Do you sell the soap? Or are your advocates selling it virally?

The normal method to sell is by communicating with people who buy from you (or your company).
This requires time, quite an effort and a lot of work.
Not solely for the communication itself, but for finding the leads or the potential customers.

(Please note: the call to action at the end of the video is hard to read)

Advocates talking to their peers

Getting advocates to tell about your product or service is more effective and apparently requires less effort, as they do a part of the work by talking to their peers. Amongst their peers will be potential customers.

Advocates are people that are:
- Excited about your product
- Evangelists
- Your brand supporters
- Work for you without getting paid.

Advocates can be all kind of people:
However the greater the reach they have the better:
- A blogger could be an advocate having a big reach.
- An employee can also be your advocate, arguing for you during internal meetings and writing memos or emails.
- A customer can also become your “fan”, as they are convinced or having had big successes with your solutions.

The problems with advocates are:
- Where to find future fans? Outside a company or inside companies?
- How to spot a potential advocate?
- How to get into contact with people that can become advocates?
- How to promote to people that can become advocates?
- What convinces someone to become an advocate?
- How to stimulate the advocates?

Treat advocates differently

During face-to-face meetings or even over the telephone, advocates can probably be recognized by their expressions and body language.
On the Internet they will express themselves on forums or social media, but there they use a nickname, thus not traceable.
On your website they will probably have a different behavior as they probably search for information differently. In order to recognize the potential advocates, you need to reference them with your other advocates. Thus the more you know about the habits and behavior of people on your B2B website, the more likely to spot one. Remains the problem how to get into a communication with them?
Technology can help you to get company name, pages visited and number of returnign visits by unique customer, but pin pointing to the exact person needs more or a two way communication.

You need to treat the advocates differently than normal customers as they are more interested in content and value. They might even need a story which they can enhance with their own experiences.
However there is probably no golden rule how to obtain advocates.
Some companies seem to get easier advocates than others.
The underdog, having good products, has more chance to win advocates. (Apple versus Microsoft)

Viral selling in B2B

In some cases because your product is so great or the business proposition is so compelling, people will become advocates without any problem as they can put themselves into the spotlight.
This is viral marketing in B2B.

However for 99% of all B2B products this doesn’t work, as most of the products or solutions hardly differentiate (like industrial soap).
Businesses buy in most cases standard, controlled or even certified products or services.

Just try and aim

If you don’t try, then you have to wait until it happens naturally or never.
Thus you better aim to get advocates by making available: information, content and facts.
Stay informed what is happening on your website, as this has become the first source of information for advocates.

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