How to incorporate employee advocacy in event marketing
Employee advocacy is a powerful strategy that can generate many benefits for companies that consistently use it as an additional promotional channel to propagate company news, branding initiatives, and content. But at its core, advocacy is also an effective lead generation tool, which you can use to maximize your marketing efforts, particularly in your event marketing campaigns.
Why employee advocacy helps you generate leads
Let’s first take a step back and look at the numbers to determine why it is a good idea to leverage employee advocacy to promote events and generate more leads.
- On average, the overall network of company employees is at least 10x larger than a company's follower base (Source: LinkedIn Business).
- Nearly 64% of advocates in a formal program credited employee advocacy with attracting and developing new businesses (Source: Hinge Research Institute & Social Media Today).
- When messages are shared by employees, companies can achieve up to more than 5x the reach (Source: Hinge Marketing). We typically see that, because of their trustworthiness, those employees also convert better in later stages of the funnel.
I typically talk about reach as a vanity metric, but reach is still very important on social media. Reach is the starting point, making the rest possible: conversions, clicks, subscribers or attendees, turning ts into leads and new business.
Expanding social media reach is not just about doing that; it’s also about reaching the right audience to do that. As a company, you want to build credibility and brand trust, and the power of personal recommendation, as we like to call it, is crucial to attracting the right people.
How to promote events via employee advocacy
When it comes to promoting events—whether virtual or in-person—employee advocacy can be a game changer in amplifying your reach and driving more targeted engagement. Incorporating employee advocacy into your traditional marketing strategy not only increases the visibility of your events but also taps into the trust and authenticity that employees bring when sharing content with their personal networks.
By empowering employees to act as advocates, you create a ripple effect, extending the event’s promotion beyond your usual marketing channels and into the hands of a broader, more diverse audience.
Two effective ways to integrate employee advocacy into your event promotion strategy are affiliate link campaigns and referral campaigns. Both of these campaign types, when supported by an advanced advocacy platform like Ambassify, enable you to harness the collective power of your workforce while closely aligning with your lead generation goals.
The Affiliate link campaign
On the Ambassify platform, the Affiliate campaign enables you to share a specific content piece with your community that contains an individual tracking link unique to each member of your Ambassify community. This link allows you to track the number of clicks and interactions the content piece receives.
Practically speaking, your ambassadors just click on the LinkedIn button, and the webinar promotional post is automatically shared on LinkedIn. More importantly, through conversion pixels, you can automatically and completely track the performance of those posts via the Ambassify platform (and see who brought in new subscribers into the webinar).
Affiliate link campaigns in Ambassify
The Referral campaign
Alternatively, the Referral campaign allows your advocates to refer someone by filling in their contact details and/or sharing a referral link. When you share the referral link, the receiver must fill in their contact details themselves.
While an Affiliate campaign requires the page you share to contain the tracking code, a Referral does not. These campaigns are typically used, of course, for events and webinars but also to build your customer base, recruit new team members, etc.
Let’s take it one step further: crowdsourcing events
If you want to maximize employee advocacy’s potential, consider taking it a step further by incorporating crowdsourcing into your event planning strategy. Crowdsourcing through advocacy platforms not only increases engagement but also provides attendees with a sense of ownership and active involvement in shaping the event. This can significantly enhance attendee buy-in, drive participation, and boost overall satisfaction.
By using an advocacy platform, potential attendees can be invited to contribute to the planning and decision-making process. This could include gathering their input on critical aspects with different campaigns focused on specific topics:
Which speaker do you prefer (list)?
Which topic should be addressed by that speaker (selection of topics)?
Which location do you prefer (options)?
Catering preferences (options)?
Why should you crowdsource via an employee advocacy platform?
Such personalized engagement transforms passive audience members into active contributors, ensuring the event meets their expectations and interests.
The main advantages of this approach are two: first, it enables you to tailor the event more closely to the desires of your target audience, making it more relevant and compelling. Second, it empowers your advocates and potential attendees by giving them a voice in the process. This empowerment builds trust and strengthens their commitment to the event, driving higher attendance and greater overall success.
By utilizing employee advocacy in this way, you’re not only leveraging their networks to promote the event but also creating a more dynamic and personalized experience for all involved. It's a bold step that can elevate the entire event marketing strategy and lead to better outcomes, both in terms of lead generation and long-term brand loyalty.