Product demos: Should brand ambassadors be recruited from your target audience?
Even though the product is the focus of any demo, it’s the ability of the brand ambassador to engage with your customers which determines whether the demo will be a success or not.
Sarah Curtis, Recruitment Manager at WDS, explains how we ensure our brand ambassadors are the right fit for your brand, and outlines the most important attributes for the job.
Brand ambassadors are the bridge between you and your customers. WDS understands that you could lose sales if the wrong people are chosen to represent your brand. On the other hand, picking the right brand ambassador could win over valuable new customers.
It stands to reason that brand ambassadors need to have a thorough understanding of the product they are showcasing – how the product is made, how it works, what problems it solves and why people need it.
Given the depth of knowledge and understanding required about the product, does it follow that you should be recruiting people from your target audience to be brand ambassadors?
Do customers make good brand ambassadors?
Yes, it can make sense for brands to recruit people from their target audience as brand ambassadors. They’ve had extensive experience of using the product, and will therefore know it inside out. It’s likely that in the past, these people would have used products from your competitors, so they are best placed to explain why yours is superior.
Their passion for the product will come across as genuine which makes it easier for them to build a rapport with the audience. They can also use their in-depth knowledge to devise an effective strategy to demonstrate the product and to close sales.
- You may like: The fine art of conversational selling
All these factors can come into play when recruiting brand ambassadors. Knowledge can be important. But knowledge can be learned and our brand ambassador product training is thorough.
The people who make the best brand ambassadors are the ones who can connect and communicate with their audience. And this is the quality we look for in everyone we recruit to work as a brand ambassador.
The process of recruiting a brand ambassador
For over 30 years we’ve been working with brands to deliver product demos. We’re constantly refining our recruitment process to find the best people. We specifically look for people who are friendly, approachable and who are what we call ‘a people person’.
Interestingly, our hiring managers are always drawn to people who state on their CV that they have drama and theatre experience. This is because they know that these people are comfortable performing on stage and understand how to engage a crowd.
Our recruitment process is split into stages, starting with a phone interview. Someone from our HR team makes the initial contact with the candidate. We use this call to get to know more about them and to ask questions about their interests or what hobbies they have.
This call is also a chance for us to test their communication skills. We sometimes plan unscheduled calls as they are very good at seeing how people cope when they’re caught off-guard.
Being able to think on your feet is an important skill for brand ambassadors to have, particularly as they’ll be asked a torrent of different questions from customers.
If we feel the individual has great communication skills, and in certain instances, if their interests match what the client is looking for, we’ll invite them to a face-to-face interview.
A face-to-face interview enables people to get to know us and find out more about what the role of a brand ambassador involves. It’s also a chance for us to dig deeper and find out more about their interests. We’ll also probe to see if they’re open to learning new skills and how well they take direction.
If we feel someone isn’t quite the right match for this client, we’ll add their details to our ‘Talent Pool’, so they can be invited to be part of future product demos.
WDS Talent Pool
Our Talent Pool is a highly valuable resource and means we can easily match brand ambassadors who have specific interests or skills to a brand or a special event. For example, if you’re a brand in the health and fitness sector, you may want us to use people who are gym users.
When needed, we can also widen our search to target groups with specific interests using social media and other online platforms. This approach is proving to be very successful and a strategy we intend to exploit even more fully in future recruitment campaigns.
In summary, yes – in some instances it can make sense to recruit brand ambassadors from your brand’s target audience. But this is a secondary consideration. The brand ambassadors who get the best results for our clients are the ones who fuse an outgoing personality and first-rate communication skills with a willingness to learn about your product.
Check out our website for further information on our services or to find out how we can help you increase your customer base and sales with a product demo.
