It's a wiggly, messy, chaotic kind of thing. And there are lots of different stuff steps in there. But look, reviews are something that influence other people's purchase journey and reviews are something that has an impact on SEO because we know that Google is looking at reviews and we know that forms part of their algorithm. So that look there that on its own. That's a good point to be focusing on this as well. So we'll get on to the how in a minute as well. The next thing is forums and the rise of Reddit. And I'm. It makes me laugh because I keep talking to people again. Actually, Reddit's become more important in that you do a Google search now and increasingly you're going to get a Reddit result because they see it as kind of trusted, authentic content. Back to Lou's point about authenticity becoming even more part of this. But actually, not only is it being served up in the search results, it's also being kind of sucked into the large language models. So when they're looking at what people think on the Internet, they will be looking at forums. And Reddit is the biggest group of forums there are online. But it makes me laugh because you mentioned Reddit to people, you know, in a training course and I say, oh, Reddit is the kind of wild west of the Internet. And they all kind of snigger a bit because every human thought is reflected somewhere in Reddit. Every deep crevice of the human mind is in there somewhere. So it's a pretty wild and wacky place and there are discussions of everything in there. So I think for that reason, as marketers and as someone who educates people on marketing, it's not really something I've pushed people towards before.
- [12:43]
Kieran Rogers
It terrifies me. Well, it's because I've seen what happens if you put a foot wrong in Reddit.
- [12:48]
Daniel Rolls
Well, you get flamed right by, really.
- [12:50]
Kieran Rogers
Could you imagine if I went on Reddit? Oh, my goodness.
- [12:53]
Daniel Rolls
I think it'd be quite fun to watch forums.
- [12:55]
Kieran Rogers
Would Melt.
- [12:55]
Daniel Rolls
It depends what the forums were.
- [12:56]
Kieran Rogers
Yeah, but I think you're really right. It's massively useful. Like, I think it's a really great string to a marketer's bow if they know how to navigate Reddit and how to deal with it properly. But it's quite a steep learning curve and unless you like somebody like me learns through making mistakes, that is not a good way to approach Reddit.
- [13:17]
Daniel Rolls
Probably not. Each subreddit is slightly different. So if you're not familiar, a subreddit is like a forum on a particular topic and the reality is that they each have their own kind of rules and so on, and they'll have those rules laid out in many cases. But if you break them, you can get. It depends on the group. I mean, some groups are very welcoming and friendly, but others aren't. So it's an interesting kind of space. But everything, the most niche stuff you can think of will be covered in. So whatever your product or services, it will be kind of covered off in there from that point of view. So again, it's worth having a Reddit strategy. And I think actually there's a day ago we'll do a separate episode on Reddit as well.
- [13:49]
Kieran Rogers
Here's the thing with those subreddits, they're people who are really passionate.
- [13:52]
Daniel Rolls
Exactly.
- [13:53]
Kieran Rogers
A really niche subject. Right. So don't go in there and start touting your ears and handing out your virtual business card, because it ain't going to go down well at all like that. If you try and manipulate that to your own advantage, you, you're going to come out bruised, I think.
- [14:08]
Daniel Rolls
Yeah, I think you're completely right. So the advocates are the type of people that if they like your stuff, they will be speaking about in these places again. So rather than you going yourself and doing it, it is people speaking on your behalf. Now to that point, actually, you look at all these different places, like TripAdvisor Reddit threads, a conversation on any of the meta platforms, they now have these AI summaries at the top of them. We've mentioned this briefly before, but the idea of the AI summary, is it saying most people thought this. Some people think this. It's a bit of a numbers game now really. And the thing is you want as many people say nice things about you because that summary then is way more likely to say positive things. Now we've spoken about this many years ago when we did episode on online pr, but the idea, how do you deal with negative press or negative comments is you drown them with positive ones. Well, that's, that's never been more true. It's the best way of kind of dealing with it, but it has to be genuine from that point of view as well. And then that leads us back onto where we start with the degenerative engine optimization piece. There's lots of people with theories on this, there's some people doing some proper deep research into it, but that's proper AI research to look at how these large language models are formed and the neural networks that behind them. But the two things we're pretty confident of are that brand sentiment is important because when you ask a question of a large language model, it will be working out what are people saying nice stuff about? And actually the amount of people talking about your share of voice going to have an impact as well.
