#98: Maximize Sales with an Ambassador Program
How much money are you leaving on the table by not having an ambassador program in your community, course or membership?
The truth is, we’re moving into an age where relationship marketing is front and center and there’s truly no more profitable way than to gain new clients or customers than through the successful relationships you already have built.
I’m frequently asked about and guide my clients through the process of creating their very own ambassador program.
And we actually run it very successfully within my second company, The Advance, which is a membership that is built on the premise that relationships build great companies. 30% of our current members come from existing members, which is an incredibly high statistic in comparison to most companies who are running ambassador programs.
So how do you know when it's time to create an ambassador program? What is an ambassador program and how does that differ from traditional affiliates? I’m going to be diving into this incredible conversation today to share my tips and tricks I’ve learned along the way.
And if you have no idea what to do or the steps to take, just go ahead and visit my site www.joybrandcreative.com and apply for a consultation. I'd love to answer any questions that you have and see if there's an opportunity for me to help you implement a program like this in your business or community.
Listen to the Show:
Laura (00:00):
How much money are you leaving on the table by not having an ambassador program in your community course/membership. If you are ready for an ambassador program, this is something I help a lot of my clients with. And we actually run it very successfully within our own membership. 30% of our current members come from existing members, which is an incredibly high statistic in comparison to most companies who are running ambassador programs. So how do you know when it's time to create an ambassador program? What is an ambassador program and how does that differ from traditional affiliates? If you've been wondering some of these questions you're in luck. So stay tuned for this next episode.
(00:42):
So many entrepreneurs, dream of living a life of massive impact by creating a mega successful company, but only a tiny percentage of businesses actually scale to that point. And when they do it is so often lacking the very joy and freedom that got them into entrepreneurship in the first place. So on this podcast, we speak authentically on what it actually takes to scale your business in a way that creates freedom and joy that works for you, your team, and the incredible impact that you are meant to make in the world as a visionary entrepreneur. My name is Laura Meyer and I'm your host. I'm a serial entrepreneur wife, mom, to three. And I love talking all things business, especially digging into what it actually takes to scale joyfully to the multi-million dollar mark and beyond let's get started.
(01:34):
So many entrepreneurs who are scaling, have this lingering feeling that they're leaving cold, hard cash on the table by not having an ambassador program. A lot of companies refer to this as a customer referral program. So in the traditional business world and when I was in brick and mortar and private equity, this is when we would literally equip customers with something that they could give to their friends. And the friends would come in and they would get a discount or a VIP treatment or special gift, or you would have a live in person event that was intended for people to bring friends and they would all get some kind of amazing reward. Sometimes even in traditional business, we would partner with high level influencers in particular geographic locations, even micro influencers. And those people would bring in their audiences. And there was all of this amazing collaboration.
(02:27):
And when I was running a brick and mortar chain for many years, this was an enormously successful program, particularly because much of the momentum I had built in that business was built before social media even existed. And so referral programs were a critical component of our marketing strategy. And now fast forward to today in the online space, ambassador programs are just important to have to the degree, to which you have a business that it makes sense for. But my general observation is that this is a totally underutilized tool in the online space. So as I had mentioned before, 30% of our current members came from existing members within our membership, which is a
pretty high number. We would have about 10% less members if we didn't have that program. And that's a amount of people in a higher volume type of business, like a membership community.
(03:24):
And in our last launch, I really wanted to know exactly what was happening on the front end. Like I had pretty good idea based on our data, the amount of current customers that were referred in, but I wanted to know exactly how well our ambassador program was converting for something like a conversion event, a launch, a webinar, anything that you are hosting in your own business. And so we rolled up our sleeves and we got involved in Google data studio and my operations director totally geeked out on it. And we set up separate landing pages, as annoying as that can be for all the different ways in which people would come into our launch funnel. And it really wasn't that much work. But what happened was is that we were able to really see where is this traffic coming from and what is our best return on effort in terms of not only money being spent, but time and payroll resources, right?
(04:18):
So we had this great launch. It converted really nicely overall about 7% within the launch, which I was very happy with. But this again was the first launch where we fully utilized data tracking and the results were pretty astounding. Our paid traffic sales page converted at 6%, which is pretty good. I was very happy with that for a high ticket membership. Our organic traffic converted at 11%. So our emails or organic social media posts, and that's pretty typical because paid traffic tends to be cold conversions. Whereas organic traffic tends to be people who are familiar with you. So they tend to convert at a higher rate and that's expected. But what blew my mind is that our ambassador page converted at 24%. What!!! If You are like me and you love how numbers tell stories? I always say data over drama. It takes all the drama away of what's.
(05:21):
So something worth, and as somebody who is a natural creative, it's taken me a long time to understand the power and the freedom that comes in numbers. And when I looked at that, I was like, oh my goodness, 24% compared to paid traffic at 6% organic traffic at 11%. So if you don't have an ambassador program in your business, you're likely just killing yourself with expensive, new lead generation or just trying to hit it big on the next TikTok or Instagram reel. When your customers are actually sitting there waiting to give you money in the form of their friends referrals. So when it comes to actual ambassador programs and referral programs, one of the questions I get often is like, where does this program live? Like, let's start creating this and it's, we're gonna put it in marketing. Cause it's a marketing effort. And because it's revenue generating, that is the first logical place to put it and at building it out and developing it.
