I've recently been active on the topic of Super Promoters and the value they offer for businesses. My earlier posts were mostly about finding out who super promoters are and the value they bring. In my opinion super promoters bring value in two distinct ways. They recommend a lot, bringing in new prospects. And, they do things for you, either absorbing costs or contributing more revenue, that help you be more profitable as a business. I believe most businesses have super promoters. But, that they struggle with finding them and what to do to create new ones (or both). Neither do most businesses know how to activate their super promoters. Since my earlier posts were mostly about finding super promoters, I thought I would delve a little deeper into how to create more super promoters as well as how to "activate" the ones you may already have.
I've defined Super Promoters as "promoters who recommend a lot more than the average promoter". Other people who study customer advocacy have concluded that super promoters should also be "influential" with your customers and be demonstrably more profitable for your business. I tend to believe that super promoters are likely to be influencial generally and are already provably more profitable. So, I don't really believe in expending lots of energy, money and time studying your customers for "influentialness" or "profits" in order to identify super promoters. Though, admittedly, there other good reasons to why you might want to study customers for those data points. And, if you have customer influence or customer profit data, marrying it with results of a net promoter survey can't but help with the identification of super promoters. Also, if you have a lot of promoters, the additional data could help you determine where to start with your super promoter activation program.
Finding Super Promoters.
My earlier blog post talked primarily about how to find super promoters and why you should know who they are. So, I will only summarize the process here. I've used a two question sequence: The "likely to recommend" question followed by an additional question, "How often have you recommended in the last year", which is delivered only to promoters (9s and 10s on the "likely to recommend" question). In my earlier post I arbitrarily assigned super promoter status to promoters who reported recommending ten or more times over the preceding year. For your business the number may be different and its something to think about before asking the question. My earlier blog post can be found here if you would like read it.
Creating Super Promoters
For many smaller and mid-sized businesses it seems to me that creating super promoters is the simplest and easiest way to create organic business growth as well as to build the basis for a marketing campaign that helps you go from a smaller to a larger business.
In my experience promoters require two things in order to become super promoters. First, an opportunity to make recommendations. And second, a triggering event that causes them to actually recommend. Therefore, if you want to create super promoters you need to find ways to give your promoters opportunities to recommend and then to trigger events that spur the recommendation. Big companies often do this kind of thing haphazardly by, for instance, inviting all their customers and prospects to company-wide user conferences. These firms often feature super promoters in presentations, but have detractors (and promoters too, to be fair) mingling with prospects the rest of the time. If you have lots of detractors amongst your customers this could have unintended consequences, as promotion triggering events (i.e. people meeting and talking) are mainly accidental. Meaning that a prospect might talk with a detractor as easily as a promoter.
Making promoters into super promoters doesn't have to be an accidental process, nor does it have to be difficult to do. Here are some thoughts:
Activating Super Promoters
The process for activating super promoters is the same as for creating super promoters. But, super promoters should be engaged with at a deeper level than that for promoters. For instance, super promoters should be:
Stewart Nash
s.nash@questback.com
www.linkedin.com/in/stewartnash
Click Here to try QuestBack
I've defined Super Promoters as "promoters who recommend a lot more than the average promoter". Other people who study customer advocacy have concluded that super promoters should also be "influential" with your customers and be demonstrably more profitable for your business. I tend to believe that super promoters are likely to be influencial generally and are already provably more profitable. So, I don't really believe in expending lots of energy, money and time studying your customers for "influentialness" or "profits" in order to identify super promoters. Though, admittedly, there other good reasons to why you might want to study customers for those data points. And, if you have customer influence or customer profit data, marrying it with results of a net promoter survey can't but help with the identification of super promoters. Also, if you have a lot of promoters, the additional data could help you determine where to start with your super promoter activation program.
Finding Super Promoters.
My earlier blog post talked primarily about how to find super promoters and why you should know who they are. So, I will only summarize the process here. I've used a two question sequence: The "likely to recommend" question followed by an additional question, "How often have you recommended in the last year", which is delivered only to promoters (9s and 10s on the "likely to recommend" question). In my earlier post I arbitrarily assigned super promoter status to promoters who reported recommending ten or more times over the preceding year. For your business the number may be different and its something to think about before asking the question. My earlier blog post can be found here if you would like read it.
Creating Super Promoters
For many smaller and mid-sized businesses it seems to me that creating super promoters is the simplest and easiest way to create organic business growth as well as to build the basis for a marketing campaign that helps you go from a smaller to a larger business.
In my experience promoters require two things in order to become super promoters. First, an opportunity to make recommendations. And second, a triggering event that causes them to actually recommend. Therefore, if you want to create super promoters you need to find ways to give your promoters opportunities to recommend and then to trigger events that spur the recommendation. Big companies often do this kind of thing haphazardly by, for instance, inviting all their customers and prospects to company-wide user conferences. These firms often feature super promoters in presentations, but have detractors (and promoters too, to be fair) mingling with prospects the rest of the time. If you have lots of detractors amongst your customers this could have unintended consequences, as promotion triggering events (i.e. people meeting and talking) are mainly accidental. Meaning that a prospect might talk with a detractor as easily as a promoter.
Making promoters into super promoters doesn't have to be an accidental process, nor does it have to be difficult to do. Here are some thoughts:
- Invite your promoters to attend events that your prospects attend. Make it free for them (its already likely to be free for prospects). Give them special badges that identify them as somehow "knowledgeable" in ways that will appeal to prospects. Then just let them mingle with prospects.
- Organize a special access on-line community just for your promoters. Incentivize them to participate in the community. Then, let targeted prospects ask questions of them as a group. Promoters will become super promoters by making recommendations on-line.
- Reward your promoters. Give them things they value at irregular intervals (provide them with an unanticipated moment of delight). If you do, many of them will promote more (becoming super promoters). An anecdote: I'm a member of American Airlines Advantage program and have lots of AA miles to my credit. I used to fly a lot, and when I'd check-in an agent would occasionally upgrade me to first class or give me an upgrade certificate to a future first or business class upgrade. As you can imagine, after they had done that a couple of times, I became very loyal to AA. Importantly, I'd tell my friends about how great AA was to me.
- Use a Blog. Send it to everyone, but only allow promoters to make comments (or at least un-monitored comments). When promoters comment, if appropriate, tweet their their comments. This will engage other promoters and will spur re-tweets that many prospects will see.
Activating Super Promoters
The process for activating super promoters is the same as for creating super promoters. But, super promoters should be engaged with at a deeper level than that for promoters. For instance, super promoters should be:
- Asked to create blog posts (not just comment) on your company blog.
- Put on the company's customer reference list.
- Invited to write articles in customer communications vehicles like newletters
- Invited to participate in prospect oriented marketing like webinars or user group meetings.
- Asked to have their stories developed into abstracts for use by media outlets who want perspective on topics they are knowledgeable about.
Stewart Nash
s.nash@questback.com
www.linkedin.com/in/stewartnash
Click Here to try QuestBack
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