- [15:28]
Kieran Rogers
And I think, you know, that whole approach that large language models take, it's quite hard to pinpoint exactly where they're getting their information from, but you can, you know, you'd be pretty sure they're getting it from multiple sources now. Right. So multiple sources are being fed into one answer. Right. So, you know, is somebody going to go to something like ChatGPT and ask about your company? Yeah, they are. But where's that information going to come from? Whole bunch of things right now that leads me to think, actually strategically, quite a few people need to take a look at their current strategies and re review it in light of this, because let's say various review platforms like trustpilot for example, or Ecomi, what they do is they try and game the system to ensure that businesses are just using them, right. So they'll get you to send out invites and if people respond to the invites with a review, then it's classed as slightly better, et cetera, et cetera. And you're always being sold. Or if you use our platform, you know, we're really close with Google and they help you, your overall rankings, et cetera, et cetera. I don't think that's a smart move in the current landscape because we can see it shifting and we can see potentially search and search volumes are shifting into people asking AI about a company rather than just doing their own research. Why? Because it does it all for you. Right. Why wouldn't you go down the easy route? Just get the good summary. People are trusting this. So actually don't just get into bed with one review platform. Your strategic approach needs to involve a whole bunch of them.
- [16:58]
Daniel Rolls
Yeah.
- [16:59]
Kieran Rogers
So I think if you've got things like email flows which are inviting people to leave a review on One platform, you need to rethink that, you need to maybe share it out, you know, get a whole bunch of. Because that's what you want, that you want a whole bunch of good reviews across a whole bunch of different platforms and that I think strategically that's important in the coming months and years because that's where it's all going in my opinion.
- [17:22]
Daniel Rolls
Well, it's interesting because Google have in their guide to SEO the document they actually give out and explain what they do, the stuff they're clear on. They say we look at multiple review platforms including. And they have a list of them in there. There's a load of review platforms. So even though you said from the outset that they will look at multiple sources as well. So I think you're absolutely right. It is important to that and you want to be in as many places as possible with as many positive conversations.
- [17:43]
Kieran Rogers
I know we found that with podcast reviews like you don't want to over be overly indexed on like one. With reviews on one platform you want it across the board. And I think, you know, we're seeing that with the development of AI for years. I'm very happy with Google reviews because it's easy and you can invite people. It's not too complicated. And you don't feel like it's with some of these review platforms, do you feel like it's a bit of a protection racket? Unless you pay and get in bed with the particular review company, then you don't have the power and resources to raise issues when you have problems, et cetera, et cetera. But boy can the results be brutal.
- [18:21]
Daniel Rolls
Yeah, yeah, you see it a lot. I mean that's the problem is you need to pay for an upgraded membership onto X, Y and Z platform to have access to the full feedback process. And yeah, it is really challenging. I mean that leads on as well from a generative engine optimization, brand sentiment, share of voice, but actually just if you've really got these advocates, you can then get testimonials that you can use on your own websites and in your own apps and places like that. Because those people that really care are the people that like to say yes, it's okay to use that, but that's where you're going to potentially get video testimonials which can be really powerful because unless someone really cares, why would they spend any time coming on a call with you or being in a physical place to have a video of them made when it makes most people feel fairly self conscious anyway? So you're going to have to nurture that advocacy. And that's the bit I want to get into in a second. But what I really feel this also gets you is feedback. One of the things I've noticed lately since we've been doing these master classes, so I'm sure everyone's aware members of Target Internet now get a half day, at least one half day masterclass every month online. And that we've bigger and bigger groups coming on them, loads of regular people coming on, which is lovely. But these are also the people that say, oh, you know that thing that you posted? I think you could have done that in a different way or it would be great if we got this afterwards. So, for example, someone said it's a bit of a pain because you send an email afterwards with the slides. But actually, what if I want to go back and find them another time? And the way that they now do it is they can log into the platform. They're kind of. They're in their past bookings. So I think those kind of things, getting that feedback is really invaluable because otherwise you'd be having to do usability kind of mini workshops and user testing. And you're kind of getting some of that stuff naturally as well. Particularly when I mess up the editing of a podcast, as I did last week, if you might not. Yeah, so funny. So I cut me out for five minutes. I just. Well, you're laughing at me. The thing was, it was you agreeing with me, just silently. Yeah.
