Nearly all brands struggle to remain competitive and are seeking ways to do more with lower budgets.
Lower budgets along with the growing trend that people are more skeptical about messages and content that comes from official brand channels. So, what’s a marketer to do?
Sound familiar?
Enter your Employee Advocacy program
The good news is, people are more receptive to content that comes from a network connection. In fact, people trust regular employees as credible spokespeople more than official brand sources like the CEO, as shown by the 20 point gain since 2009, in Edleman’s 2014 Trust Barometer study. In addition, the study reveals that employees rank highest overall 36%, as the most trusted influencer to communicate across 4 out of 5 topic categories including: Engagement, Integrity, Products & Services and Operations.
Because content from a connection is inherently more trustworthy or “valid”, it’s more likely to be opened, clicked, shared, and ultimately converted into a lead or sale. And since employees use social media around the clock, your Employee Advocacy program becomes an always-on lead generation channel.
Leading brands are increasing investment in digital marketing and Employee Advocacy programs that create business value through equipping and empowering employees.
The most common sources of value from such programs usually include increased revenues from employees who generate more leads and conversions to a call to action as compared to paid media.
For more on this and other ways to drive business value from employee advocacy, download the eBook: Making the case for Employee Advocacy, 5 winning use cases that enable consensus and collaboration
