Some ideas here from T-Mobile and Tiger beer on tactics for converting customers into evangelists from a story that ran on BBC online. Basically they ran 'underground' events for small (>500 people) customer groups, to create buzz around their brands, get some word of mouth started and associate the brands with the cool aspirational interests of their target demographic.

I live in the B2B world, so sometimes the science driving the behaviour of B2C brands escapes me. And I suspect these techniques may have a limited shelf life for a savvy, marketing aware generation. But these activities resonate in a simple way for the Customer Advocacy programs we run for B2B organizations.

Segment the group that is, or could become, your hard core advocates. Work out what genuinely interests and excites them - like T-Mobile listen to the customers about what they like.

Engage them in a programmatic manner. Get close. Offer them extra 'benefits' from the tighter relationship, stuff that they would really value, and can be either tangible or intangible.

Then. Engage, report, measure. Listen, learn, repeat.

Tags: Customer Advocacy, Word of Mouth