- [20:16]
Kieran Rogers
Oh, my goodness, I'd love that.
- [20:17]
Daniel Rolls
And someone emailed me and said, you edited the podcast. You cut yourself out. It sounded like Kieran was agreeing with his only point, his own points for five minutes.
- [20:25]
Kieran Rogers
Oh, I love.
- [20:26]
Daniel Rolls
So there you go. There you go.
- [20:27]
Kieran Rogers
Anyway, so that's actually what happened if we're honest in the recording. So it happens occasionally I'll just go into like, oh, yeah, I really like that.
- [20:35]
Daniel Rolls
So basically it was one of our advocates that got in contact, or several. In fact, it was like about six people that went, oh, I don't know if it's just me, but. And then they. We. I got to fix it very early in the morning.
- [20:44]
Kieran Rogers
I had this when I was working at Lizelle and it upset me initially. I put a full stop in the wrong place. I think we had 16 emails from our customer base on that.
- [20:53]
Daniel Rolls
Yeah.
- [20:54]
Kieran Rogers
And I remember, yeah, I remember speaking to the founder, Kim, about this and she said to me, now, Kieran, you have to understand our customers really care about attention to detail. It might just be a full stop for you. But, you know, she said to me, our customers put our creams on their face. Have you ever really thought, Kieran, about the relationship a woman has with the skin on her face? Right. So if we're not paying attention to your full stops, what might be missing on what's going into the cream? And it was kind of like a harsh lesson, but it's like, it's so true, actually. It makes you think, well, if you're.
- [21:25]
Daniel Rolls
Not paying attention to one thing, like, you know, are you not paying attention to the other?
- [21:28]
Kieran Rogers
Well, people do. People look between. Everybody is reading between the lines, right? And particularly with marketing, because, well, you would say that you're in marketing, right? So. So anything you tell them, they'll read between the lines and that. And this is absolutely at the root of why an advocate influencer is so powerful. Because they wouldn't necessarily just say that. Well, of course they're gonna. No, they know they've got a mind of their own and they know this space and they know this content. I love their content. So actually I value their opinion. Like, if they say something's brilliant, then I will go with that. And I think where this is where the other type of influence go wrong. They say everything's brilliant and you end up like getting duped and getting something that actually, frankly, is awful. You know, that's really bad. And that's a slippery slope. You know, that's just cashing in. There's no integrity there. And they lose their influence, I think, quite rapidly. Certainly lose their engagement. Almost sort of becoming a bit of a joke really. I think if you really overdo it.
- [22:23]
Daniel Rolls
So that, that leads us nicely then to how do you create advocacy? And the way that I've approached this. Okay, what you need to do is you need to look at the engagement points that you have with the people that you're. You're dealing with. So any comments, any reviews? So literally a comment on a podcast episode, a comment on a YouTube video, any online reviews, making sure you go into everyone and thank people and, you know, not just a cut and paste, but really saying I really, you know, appreciate it for whatever it was. Any social interactions you have, anyone that replies to your emails. And like I've always said before with our newsletter, when someone replies to it, we respond to them. Not always as quickly as I like, but we try and be as quick as we possibly can. But the reality is those people replying have cared enough to bother replying to a question I put into an email. And actually it's amazing how many conversations that I've had with those people that have then ended up going from a newsletter subscriber to a member and then from a member to an advocate because they're having a conversation. Oh, these are real people. The person running this business actually cares enough to speak to each of the individual customers. Webinars.
- [23:22]
Louise Crossley
You open that communication up and you'd be surprised when you invite people to talk back to you. How many people are actually willing to.
