Evangelism Marketing: A Great Customer Involvement Method in Marketing Campaigns

Throughout the history of advertising, religion has influenced various marketing strategies that are responsible for the success of renowned multinational brands. Adopting the triggers and tactics from the world of religion, the marketing industry strategized brilliant ways to advertise their products. One fine example of it is evangelism marketing.

The idea of evangelism has been borrowed from the fundamental concept of Christianity, i.e. to spread the preaching of a gospel, a doctrine or set of beliefs to others with the intention of converting them to the Christian faith.

Co-opting religious languages, in a marketing context, have become a common phenomenon today. This is because the lines between social and consumer culture are increasingly getting blurred. As Kawasaki recounts, 'Apple' demanded all the religious fervour, devotion, zeal and sacrifice form all its employees and customers to successfully establish its customer base.

Many people consider him to be the father of evangelism marketing. In his book ‘The Art of the Start and How to Drive Your Competition Crazy’ he says that the driving force behind this form of marketing is the pure belief and faith of the customers on a particular brand.

Transforming the very customers into an advertising medium is the ultimate ‘marketing dream’ of every businessman. As most of the people today rely on word of mouth, evangelism has gradually evolved as a successful strategy for brand promotion.

1. What is Evangelism Marketing? 

Evangelism marketing stands for “word of mouth marketing”.

In today’s world, the marketplace is saturated with hundreds of companies selling similar products. Even a groundbreaking product will fail to make a mark if the company does not implement appropriate strategies to distinguish themselves from the competitors.

Primarily, it becomes essential to establish a loyal customer base. To establish your presence within your chosen niche, you need to identify your target market long before you launch your product. Then comes the biggest challenge, i.e. to turn the one time customer into a lifetime customer. This is where Evangelism marketing comes into play.

Evangelism marketing uses the strategy of word of mouth publicity to ensure long-term business and promote customer loyalty for an organisation. In the marketing domain, several renowned companies like Apple, have used this strategy to convert their target consumers into its fold, by the customers themselves.

You might be thinking, “But isn’t that what every marketing advertisement does?”

It’s true that the fundamental purpose of any advertisement is to reach out to the target consumers and develop their business in the process. But there is a slight difference between traditional marketing and evangelism.

• A general marketing ad will just brag about their facilities, but evangelism marketing happens when a customer is overwhelmed by a product and freely sells it for you.

• Evangelism marketing costs lesser than traditional advertising-based marketing and is more effective than the latter.

Evangelism is all about delivering an exceptional product that will ensure you retain the existing customer base. Once you have turned a casual customer into a hardcore fan, you no longer have to convince him/her to buy your product. The loyal consumers will ensure your brand survives the changes in the trends and thrives for years to come.

2. What Does A Brand Evangelist Do, And Do You Need One? 

Brand evangelism is one of the oldest forms of marketing where a consumer actively and freely tries to convince other consumers to use a certain brand based on a positive experience.

An experience shared by a customer is always a lot more influential than a thousand advertisements. Start-up businesses having a limited budget often depend upon evangelism marketing to reach their target audience. It provides a better return on investment to the organisation.

Brand evangelists will not just buy your product but become your brand’s passionate advocates. Primarily, they will be the most credible, unbiased and authoritative advertisers. Secondly, they will not demand a single cent from you but boost your sales by actively promoting your brand through word of mouth.

Whatever state the economy is in, the evangelists will be in it for the long haul. So, if you are aspiring to develop long-term, sustainable customer relationships, you need to focus on creating loyal and satisfied customers.

3. The Secret to Evangelism Marketing 

It takes several months and years to come up with an effective evangelism marketing strategy. You need to invest more time to successfully implement those strategies in various marketing campaigns and be patient for years before you strike gold.

Here are a couple of things you need to do in order to get a head start on building brand loyalty:

• Establish the brand and know the target customers
• Develop a brand slogan or message and deliver it
• Make sure the perception of the brand you promote matches reality
• Keep your customers happy
• Listen to their feedback and opinions and implement them.

It doesn't sound too hard, does it? Once you start taking efforts to keep your customers happy, you will benefit just as much as they will. As the famous saying goes,

“Amazing things happen when you listen to the consumer." Jonathan Mildenhall, CocaCola

4. How to turn customers into brand evangelists  

A thorough analysis of global consumer behavior revealed that consumer experience becomes a vital parameter for establishing brand evangelists.  In today's world, thanks to the World Wide Web, customer service experiences spread like wildfire. Social media amplifies the effect of word of mouth publicity at a massive scale.

At its core, brand evangelism largely depends on the stories and reviews shared in the online forum. Everyone wants to know the experiences of the previous buyers and wonders, "Does this story feel or sound like an experience I would enjoy?"

Once you have established a solid base of loyal & happy customers, you will be able to reach out to a larger audience through your previous consumer base itself. But, how to do this successfully?

To deliver your message out into the world, you will primarily need to figure out how your audience can participate, interact and share their stories across social media.

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