Customers are great. But do you know what’s better? Superfans. Superfans are not only top-tier customers, purchasing from you regularly. They’re evangelists, publicly praising your brand to their friends and family. In this blog post, we’re going to share some tips and tactics for turning your average customers into an army of Superfans.
What Is a Superfan?
Superfans are your brand’s top-tier customer base. They are a true fan of your brand. Sure, they love what you do, but it’s more than that. They love HOW you do it. More importantly, they are invested in your success. They want you to stay around, and as such, they’ll do their part to help share awareness of your brand with their social networks.
4 Ways to Identify a Budding Superfan
Before you turn a customer into a superfan, you might be surprised at how many budding superfans you already have in your arsenal. Here are four ways you can identify your already existing superfans.
1) They’re Big Spenders
This might seem like the most obvious indicator, but we aren’t just talking about dollars. Budding superfans spend more than just money on your brand. They spend time. Time talking, and sharing, all about their love and excitement for your brand. They are likely spending time across multiple social media platforms engaging in conversations about their experience with your brand.
2) They Engage With You A Lot Online
Between Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, and Pinterest (and an honorable mention for our elder platform, Tumblr), your customers have so many opportunities to engage with you. For the lucky ones, they’ll engage with you on all platforms they have an account on. However, it’s not uncommon for customers to have a preferred platform where they do the majority of their online engagement. But engaging with your brand online isn’t just about how many times they “@” you. Online engagement could be counted as how many conversations they’re having about your brand with their friends and followers, how frequently these conversations or topics about your brand come up, or how much they’re sharing their content or resharing yours.
3) They’re Already Creating Content on Your Behalf
Your fans in your advocacy marketing program are already making content on your behalf but did you know you probably have super fans out there doing the same thing? But how do you know if this is happening already? Check your brand-specific hashtags, look for your brand under specific location tags, and don’t forget to check brand or industry-related tags as well. These budding superfans are already doing so much, and their only reward is the good feelings they get for sharing their love of your brand, so imagine how much more they would do if they knew they would get brand-exclusive prizes and rewards for doing the things they’re already doing!
4) They Already Have a Strong Following Online
A strong following doesn’t always equate to a large following. Micro-influencers or those with 10,000 or fewer followers can have an even more significant impact on their audiences than significant influencers. Your next superfan may have an extraordinary online presence that would be the perfect platform to share your brand with a new market or audience. Even a following of 1,000 followers can have a profound impact on gaining brand awareness and traction.
6 Ways To Turn Customers Into Superfans
Superfans don’t just happen. They’re a product of a system. Which is fantastic news for any brand, because it means that with the right system in place, you can predictably create Superfans at scale.
1) Start By Focusing On Your Engaged Audience
Sadly, not every customer is going to become a Superfan. But that’s OK.
Maximize your Superfan-creating efforts, start by focusing on your already engaged audience. Individuals that are taking additional efforts to stay connected and engaged with your brand beyond just making a purchase.
These are your email subscribers, social audience, VIP or loyalty club members, etc.
2) Create A Brand Community
Once you’ve identified your engaged audiences, it’s time to rally them around your brand. Just like Star Trek fans are called Trekkies, you want to form a collective identity. A community. Communities allow your customers to connect with each other in addition to building a deeper connection with your brand.
3) Have Conversations With Your Community
Once you start inviting your engaged audiences into your brand community, you can begin having conversations with them. Conversations are a magic bullet to forging your audiences into Superfans. Ask open-ended questions, engage in the comments section of your blog or social posts, listen to your fans, and actively respond to them. Show them that you’re listening to them and that you care about their response.
4) Provide Value Beyond the Sale
Yes, of course, money is critical. But your audience can tell if and when you’re engaging with them only to push a sale. They won’t blame you for it, but they’re not going to start evangelizing on your behalf.
If you want to grow your Superfan count, you need to look for opportunities to provide additional value to your engaged audiences. Create outstanding content, provide useful information that will improve their lives, take the time to bring a bit of joy into their life. The goal is to show that you care about your customer base, not just their wallets.
5) Give Personalized Attention and Care
As you start connecting with your community, look for ways to give some personalized attention to your customer base. Sure, scaling this can be tricky, but a personalized effort can go along way towards evangelizing a new Superfan.
Want some examples? Here are some of our favorite personalizing tactics:
- Include hand-written notes in your purchase
- Send one-to-one direct messages through social media
- Create a personalized video shouting out the customer by name
- Send a birthday card
- Surprise your favorite customers with extra products or small gifts
6) Look for Unique Ways To Exceed Expectations
Mediocrity is a business norm. Whether it’s getting a package in the mail, swiping a credit card with the cashier, or even listening to the same airline safety announcement you’ve heard a million times, your customers have an expectation on how these moments should go. And most of the time, that expectation is that this time will be just as dull as the last hundred thousand times.
However, it’s in these dull moments that brands can genuinely start setting themselves apart and begin converting their superfans. Southwest Airlines does a fantastic job of doing just this when they empower their flight attendants to jazz up their in-flight safety announcements.
Break the norm and set yourself apart.
How To Activate Your Superfans
Like we said earlier, Superfans are more than just great customers. They’re evangelists. Which means, they actively want to share your brand with the world. So, if you’re going to make the most out of your Superfan base, you need to create opportunities to encourage their evangelism.
One of the easiest ways to do this is through a branded advocacy marketing program (Like, say, a SocialToaster program?).
Encourage your Superfans to sign up and join your advocacy marketing program with their preferred social network. Once they’ve signed up, they’ll be able to share your content with their friends and family.
On top of sharing your content, you can also use your advocacy marketing program to run contests, solicit user-generated content, send surveys, and empower your Superfans to become an active part in driving your business forward.
Ready to get started leveraging the social-sharing power of your Superfans. We can help! Schedule your free SocialToaster demo today and let one of our advocacy marketing strategists work with you to develop a custom Superfan program.
