I had the privilege of developing numerous brand ambassador profiles—all featuring employees—for a major U.S. company. This post delves into the reason for doing these types of profiles, and provides five tips for getting started:
What exactly is a brand ambassador profile?
It is a professionally researched and written document that focuses on a single individual—someone who serves as a champion for your company or organization by sharing personal experiences, expertise and insights.
The purpose of this type of profile is to form a connection with target audiences through the use of authenticity. As a result, it can help you boost inbound marketing and build brand equity by making your company or organization seem more genuine, trusted and relevant. Plus, the content can be shaped to achieve specific objectives: to inform, educate, gain empathy, motivate, or influence/change perceptions.
Where do you find brand ambassadors?
Brand ambassadors can be recruited from various categories, including employees, partners, board members, other key influencers and customers. For now, let’s focus on the first category in this list.
Yes, excellent ambassadors can be found internally.
For example, in the case of my recent project mentioned above, the profiles I developed showcase several of the company’s employees. As I interviewed these individuals over the phone, I learned a few things: Most of them are seasoned staff members; however, a few are fairly new to the company. They represent all walks of life and various areas of expertise. They include men and women, white-collar and blue-collar workers, union employees and non-union employees. All are good at speaking honestly and coherently. And they see themselves as part of a team.
However, what really impressed me during these phone interviews was the energy, the enthusiasm—the passion—exhibited by these employees. As I talked with these folks on the phone, it became evident that they are happy to work for their employer. They believe in and align with their employer’s core values, they like their jobs, they genuinely enjoy helping coworkers and customers, and they appreciate how their company treats employees with respect, loyalty and acknowledgement of their achievements. They also appreciate their company’s overall culture and their specific work environments.
Do you have employees who fit this description? If so, consider having a professional copywriter develop brand ambassador profiles about them. A seasoned copywriter will know how to tackle the process adeptly, and will produce profiles that you can leverage numerous ways, via all sorts of marketing communication vehicles (I’ll touch on that topic in my next post).
If you are wondering how to get started…
Here are five tips for preparing to spotlight your employees through the use of brand ambassador profiles:
- Choose Wisely—Select employees who clearly embody your company’s core values, who are good at articulating their thoughts, and who demonstrate passion for their job duties, their contributions and their work environment. Ideally, choose workers who represent various job capacities, to demonstrate that employee passion exists throughout the company.
- Recruit Actively—Engage with your target employees, praise their positive outlooks and achievements, and convince them to become brand ambassadors by telling them your intentions upfront. Explain the purpose and process of creating brand ambassador profiles, describe your planned uses for the profiles, and convince them that their involvement will benefit the company and its employees.
- Communicate Empathetically—Tell the recruited employees that a short phone interview is required, to allow a copywriter to gather needed information. Also let them know their phone interviews will be less than half an hour, for minimal disruption, and will be completed during company time—not their personal time—so as not to intrude on their lives outside of work.
- Proceed Thoughtfully—Invite each employee to suggest specific days and time slots when he or she might be available for a phone interview. Also, determine the best way for your copywriter to contact each employee to arrange a phone interview day and time. (Most likely, many employees will want to be contacted by email initially. However, those who check email infrequently due to their job demands may prefer to be reached by phone.)
- Segue Smartly—Inform employees of the name of the copywriter who will contact them, and explain that the writer will be in touch with them soon. You may even want to “introduce” each employee to your copywriter via a short email, to help the two get acquainted.
Hopefully, these tips will help you get started, so you can harness the brand power of your employees in the weeks ahead!.
Tracy Glass Copywriting is one of the top copywriting companies serving the Construction, Industrial and Agricultural Industries. See the full list of available services here.
