5 Proven Tactics to Measure Brand Advocates

Brand Advocacy is important as it can be a major contributing factor in a brand's ability to boost product sell-through, optimize the customer experience, and drive business growth.

A lot of problems such as poor sell-through, low engagement in product training content and a below average basket price are really indicative of a larger problem - poor brand advocacy. When retail associates don't have a positive relationship with a brand they make decisions that reflect how they feel about the brand. These decisions ultimately have an effect on the type of service they provide to customers as well as their likelihood of interacting with the brand and recommending it to consumers.

As Peter Drucker, world-renowned management consultant and author, once said, “if you can't measure it, you can't manage it.” If brands are to improve their brand advocacy it's important that they learn how to measure it so they can then take active steps to improve it.

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Measuring Sell-Through Data

Low sell-through of a product can be one of the most frustrating things for a brand, especially after long periods of planning and executing all the components of a product launch. However, a lot of the time, brands are falling at the final hurdle because they did not invest in building brand advocacy.

Low sell-through is, more often than not, indicative of poor brand advocacy. A store with a brand advocacy problem is likely to have lower sell-through as customers aren’t receiving the knowledge they need from sales associates to feel confident in making a purchase or worse, they may be being pointed in the direction of another brand’s products that sales associates feel more confident in recommending.

Analyzing sell-through data from a DTC (direct-to-consumer) store relative to a wholesale store (of similar size, location etc) or even between wholesale stores can help a brand to identify a potential brand advocacy issue. This becomes apparent if there are discrepancies in conversation rate (the percentage of customers who make a purchase) between multiple stores. If there are stores in similar locations with similar levels of footfall a significant difference in sell-through and conversation rate can be due to a lack of brand advocacy by the sales associates.

It’s impossible to improve an issue without first identifying it and looking at sell-through data allows brands to spot potential issues before they develop into longer-term problems. After taking this step brands can then decide on what action to take in order to improve conversation rate and increase overall sales.

Content Engagement

A brand that uses a digital retail sales enablement tool will be able to see levels of engagement with their product training content on a store-by-store, region-by-region and even person-by-person basis.

Brands can then use this data to spot potential problems with brand advocacy as stores with higher levels of brand advocacy are more likely to engage with their product training content.

Forming a connection with retail sales associates is key for brands looking to strengthen their brand advocacy and the stronger this connection, the more likely sales associates are to engage with a brand’s content. Furthermore, gathering feedback on the product training content your brand is providing as well as creating engaging video content can help to boost engagement levels and ultimately boost brand advocacy across sales associates.

When associates feel listened to they’re more likely to have positive feelings toward your brand and ultimately become more inclined to engage with your brand’s content.

By measuring content engagement data brands are able to identify how engaged sales associates are with their product training content, giving them a potential clue as to the level of interest sellers hold.  

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Measuring Average Basket Price

Similarly to sell-through data, brands that measure their average basket size across retail locations will be able to identify potential brand advocacy problems.

Stores with higher levels of brand advocacy are likely to have bigger average baskets as consumers opt to purchase complementary or higher-priced brand products. Additionally, passionate sales associates that engage in conversation with consumers and display high levels of knowledge about your brand’s products are likely to sell more to consumers, enticing them to join your brand's eco-system and in turn increasing the average basket size.

By measuring the size of an average basket across similar stores (size, location and foot traffic) brands can begin to identify potential brand advocacy problems.

Requesting Feedback

One of the best ways to gauge brand advocacy is to simply ask sales associates how they feel about your brand. You can treat this like a Net Promoter Score interview and ask things like "how likely are you to recommend our brand relative to the competition?" or "on a scale of 1-5 how much do you trust our brand and it's products?" By connecting with retail sales associates through person-to-person interactions brands can garner a sense of how passionate sales staff are about their brand.

Alternatively, running surveys to gather qualitative feedback about your brand from sales associates is another way that brands can gauge how much of an advocate sales associates are.

These methods can be difficult, time-consuming and hard to scale. The best way for brands to measure, and ultimately grow, brand advocacy is by using a digital retail sales enablement platform. These tools help brands gather real-time data from all associates, across multiple regions, not only allowing them to actively track all the indicators that lead to strong brand advocacy but to easily collect brand sentiment feedback from all retail sales associates worldwide.  

Conclusion

If brands improve their brand advocacy they’re going to see an increase in sales as the retail sales associates that sell their products will be actively and passionately advocating for consumers to purchase these products. Moreover, customers are more likely to have a positive customer experience as passionate and knowledgeable sales associates speak to them about products. Positive interactions play a part in creating brand loyalty which contributes to higher sales in the future for the brand.

The fifth and best way to measure brand Advocacy is by using a Digital Retail Sales Enablement Platform, such as Myagi’s, which allows brands to measure their brand advocacy from across multiple regions and track engagement data through its array of real-time analytics function.

To find out more about how Myagi or Myagi Services can help increase your brand advocacy get in touch or click the button below to chat with us.

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