(06:18):
But it's actually a huge mistake. One of the reasons why our referral program is so successful, it's because it's run by our community function. And so it should be absolutely placed in your backend operations or fulfillment. One of your coaches or your community manager should own the ambassador program and be incentivized to grow it. Why? Because they're the ones with the relationships with the customers. They know who's happiest. They know who's getting the most value they're aware of the superstar students. And they're the ones who are going to be your best advocates. People who are getting result vocally happy, they're great fit for your brand. And you want more people just like them. And if somebody from sales or marketing like SWOS in from outta nowhere and starts asking for referrals with no preexisting relationship or rapport, there's a pretty good chance that person is gonna get totally blown off.
(07:08):
Second. How do you even know if your business is a fit for an ambassador program? Well, one of the ways you would know is to really think about what kind of customers you have and who their contacts are. If you have customers, it doesn't necessarily mean that there is a justification in putting on all of the time and effort that is required for an ambassador program. And so, for example, let's say you have a consumer based offer where you're selling a business opportunity to somebody who has no history of being an entrepreneur. They have no list, no audience, and they themselves may have a hard time building their own following for their own offer. Well, an ambassador program may not make sense for you to build out because to do it well, it's an extensive effort, which I'll tell you a little bit more about, you need a kickoff campaign and a significant amount of follow up for it to work well.
(07:55):
So if most of your client base fits into the description of not yet having anybody that they could extend the opportunity to other than maybe a small group of close family and friends who are being pitched their offer, it may be difficult to empower them with the right tools and resources and mindset to encourage their friends, to come into your program. Yet, on the flip side, if your customers are established entrepreneurs with existing audiences that your offer would apply to, then it makes a tremendous amount of sense to put lots of effort into an ambassador program, because they're likely already in regular communication with their list and their audience is also your audience. The third way to be really successful with an ambassador program is to go all in on what it takes for it to be done. Well, many people believe that an ambassador program is something that you throw together.
(08:46):
You know, you pull together some social media posts set up the backend technology, so that payout is legit and automated. And that the program after that is done and done, and that is absolutely not the case at all. An ambassador program went done well is one of the main pieces of communication that you are constantly sharing with your community, your students, your customers, and to do it well, there's a series of steps that you'll want to follow as well as kicking it off and then making it evergreen. So when you're kicking off an ambassador program, you want to create a groundswell of
excitement, have a founders rate. That is an awesome deal and way more exciting than what you plan on doing down the road. Having something like an exclusive invite cocktail party for your best customers is a great idea to welcome them into the program.
(09:34):
This is where the entrepreneur or the influencer explains the culture and the values and why they're creating this program and why it would be exciting for them to bring their friends into it. The more successful your customers are, the more they're going to be less motivated by the money. They're not gonna care as much about the money. They're gonna care about the way that you make them feel about ambassador program. And when you do this kickoff event, you want to share all of that. And then at the end of the event, set up all the backend technology have, have them fill out their applications, make sure that you can pay them once the money comes in. And then they're ready to go after that event and ongoing, you want to keep supplying them with material prior to any conversion event, make sure they have the right links, make sure that they're able to distribute them, make sure they know exactly what to say to their audiences.
(10:24):
And the entrepreneur or CEO may even want to go into the audiences of members or customers with larger communities and really talk up the value of the offer with their audiences, and their customers. After the initial founding ambassador is released, it's really, really important to follow up, continue nurturing, continue creating value, um, for your customers. And it's a goal for me personally, to be speaking in front of other people's audiences, at least once or twice a month, and communities just providing tons of value. So that the next time we open cart and have a conversion event, it's something they already have awareness around. It's not just like, hey, can I get into your community? We're launching next week. We're low for numbers. You don't want to be in that position or to go to people with that ask. And that way your, your ask is your, like here's a lead magnet, text us for the lead magnet, text us for, you know, slides of this presentation.
(11:24):
We'll be happy to share it with you. And this is where you're building constant familiarity and awareness. We are continually in touch with our ambassadors, with every launch or conversion event. We're offering cash rewards, group gifts, VIP days. It's something that we spend a lot of time and effort, highly incentivizing them around. And so since the contribution that they're making to our community is so valuable, it's not unusual for me to reach out to one of our top ambassadors. If I see that they're having a challenge or something I can personally help with and give them extra special treatment because of that incredibly important contribution to our community, it is truly a two way street. And our ambassador program is a win-win for our membership. We're loving on them. We're making them feel really special. We have amazing giveaways that are outside the scope of our membership and they get 20% recurring commission, which is a little bit lower than what I would recommend for an ambassador program where it's a one off sale, but for recurring payouts, that's pretty generous the online space.
(12:35):
So if you have a seven or multi seven figure business and you do not have an ambassador program, what that says to me is that you have enough success in your business. You have enough happy customers that it would justify building out an ambassador program. And if you have no idea what to do in the steps to take, just go ahead and visit my site @ joybrandcreative.com and just apply for our consult. I'd love to answer any questions that you have and see if there's an opportunity for me to help you implement a program like this in your business or community.
(13:07):
Hey there: before you head out, I want to let you know about a free new training I have right on a brand new website called yournextmillion.me. It's yournextmillion.me, where several of my seven figure clients and colleagues share what they're doing in the next year to scale their businesses, to the multi-million dollar mark and beyond. And I have to tell you, it is not what you think. So check it out at yournextmillion.me. And if you loved this show, will you subscribe to it and share it with a friend or just say something nice about it to someone, you know? I’d really appreciate it so much. Thanks so much for being here and I'll see you next time.
The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.