- [23:29]
Daniel Rolls
Yeah. Which is brilliant. It's also, you know, you've got to work out how you resource it. But it's also that piece of, why don't all brands do this? Like, you might be a massive consumer brand with millions and millions of people that are willing to engage with you, but actually, is their relationship personal enough with you that they would bother doing so? So if I buy a shampoo, do I care about the fact or a face cream that you haven't got a full stop in the right place? Well, I would say Kira was obviously doing a very good job if those people did care enough about it because they didn't want the brand that they love to be represented in the wrong way. So I would look at it also, you know, and I think it's that if you open the communications up, you need to be ready to respond.
- [24:06]
Kieran Rogers
In Lizelle's defense, I got there 10 years late to the party, so I can't really take credit for that. Yeah, they had done a bit of a. Yeah, they. They had done amazing. Well, I then crashed in and started, you know, putting stuff out that hadn't been proofread properly. And I got spanked, literally, by our customers. But what a lovely way to get spanked if you're gonna get spanked, like, because actually you realize they're being critical from a place of absolute love. That's awesome. That's really amazing. That's absolutely what you want. But that came about because that company cared hugely about the quality of what they did. They cared hugely about the customer. Every product went out with a little gift hand wrapped by an army of people. And that was the extent that it went. And it was all about pampering, treats and surprises. And it was always about gift with purchase. It was never about discount, you know, And I think I learned more there about how to really work out, you know, they didn't spend any money on advertising.
- [25:07]
Daniel Rolls
Yeah.
- [25:09]
Kieran Rogers
Yeah. All the money that would have gone on advertising went on, you know, gift with purchase. And just doing amazing things for our.
- [25:16]
Daniel Rolls
Little delights, wasn't it?
- [25:17]
Kieran Rogers
Yeah, all of that, you know, Samples are horribly expensive. We used to do a lot of that and actually word of mouth is what grew that company. And it was, it know, it went from, literally from someone's kitchen table. And the first year, I know Liz and Kim were getting the kids involved in like getting the orders out that they had to a 50 million pound turnover employing over 400 staff on the Isle of Wight in 10 years. That's the power of advocacy. And they did a really interesting analysis of their customer data when I was there and they tried to find their super customer, right. And it was, it was a little old lady, should we say? She wasn't that old, but a pensioner from some. It was like in a city area, I think it was like Manchester. And she was invited along to this big event that they. And she got to meet Liz and the team and stuff and she was really humble and she said, I think there's been a mistake because I, you know, I don't buy much, but I mean, I do really love your products, but, you know, I'm not this amazing customer. And we showed her the data and we showed her the number of people that she'd influenced because we have this amazing referral program and sort of been at the epicenter of this and we could see from the data when we analyzed it that literally she invited all these people who then became advocates in their own. Right, Right.
- [26:32]
Daniel Rolls
And this is the application piece.
- [26:33]
Kieran Rogers
Yeah, yeah. This is the power of it. And it's incredible. So she was literally. She started a chain reaction. You know, they say like a butterfly flaps its wings in Japan and there's a tidal wave the other side. It's. That kind of thing can happen and it's not, you know, this never happens because you've got some uber influencer to, to tout your wares because you've paid them loads of money. Okay. It's just never going to, it's never going to work quite like this, but genuine passion, like this incredible explosion of advocacy happened.
- [27:02]
Daniel Rolls
This reminds me of something that someone once said to me and then I saw a chart of it, what they were trying to explain afterwards and I couldn't get my hand around it. They said, true amplification is diffusion. And what they were saying, like, right, here's an influencer with 10, 000 followers. Pump and it stops because it gets in front of these people and this many people engage with it. And then exactly what you've described. One person influences 100 people who each influence and it just, you get that exponential kind of growth.
- [27:26]
Kieran Rogers
It's got depth. It's not. Yeah, it's not. Oh, well, amazingly, you know, Tom Cruise is my mate because I've paid him $10 million to come to my party.
- [27:35]
Daniel Rolls
Like, think it cost you more than that?
- [27:37]
Kieran Rogers
Probably. God bless you, Tom.
- [27:40]
Daniel Rolls
God bless you always welcome on the podcast.
- [27:42]
Kieran Rogers
Yeah, so.
