The Advocacy Base in the Sand-Mill Model

Often I am asked: is the Advocacy Base the final stage of the Sand-Mill Model?

The answer is no.
And, above all, the Advocacy Base is not a phase.

In this article we will see in detail what the Advocacy Base is and how it works.

What is the Base of Advocacy of the Sand-Mill Model

Users navigating the Sea of Micro-Moments are attracted to content that becomes points of contact with the brands that produced them.
By building a Funnel, companies can attract interested users and convert them into customers by creating paths through Marketing Automation, as you can delve into by analyzing the role of Funnel in the Sand-Mill Model.

However, we must remember that users do not only encounter brands in touch-points built by companies.

Brands can also be protagonists of user-generated touch-points.

It is these touch-points that constitute the Basis of Advocacy.

User-generated touch-points

Leads in the Funnel, customers in the Wheel, and even followers on social media, can be encouraged to generate one or more of these touch points.

In traditional funnel approaches, engagement in advocacy activities was considered the prerogative of a small subgroup of satisfied buyers, who, before acting as activists and defenders of the brand, demonstrate their loyalty through repurchase, considered a prerequisite for advocacy.

At this point it should be clear: in the Sand-Mill Model, advocacy is not a phase.

Without leaving their position, the leads in the Funnel and the clients in the Wheel of Reacquisition can create new contact points that will form the Advocacy Base, increasing its size.

The touch-points performing this function are characterized by a positive sentiment towards the brand: they convey a high level of engagement and trust towards the brand, ensuring strength to the business.

Esempi di touch-point nella Base dell’Advocacy

A user satisfied with the relationship with a brand may become a supporter, showing various shades of activism.

In the uniqueness of their own journey, each consumer can give different weight to the relationship with the company.

• There are those who gather in communities built around the brand to share experiences, generate content, offer and receive help.
• Some users will be active in discussions and ready to defend the brand from any opponents with their comments.
• Others will gladly write a review or a testimonial
• There are those who will simply be willing to recommend it to acquaintances if prompted
• Those who can't wait to show off your product in a story on social networks
• Those who will show their support simply with a like or a share on social

What all these activities have in common is the positive sentiment, which leads to perceiving the brand as if it were a friend.

The touch-points generated by users in the Advocacy Base are of very high value: through those who know and support it, the brand can (indirectly) come into contact with new potential customers, starting new relationships.

It is clear that being "shared" spontaneously by a consumer with their social circle represents great value for brands: 92% of users trust recommendations from their network on social media more than advertising (Nielsen, 2015).

The virtuous circle of advocacy

Social networks are a fertile ground to fuel these processes: a brand's supporter base can generate touchpoints through which new users, immersed in the Sea of Micro-Moments, will have the opportunity to get to know the brand and approach the Funnel.

This results in a double virtuous circle.
Word of mouth is able to bring new potential customers into the Funnel, the path that has already been paved for them.
Moreover, in the era of connectivity, the initial attractiveness of a brand is influenced by the community surrounding the customer, and it affects the determination of the final attitude (Kotler et al., 2016). As a result, many seemingly personal decisions are actually social decisions.

It is for this reason that the model is completely immersed in the Sea of Micro-Moments and that users in the Funnel and in the Wheel have the opportunity to "touch" and "contaminate" with their touch-points other consumers engaged in "navigating" in the Sea.

Continuing the metaphor, if a strong current forms in the Sea, represented by satisfied customers who become advocates, there is a greater attractive power of the Funnel due to the proven ability of communities to influence the final attitude of those who come into contact with them.

Stimulating the creation of Touch-points

It is now clear that users' storytelling of positive stories about their direct experiences with a brand is a form of communication more powerful than any advertising.

To stimulate behaviors of this kind, brands can produce content internally and use call-to-action to encourage users to share them with their social network.

In most cases, brand advocates are passive and do not spend much time building touch-points such as reviews, testimonials, user-generated content, and social media posts.
Sometimes they are triggered by external stimuli, such as reading a negative word-of-mouth that does not reflect the (positive) experience they have had. When they encounter such a stimulus, some users feel compelled to recommend and defend the brands they love.

However, companies that want to benefit from a solid Advocacy Base can develop strategies to prompt users to action with explicit requests and maybe some incentives.

There are several marketing tools and strategies aimed at stimulating such behaviors, for example:

• Implementation of Referral Programs
• Brand Ambassador Programs
• Automations to obtain reviews and testimonials
• Creating Brand Communities
• Contests and competitions to stimulate the creation of user-generated content

Today, the number of brand advocates is not necessarily less than that of actual buyers (as Philip Kotler also explains in Marketing 4.0). Think about Tesla, for example: it has many more supporters than actual customers.

Conclusion

The Advocacy Base has a real support function for the entire system: it ensures the solidity and sustainability of results over time.

Companies, to build a solid Advocacy Base, must transform customers, leads, and followers into brand advocates, in order to make them act as influencers in their social group, generating awareness and stimulating the desire to try the proposed products.

Often brand supporters are passive until they are encouraged to take action; today companies have several opportunities to stimulate word of mouth and go beyond spontaneous word of mouth, maximizing the value of the Advocacy Base.

Identifying which are the most effective user-generated touch-points for our business is the starting point for implementing strategies and automations useful for stimulating its generation.

 

If you are interested in building a solid Advocacy Base in synergy with the other components of the Sand-Mill Model, you cannot miss the Newsletter of the Sand-Mill Model.

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