CX & Customer Success resources

How Advocate Marketing can Leverage Promoters, Detractors AND Passives
By Chris Newton, VP of Business Development at Influitive
Your Net Promoter Score (NPS) gives you valuable insights into how happy your customers are and identifies what could be your biggest marketing asset – your promoters.
Unfortunately, most B2B companies don’t have a strategy in place to properly leverage those promoters once you’ve identified them. According to the Economics of Loyalty, on average, 83% of satisfied customers are willing to refer services to friends, colleagues and industry peers, but only 29% actually do so.
That’s a real shame because these delighted customers are typically more than willing to share their positive experiences with their networks. Most importantly, they can be counted on to refer new business to you on a pretty regular basis – if you engage with them in the right way.
At Influitive, we call these happy customers “advocates” and recommend that B2B companies mobilize them through an advocate marketing program.
A small amount of advocacy, including referrals, will happen naturally. For the most part, however, if you don’t ask, you don’t get. It’s sort of awkward to just come out and ask, though, isn’t it? You don’t want to seem desperate.
The key to getting more customer referrals is to nurture those promoters and engage with them on a regular basis. Begin with a number of smaller asks and work your way up to a referral. Invite promoters to take a specific action on your behalf, such as sharing one of your blog posts, signing up for a beta test or answering a short survey. Since your promoters are your biggest fans, they will likely take action if you ask.
You’ll get even better results if you make it easy and fun for promoters to participate. Points, levels and leaderboards can increase the amount of time promoters spend engaging with your content and advocating for your company.
According to M2 Research, gamification can lead to a 100%-150% increase in the amount of time visitors spend on your website and a 250+% increase in the number of referrals you receive. For example, give your promoters a few points every time they complete an action. Once they earn a certain number of points, you can recognize them for their efforts with a meaningful thank you, such as VIP seating at your user conference, a discount on your services, branded swag or a catered lunch. Everyone loves free food!
Bonus: Convert detractors and passives into promoters
A side benefit of engaging your promoters is that similar methods can also help you nurture detractors and passives, turning them into advocates as well.
For example, when customers express frustration about using your product, you can invite them to register for online training or join a user group. The more they participate, the more points they get. Plus, they will get greater value from your product, which will make them happier and more likely to renew or be upsold.
You can also invite detractors and passives to provide feedback or participate in a beta test so they feel as though they have a say in the development of your product.
When you take steps such as the ones outlined above to engage detractors and passives, you can convert many of them into promoters.
Who knows? Your biggest detractor may send you a referral or two in the future.
Learn more about getting your promoters to take action: Download The No Fuss Recipe for Hot Referral Leads and get your revenue cooking with the ultimate B2B customer referral program.
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Chris Newton is VP of Business Development at Influitive, the advocate marketing experts. Before joining Influitive, he started the first product-centric customer advisory board at Siebel, and created one of the earliest advocate marketing programs using Influitive’s AdvocateHub platform at Xactly. In his life before software marketing, he was a pilot in the U.S. Navy and earned an MBA at Harvard.