How Employee Advocacy Influences Buyer Behavior

Just recently, we came across a great piece of content that told us that money was rarely the reason people stop buying from a company.

If money isn’t the reason, it’s safe to assume that your intended audience can always afford what you’re selling. So the only possible explanations are:

 

1. You’re marketing to the wrong crowd

2. They don’t trust you

3. They don’t believe in your product

 

We couldn’t help but think how an effective employee advocacy program can help sort all these issues, in a simple and cost-effective way.

Let’s look at them individually, shall we?

1.You’re marketing to the wrong crowd.

This one’s a fairly glaring mistake. If you’ve got a premium product that comes with an equally premium price tag, targeting thrift shop junkies isn’t going to cut it.

How an employee advocacy program helps-

The people that work for you know your product best. They also happen to know your target audience.

By sharing product and brand content on personal pages, and tagging people they believe would be interested, your employees can put you in touch with prospective customers directly.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. This is all fine and dandy when it’s a B2C company, but it won’t work for B2B.

Wrong.

With over 61 million C-level decision makers on LinkedIn, why can’t your employees’ shares reach one of them?

Plus, the MSL group tells us that brand content shared by employees has 561% higher online reach than the brand alone.

2. They don’t trust you.

Can you blame them? In today’s business environment, Startup companies are mushrooming everywhere, and in every sector.

So what makes your company so different? Why should they choose you over your competitors?

How an employee advocacy program helps-

In 2014, the Edelman Trust Barometer told us that an employee advocate is 2x more trusted than a CEO.

That means that people are more likely to listen to their friends, peers and even online reviews over traditional modes of advertising.

Trust plays a pivotal role in the final purchase decision. By getting those in the company who are trusted more to advocate your brand, you’re only improving your chances of cracking that sale.

3. They don’t believe in your product.

Let’s get this out of the way, DIY is for home improvement and craft.

Not marketing.

Unless you’re an expert.

Good marketing communications are the key to generating the right kind of leads.

How an employee advocacy program helps –

A well-structured employee advocacy program will give your in-house marketer the option to upload content to your entire company. The rest of your employees can then share said content with one click.

Given that a message is re-shared 24x more frequently when it comes from an employee as compared to the brand (MSL Group), and leads generated by employees convert 7x more frequently than others (IBM), we predict you’ll do fairly well with a well-crafted marketing message.