Employee Advocacy Ideas for Your Office Supplies Business
Employees and employee advocacy are two of the most valuable marketing assets a business can have, and if you’re not utilising your employees as a part of an overall marketing strategy you could be missing out on a vital opportunity to drive exposure, build brand awareness and increase revenue.
Employee Advocacy – What is it?
Essentially this is the promotion of an organisation by its staff members. It’s an employee who is an advocate for your office supplies business. Usually, this person is someone who:
- Generates positive exposure and raises awareness for a brand through digital media or offline channels
- Recommends a company’s products or services to a friend or family member
- Represents the best interests of the company both internally and externally
- Helps build employee ownership of the organisation
- Is proficient with your products or services and can be a convincing ambassador for your business
Does Employee Advocacy Matter?
The best employee advocates are known to help attract and retain new customers, boost higher levels of engagement within the company, and increase consumer trust. Encouraging employee advocacy can also demonstrate to your employees that you trust them. And this, in turn, allows you to have a better relationship with your sales agent.
Empowering your employees to advocate on behalf of your brand can breed inspiration and increase loyalty within an organisation. This can also increase internal employee engagement and foster communication between team members and management.
Your brand is your culture; your culture is your brand
‘Offline’ employee advocacy is important; this is attained when you have a corporate culture that reflects the ideals and values of your employees. Creating a company culture affects more than just a company’s employees; it directly impacts financial performance.
Once a great company culture is established, employee advocates will come naturally. Some “traditional” ways of promoting employee advocacy offline are:
Free swag
Giving out promotional items such as t-shirts, key fobs, water bottles, backpacks, etc. to your team can be an extremely effective tactic. Any time an employee wears a t-shirt or uses their water bottle, they are advocating on behalf of your brand!
Have company outings and get-togethers that are worth talking about
Hosting Theme Nights or organising trips out as well celebrating special dates where all employees and their spouses/families are invited will surely be talked about outside of the event itself. This is a great way to build brand identity and promote a great company culture. This is also a great employee motivation idea too.
Incentivisation
People crave recognition. Taking the time to recognise employees who perform well can also be extremely beneficial for business. Time set aside during team meetings for a public commendation of employees is a great way to recognise hard work, and a surefire method to create employee advocates. If one of your team has made the most sales in the month or improved sales of products in a declining category, take the time to thank and praise them for this.
Promote self-care at work
Let’s face it; work can be a stressful environment. Encouraging team members to take a few minutes for themselves throughout the workday has shown to be extremely successful. Whether it’s holding weekly yoga classes or getting an office table tennis table, there are countless ways to help reduce stress. Take care of your employees, and they will take care of you.
Space age Employee Advocacy
The above methods of cultivating employee advocacy are still widely used, but with digital media becoming such an essential part of a business’s marketing strategy, more and more employers are realising the benefits of having an “online” employee advocacy program.
People are talking about brands online, and employers can utilise blogging platforms and social media networks to join in the conversation and have meaningful interactions with potential and current customers, this can be summed up in two words: Reach and Trust.
Reach
Personal network accounts have the potential to greatly expand a brand’s reach on social media, having a much bigger digital footprint than that of the brand.
While most major brands focus their strategy on Twitter and Facebook, their employees are using a plethora of other networks, which allows for a much higher level of brand exposure. Studies show team members can have 10x more followers than corporate social accounts.
By utilising your employees’ social media networks, you have the ability to reach a much larger audience and have your message be seen by exponentially more people. If your sales team are out to meet a client, why not encourage them to tag the colleague they’re off to meet or take a picture when you are in their office and post it online later to encourage your customers as well as your staff to share your brand message.
Trust
Brands can only do well with social employee advocacy when they trust their employees. Never force your employees—this will only backfire in the long run. Employees need to be trusted to use social networks for professional reasons during work.
This will provide customers with real, meaningful interactions with individuals. People trust other people; it’s as simple as that, consumers around the world agree that “earned media,” such as recommendations from family and friends, is more trustworthy than information from individuals who are just the public face of the brand.
Employee advocates create brand advocates, and brand advocates are no longer a ‘nice to have,’ they are a ‘must have.’
If you enjoyed this article, you might also like to read about our top tips on employee engagement or take a look at our latest dealer video case study about Stylus Stationers partnership with us.
