Consumer “evangelists” are one of the most important components to a businesses’ success. But what do “evangelists” really mean to your business? The following is a list of benefits a evangelist can mean to your business. No matter how well branded your business may be, the lifeblood of your business future is advocacy by consumer evangelists.
10 Benefits of Evangelists
- Early Adoption: they are the early adopters of your new products and services
- Legitimize: they legitimize your products and services by using them first
- Reviews: they almost always provide positive reviews on your products and services
- Eyes and Ears: they are your eyes and ears. Eevangelists will often learn about important opportunities for your brand before you will. When they find something that needs to be addressed by their “favorite” company they inform them of where to look, show up, and provide answers
- Opinion Makers: they can often sway public opinion in your favor
- Reputation Management: evangelists will often defend your company’s reputation when under attack by other consumers
- Crowdsourcing: they often can provide valuable feedback that can lead to improvements in your products or services
- Broadcasting: they often lead the charge to popularize a new product or service by messaging across all social networks
- Barometer: evangelists will often be the first people to tell you when you have done something wrong. They will often message you privately, if you have engaged with them correctly, in order to help you gauge your products and services
- Niche: according to David Armano unlike mass media “the web drives the niche” and in so doing it is perfect for evangelists who can effect a brand on many different fronts and at many different levels