Visibility constitutes a key element of any marketing strategy and is often centered around person-to-person brand education. Direct marketers are familiar with brand ambassadors who work with trade associations to bring visibility to an industry. While brand ambassadors may be geared to regional or national efforts, creating your own business representatives adds another layer to your advertising program. The first steps in the process include creating a marketing message, training ambassadors to communicate the message and evaluating how well the message is received by the public.

Marketing messages prove most successful when they are brief, action-oriented and note the benefits of your product or service. Brand ambassadors within the ag industry often create messages about nutritional aspects of a product while noting its healthy benefits and ease of use. You can do the same by developing a message that describes your product’s unique or special elements, and why it is important to the customer.

Once your message is created it’s time to train your own brand ambassadors to promote your product or service. All employees, regardless of their titles or responsibilities, should be able to communicate key topics of your business including some background and history, what products or services you provide and the benefits of such. Equipped with this information, an employee can become an informed ambassador who excels in person-to-person contact with customers.

Customer feedback and sales analytics will help you evaluate how effectively your message is being conveyed and received. This is critical to developing additional marketing strategies and training employees to excel at person-to-person marketing. Direct marketers may not immediately see the need for formal evaluation programs since they sell directly to the public, but any additional information proves vital to promotions and reaching target audiences.

By its definition, “a person who acts as a representative or promoter of a specified activity” – a brand ambassador – conveys important information to your customer base and potential buyers. They must be equipped with vital and interesting facts, trained to recognize and promote sales opportunities and act as enterprising representatives of your business and industry. This type of marketing requires time and effort, but in the long run produces a multi-layered approach to business viability.

The above information is for educational purposes and should not be substituted for professional business or legal counseling.