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Brand Evangelists
The stronger your brand, the greater your customer loyalty. The world’s strongest brands have not just customers or fans, but evangelists. Brand evangelists preach positively about their favourite brands, not just by buying or using that brands products, but by enthusiastically recommending them to others and/or to potential customers. Brand evangelists build buzz for your brand out of intense loyalty, giving your company free advertising and testimonials. A good example is Adobe: they have people on the payroll who actually have the job title 'Flash Evangelist', 'Platform Evangelist' or 'AIR Evangelist'. Adobe hosts free events for their customers to start using their product or technology, the 'ON AIR Tour', 'Colin Moock' Actionscript 3 Tour', all perfect examples of a good brand strategy.
If you've ever been to one of these events you know what I mean, everything is perfectly sorted. I had the feeling (and still do) I was being treated like a king! When I got home that day after the ‘Colin Moock world tour’ in Amsterdam, I had a full tummy, a bag filled with goodies and a head with knowledge! And I had a great time talking with the masters of the community.
Word of mouth is one of the most important factors in influencing a buyer’s decision; what I just did was exactly that: I influenced your decision in a positive way. So next time when Adobe is hosting a event in your home town, go and see what I mean. Remember Britney Spears first hit? ;)
Brands and Trust
As a little example: look at the differences between Microsoft and Google, both two really big companies, and one of their primary goals is to make money with software. Both companies have completely different strategies of doing so: Microsoft sells its software, Google gives its software away (or let you use their service for free). Microsoft has a fancy expensive sounding name. Google has a funny and friendly name.
How is Google perceived by most people? And how is Microsoft perceived?
I did a little test and 60% of the people I asked told me that they like Google more. Most of them could not tell me why, some told me it was the funky colours in their logo or that they liked the name. When I asked the same question about Microsoft, people gave me somewhat more negative answers: their software is expensive, hard to use and not user friendly.
This says a lot about both brands.
So let us get back to the perception and trust part: did you notice what I just did? I build trust with you as the reader, I showed you statistic data which you choose to believe, you perceive this as truth, while actually I asked 5 people around me how they feel about both brands. I managed your perception. Building trust with the user is not that hard, if done in a correct way and you don't lie. If you do, it WILL bite you in the face. Trust me.
To summarize, branding is about:
- perception - How are you perceived?
- trust - What does your image say? Are you trustworthy?
- emotion - I like it, I want to be part of it
- desire - You have what I want. I want what you have
Next week I'll talk more about identity and what it takes to come up with a good name for your application. More to come in part 3!
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it is called 'sampling bias' whatever you did with your survey
Plus, your brand trust is depending on the product you use. If you choose to be a fanboy for a major company, then you might get perks. Try do the same for an obscure thing/company and your brand does not live to the hype.
Everything sounds a little bit preachy.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for your comment. First off i don't wish to sound preachy, just trying to make a point and I hope that point is clarified with the next two articles.
For the other points; I have to disagree with you there; Perks are everywhere, it you are a fanboy for some obscure brand, you (the person being the fanboy, not you specifically) might not perceive it as an obscure brand because this also depends on your experience and perception on the brand itself. If you identify with it, the perk is that you are part of a group dynamic.
In the text i give the example of Adobe and people working for them, a similar example can be given about Apple users and their iPhone (or other products for that matter), they love to talk to you about it, what it does, how good it does it and how slick it looks. This is also a form of customer loyalty because, most of the time, those people also have a small mac for the road and big mac at home (no pun intended :) )
But this is not about fanboys, this is about people being enthousiastic about a product or service and telling the world about. I'm sure you can think of more examples.
Think about the products you use and like and tell your friend about...
Hope this clarifies things for you,
Sidney