- [27:43]
Daniel Rolls
So could you imagine? Could you imagine Amazing. The engagement points. What you then do is go work out how you make people feel special. And I put on that merch, exclamation mark, which is exactly, you know, those little delights, those little things that make a difference to people. It's what Jay Swedelson was talking about, giving out the stickers. And it doesn't cost a lot and it's only relevant to people that care, but it amplifies.
- [28:04]
Kieran Rogers
Here's a question for everybody. When did you last thank and reward your most loyal customers? Like, seriously, when did you last do it? I was doing some work years ago with a little kind of bespoke gym in central London. And I asked him that question because he wanted to promote himself. He wanted to get more reviews. And I'm like, well, look, work on the actual customers you've got at the moment. When did you last? What do you mean? Well, I'm sure there's stuff that you could do for them. What would they like? And when we got thinking about it and brainstorming, he was like, wow, you know, actually, I've got loads of opportunities with merchandise. Like, we could get them personalized gym gear or towels and stuff. I'm like, that would be incredible. They've been coming for the last year. Like, surprise and delight. That would be amazing. Wow. Honestly, he did this. The number. Oh. He'd ask everybody for reviews and they'd all been a bit busy, right? So just off the back of this, decided he'd get some Christmas gifts. And we did this. And it was like, about a dozen people got this. I think we got had like 8 reviews the following month. It's just like. Because they weren't expecting it. And then this is the thing. This is how I used to talk about this on the CIM course when we ran it. You know, this is how friendships work. You don't become friends because people do stuff to you or sell you things. Like, you become friends through a sharing of. Of perhaps values. But very often there is. You use the word exchange. There's this exchange that happens most great friendship. I think, about your best friend. That friendship probably grew out of one of you giving, like, unexpectedly by the bucket load. These are the things that really? Because when somebody does that for you, suddenly you realize there isn't some hidden agenda. They're just nice. They're just nice. Like, so why can't businesses be like that? You know, And I'm not talking about over overboard, going massively overboard. Just a little thoughtful effort that goes into this can be massive. And I think, you know, that's where these really great advocate influencers are working. They've clocked this amazing thing that actually, when you create incredible content, that's the ultimate gift with purchase. Right. Because the gift and the purchase are all free. Like, if people learn and gain something through this, I'm sure that's why a lot of people listen to the podcast, because we've taught them incredible, we hope incredible things. Right. And you're grateful for that. Unless you begin to build a bit of a relationship from us or the bucket. You might never have met me or Daniel. But, you know, if you were to, there would be the warm fuzzy feelings. Oh, my God, you guys have, like, helped me.
- [30:35]
Daniel Rolls
That's. What about Louise? How did Louise get excused?
- [30:38]
Kieran Rogers
Louise. And Louise as well.
- [30:39]
Daniel Rolls
Yeah, I was just gonna say that it look at this in real practical terms. I couldn't agree with you more. And if you look at it at these stages of giving, then like, you might listen to the podcast go, oh, that was useful. Or that was. Whatever it was. And then you might go, well, okay, I'll go and sign up to the newsletter. But the promise is if you do sign up to newsletter, you'll get something exclusive that we don't give to anyone else.
- [30:59]
Kieran Rogers
Yeah.
- [30:59]
Daniel Rolls
And that's will invite you to a webinar for free. And then you come along and you do these monthly webinars. You go, well, they were useful.
- [31:05]
Kieran Rogers
Yeah.
- [31:05]
Daniel Rolls
And then we say, well, can we get a free month? The platform? And that's at the point where hopefully you've built up enough advocacy. You go, well, I might actually part with some money for that bit then. And maybe you won't and the majority of people won't, but it doesn't matter if a certain percent of people care. And then what happens? Those people are then rewarded and you try and, you know, benefit those and then they amplify what you're doing as well. So I. I think what this advocacy piece has done for me over the last couple of years is made me feel like social media can feel really overwhelming because it's just like there's too many people. I need to get X number of followers and get this much engagement. Whereas actually, If I have one or two or ten brilliant conversations on LinkedIn or somewhere else. I know that's actually going to move the needle. And that's my thing now. I've got a little sticker on my screen now that says, have you moved the needle? Because I can sit and do things all day long and it's like, did that actually do anything? Have I done some bottom of the funnel content? Have I engaged with people, have actually reached out to that potential sales lead? Because that's the one to one stuff that's going to, that's going to make.
