Creating Customer Evangelists

I'm a big fan of the concept of creating customer evangelists. Over the past several months, I've learned a great deal about the topic from blogging, from reading your posts, and from the authors of Creating Customer Evangelists.

Clearly there's lots and lots to be done to make customers so happy they want to help us sell our products. As a marketer, I think there's always more we can do.

I think the distinction lies in evangelizing ourselves versus encouraging our customers to do it for us. Paid evangelists do a lot (just ask Scoble). Company-sponsored discussion boards and web sites can be vital (MSDN, for example). Sponsoring events can be effective. Even working with celebrities has its place. But what we're talking about is letting the customers--the ones who just love your products or services--do it for you. It's about giving them something to talk about and making it easy for them to do it (even rewarding). It's giving them permission and rewards and social standing (the MVP program). It's removing barriers and maybe just as important not standing in their way.

As with most effective marketing, doing it right is tough, but it seems like it's worth it.