1. Rachel Jacob
The Customer Evangelist
Rather than preach the Gospel, customer evangelists believe, preach and devote
themselves to their favorite products and services. Another name for a customer
evangelist is a really, really, really loyal customer.
Technology has had a major impact o the strength of the customer evangelist. They visit,
post and create blogs as well as movies pertaining to their favorite companies, products
and services. Customer evangelists are also featured in news for their almost extreme
behavior in the name of ____________. Because of technology and the internet they have
become part of the virtual marketing team.
These evangelists often have a strong affect on undecided users. To do so Steve Rubel
suggests a company, “develop a system to work with your customer evangelists and
enable the willing to spread your message for you.1” This way they voluntarily recruit
friends and family to hop of the bandwagon.
When the customers efforts are truly unique and authentic (evangelical) then their cause
can carry over and have positive affects. These customers created a path on which other
additional loyal customers can feel more comfortable about coming together and growing
the cause.
QuickTimeª and a
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are needed to see this picture.
As the face of marketing continues to change because of technology, being connected
will be important to a company’s success. Firms need to focus on their most passionate
and outspoken customers To move customers up the loyalty ladder much of the focus
must be centered around an effective loyalty strategy. According to McConnel and Huba,
a trait that customer evangelists share are a well defined cause, or something that
1
http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/2005/05/11/the-power-of-customer-
evangelist-marketing

2. customers are willing to share and support. 2
Common strategies held by companies with strong customer evangelist were3:
1. Customer plus-delta: Continuously gather customer feedback
2. Napsterized knowledge: Make it a point to share knowledge freely
3. Build the buzz-Expertly build word of mouth networks
4. Create community: Encourage communities of customers to meet
5. Make bite-sized chunks: Devise specialized, smaller offerings
6. Create a cause: Focus on making the world, or an industry better
Some example of customer evangelists are:
John Winter Smith who is a loyal Starbucks customer whose goal is to visit all the
companies stores throughout the world. As of 2005 he has visited 4,500 stores in North
America and 213 overseas. However, Starbucks didn’t use Smith to their advantage as far
as marketing is concerned.
QuickTimeª and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Another is the increasingly popular Mac cult and the customer evangelists.
In order to gain and maintain strong customer evangelists it is important that a company
takes every opportunity to show the human side of their business. The role of the
evangelist is to make contact with the human being because at the end of the day it is a
person who is buying your product; people who loose site of policies, advertising and
mass emails. In selling loyalty and a brand you need to understand that brands need to be
built for the long haul. 4
2
http://customerevangelists.typepad.com/blog/2005/11/corporate_evang.html
3
Testify: How Remarkable Organizations are Creating Customer Evangelists
4
http://creatingcustomerevangelists.com/resources/evangelists/lynette_chiang.asp