- [32:02]
Kieran Rogers
A difference and it can be done at scale. This is the thing, you know, this is what, this is actually at the root of all successful content marketing. In a way, that's what you're doing. You're creating really, hopefully really great content that you're pushing out on a fairly regular basis and genuinely helping people and genuinely making it really obvious who you as a business are there to help through this barrage of content and events and opportunities and free product. I think all too often, particularly big business going to point some fingers now, but I won't mention names, but they just push discount and it's like, oh, no, that's not quite the thing. Because there's a catch with a discount. You've got to buy the product first. And actually maybe we're not at that stage yet. And then they wonder why. Oh, maybe we just need to do a bigger discount. No, just need to build a relationship first, make it really clear who you help and how. And all of this advocacy stuff will make that really obvious because people will be singing from the rooftops about it. You know, that's, that's the thing, that's just how it was. And it's, I think actually it's all really a lot simpler than people make out because we all know about friendships and how they grow. And actually, do you know what? I don't think it's any different for businesses really. When you really look at it. Think about the businesses. All of you think now about the businesses you're really passionate about and you realize, gosh, I have a relationship with this brand, with this entity that is, you know, whoever, like Apple or Patagonia or, you know, insert whatever favorite brand that you have that you're really passionate about and very often it's because of the things they've done for you. That's what makes all the difference. And so that's what you need. I think that's what everybody needs to be thinking about. And what I love about Advocate Influencers, they are a massive shortcut to this because they've got the audience, they've got the integrity. So now, rather than just pestering them and telling you them, you want them to do stuff. No, that's not gonna work. That's doing things to people. Like work with them. Understand and respect that. They totally know their audience, they're specialists in it and actually you need to listen to what they think would work. You know, so many influencers will tell you the horror stories. I've seen a few of them. Like when you get those posts that say, like someone's posted out without thinking at 3pm, post this on Instagram. I think that's like, that literally gets cut and pasted into the Instagram. It's, oh, this is bad. This is just really bad. Yeah.
- [34:30]
Daniel Rolls
So I think, look, we've got a bit of the case study from Lizelle that I've seen previously that someone else has done. So we'll put that in because if you don't know the story of Lizelle, it's a brilliant one of how they built that brand as well. So as ever, Targetinternet.com podcast, you'll find all the show notes there. And we have got some upcoming masterclasses touching on lots of these topics. So take a look at the masterclasses that we've got coming up. They're free to all of our members. And remember, if you sign up the newsletter targetinternet.com forward/newsletter, you'll get our monthly one hour update sessions. We've had some amazing ones in the last couple of weeks where we've had a huge amount of people. We did the social media when we looked at all the updates to the algorithms and there's loads more coming up as well. So sign up for the newsletter.
- [35:09]
Kieran Rogers
I've got one more thing I just want to throw in. Don't neglect pr, right? Because actually in my experience, traditional media personalities have some of the greatest levels of influence you could possibly capture. Like I've been in brands where one mention on the Sunday Times has resulted in hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of sales for really tiny organizations that, you know, might take 10 grand a month and suddenly they have 150 grand months because they got one mention of a really great product that people go, ah. And that's, you know, from like beauty reviewers and stuff. They can have huge influence. And I think it's, that's neglected. You know, people are all chasing, you know, various Instagram influences. But if you can get somebody who actually has a huge audience through a traditional media channel that is massive. And I think far too many brands have kind of gone, oh, pr, that's a bit old hat. It's not digital, is it? It's not social. It's not going to work. Well, think again, because in my experience that is supercharged.
- [36:06]
Daniel Rolls
We'll also then put the link into the show notes. We did an online PR traditional PR episode as well, and I thought that was really interesting and it's a really good SEO tactic. It's going to have an impact on geo, if you believe it's a thing or not. And actually it just, it does amplify what you're doing. So thank you for listening to the Digital Marketing podcast. We'll speak to you again soon. For more episodes resources to leave a review or to get in contact, go to targetinternet.com forward/podcast.