Brand Evangelism 101

Brand Evangelism - If you’re anything like me when I first saw this phrase, you may be thinking something along the lines of “what does this even mean?”, “how does this apply to me and my business”, or “what is the point?” I can assure you that if your company has a marketing plan in place, Brand Evangelism is relevant. Most likely, you're working to achieve it without realizing it! Strong Brand Evangelism skills are key to a successful Partner Marketing strategy, and we’re going to use this blog to explain why. Let’s get started with a look at what Brand Evangelism means.

What is Brand Evangelism?

Alright yes, Brand Evangelism absolutely sounds like some new wave tech jargon, but its name is a pretty accurate description of what it means. At its core, evangelism is about spreading a message or idea to others. Brand evangelism is about spreading the message about your products and services to your marketing targets. If you do it right — and provide proof you can deliver on your promises — you’ll create a network of brand advocates who will recommend you to other people. Word about your brand spreads and new leads come pouring in without the need for massive direct marketing on your part. Sounds good, right? I bet you’re starting to see why Brand Evangelism is the holy grail of Partner Marketing.

How can we Find Evidence of Brand Evangelism?

So what can partners do to see the results of Brand Evangelism? Some things are easily tracked, opportunities, leads, closed/won revenue. We can easily build out reports in Salesforce to get a better look at what new opportunities we’ve created, leads we’ve acquired, and deals we’ve closed. However, attribution and influence are trickier - In the words of Amanda Nielson, Partner Manager at Formstack, “Attribution is fake, we literally made it up”.

So what does attribution and influence look like with brand Evangelism? Let’s look at an example:

You talk to AE about a deal. You ask the AE who the SE is that’s helping to build the solution and add that SE to Salesforce as a contact on the record. That SE comes back to you a month later asking “hey can you help?” when you've never directly marketed to this person, but you've leveraged SF to track their association to another deal. With that example, you can see how due to the nature of Brand Evangelism there won’t be a one size fits all report in Salesforce to perfectly track this metric. Rather, Brand Evangelism is better tracked by being conscious of the relationships you build with other companies and your prospects.

How bloomly Helps You Supercharge Your Brand Evangelism Efforts

Ultimately brand evangelism is something that bloomly, through partner marketing strategies and familiarity with what gets Salesforce AE’s excited, tries to catalyze internally at Salesforce. The goal is to get Salesforce familiar with your brand not only to recognize you, but to refer you to their coworkers as new opportunities arise. It’s important to realize that to reach a strong level of brand evangelism, a fair amount of elbow grease is necessary. Consistent activity such as emailing, calling, sending customer stories, and most importantly, building relationships are key to building the foundation for brand evangelism at Salesforce. Schedule time with us to learn more about how bloomly’s work can help generate Brand Evangelism for your team.