How To Find Brand Ambassadors For Your Niche

Updated: April 17, 2025 11 min read

Lucas Shaff

Editor

Brands need people on their side – individuals willing to go out of their way to support their cause online and in person.

But where can you find these people? It’s not always obvious.

You might see some users talking about your brand positively on social media. But are they the right choice?

Fortunately, this post has answers. We look at how to find brand ambassadors for your brand and keep them.

TL;DR

Brand ambassadors are a powerful tool to promote your services.
To find brand ambassadors look amongst your customers, fans, and employees. Or leverage creator platforms like Billo to generate UGC.
To set up a successful brand ambassador program set the expectations, define goals, perform reach out, and track results.

The Benefits Of A Robust Ambassador Program

But before we get started, it’s worth exploring why you might want to initiate a brand ambassador program. What’s in it for you?

The primary benefit of brand ambassador program for young companies and startups is the amplification of your voice. Leveraging brand ambassadors gets your message in front of more people.

Establishing a network of brand ambassadors assists in building authentic connections with your audience.

Familiar faces stand behind your products and services, establishing an emotional connection with followers.
Customers feel you are reaching out to them on a deeper level than if you relied on slick corporate messaging alone.

Furthermore, because there is more of a conversation, there’s an opportunity to gain valuable insights about what customers want. Ambassadors are more likely to engage in two-way conversations with them, getting to the root of their pain points and issues.

Where to Look for Brand Ambassadors?

Having brand ambassadors is great, but who are the perfect candidates to represent your brand? You may think the options are limited. In reality, even the smallest companies have quite a large pool of candidates to pick from.

Here are some of the most popular ways to find brand ambassadors:

1. Influencer marketing platforms

One of the easiest ways to go forward is utilizing a specialized marketing platform. Here you can sort through various key opinion leaders and find the ones right for your brand.

The services are paid, but you get a quick turnaround and don’t need to have a large following to secure brand mentions. Services like Billo are great places to look for content creators.

Billo UGC platform

2. Use your social media followers

For more established brands, that have attained some social media following another great option is to reach out to those followers. They already like and follow your brand, so are more likely to promote it.

3. Leverage social media mentions

Alternatively, you can look for your brand mentions on social media. People who post positive ones, will be your ideal candidates for becoming brand ambassadors.

Review their profiles, find the ones that match your interest, and reach out. Likely they are already waiting for your message.

4. Reach out to your favorite influencers, YouTubers, and bloggers

Another idea on how to find brand ambassadors is reaching out to your favorite influencers. Keep in mind, that with this approach you will have to put in more effort in actually reaching the people. They likely get a lot of messages and it will take some time to get through all of them.

Make sure you are not limiting the outreach to a single platform or few people. Cast a wide net and see what you can catch. Ninety-three percent of influencers are willing to work with brands for free as long as they love the product, so the cost is usually low. Nevertheless, you can still offer a commission to incentivize them if it would help.

5. Look within and ask your employees

Now that we covered those outside your company, let’s turn the game back around. People within your company can be some of the best brand ambassadors. They already know the product, what are the key selling points, and most likely are passionate about communicating it’s benefits.

6. Utilize your mailing list

Another great resource in how to find brand ambassadors is your mailing list. Think about it, it contains your customers, brand enthusiasts, and partners. So why not send them an open invitation to apply for a brand ambassador position.

7. Turn your customers into ambassadors

A bit of an obvious one, but what about your customers? Those happy with the product, are likely already recommending it to their peers. So, making the switch to become a brand ambassador is easy.

They will also likely become more loyal to the brand, which in itself is a great benefit.

8. Create an application form on your website

Lastly, keep an open invitation or form on your website. Make it easy for people to find it and apply. You will be surprised by how many collaborations such an approach can guarantee over time.

How to Find Brand Ambassadors For Your Niche: The Full Process

Now that we covered where you can look for brand ambassadors, what does the process actually look like.

The answer to how to find brand ambassadors is actually comprised out of several steps:

1. Write Down Your Ideal Brand Advocate

First, write down your ideal brand ambassador. This person won’t exist in reality. However, describing them can help create a profile for them so you know who to target in your recruitment campaign.

The perfect candidate should embody your brand’s values and messaging and their attitude should match what you stand for (or get close to it).

Don’t go looking for brand ambassadors with different opinions or ethics from you. Disparities could damage your brand and leave you worse off.

Brand ambassadors should also share a similar target audience as you. You want partners who can expand your outreach to high-quality leads instead of irrelevant third parties.

Other characteristics you want include:

Individuals who genuinely love your brand and want to support you (perhaps because they’ve enjoyed your products and services in the past)
Ambassadors who have large, relevant audiences and are willing to share brand-related content with them
Ambassadors who understand how your brand operates and your commercial goals

Usually, finding ambassadors with similar audiences is fairly straightforward – just search for those posting in your niche. However, it’s harder if your products or services don’t fit well into established categories.

Focus on finding complementary ambassadors in these cases whose audiences care about what you want to sell.

2. Choose Outreach Strategies To Find Brand Champions

Once you have a decent idea of your ideal brand ambassador, the next step is to reach out to them. But how should you do that?

We already discussed which type of people are the best candidates for becoming brand ambassadors, but keep in mind that each group will require a slightly different reach out approach.

When reaching out to brand ambassadors, hit them with a compelling call to action. Encourage them to take the next step by promising them something tangible. For example, you might say something like “Sign up today and start earning commission immediately” or “Sign up to get a special audience discount code.” Treating them like regular users can help get the ball rolling.

3. Design Your Application Process

Next, design a robust application process to ensure only people who love your brand can represent you. The best way to do this is with an online form.

You could include fields covering:

Basic information (such as their name and address)
Their love of your products/services and why they want to champion you
Data relating to your content creation skills (perhaps from previous posts)
The ability to use marketing and outreach tools to get their message heard
How much time do they have available to dedicate to your brand (most prospective ambassadors will have full-time jobs or commitments to other companies)

You can also reach out to brand ambassadors in person. Connecting with people in this way lets you gather the same information you would on the form. However, it also makes the interaction more personal and shows them you care about working with them.

Send prospective ambassadors emails acknowledging their interest in working with you if they apply. Tell them how long the selection will take and when you will talk to them again – usually one to two weeks.

During this effort, also ensure you have adequate selection criteria in place. Know what you want from your ambassadors (and what you don’t).

Some brands allow anyone and everyone to work with them. However, most companies benefit most by being selective. After all, partners are risky and could pollute your brand if you get the selection wrong.

4. Onboard And Equip Your Brand Ambassadors

After you decide on the new ambassadors you want to work with, it’s time to onboard and equip them. But how can you do that effectively?

Start with an impressive introduction, telling brand ambassadors about the perks of working with you. Pitch ambassadorship as being a member of an exclusive club – something only a minority of people are part of. (For example, your brand might only have 200 people on its internal newsletter email list).

Next, provide ambassadors with program guidelines – what they need to do to represent your brand in the best possible light. For example, you might instruct them to:

Review your products on your website to ensure they understand them
Follow the marketing strategies you outline
Respond to customer queries in specific ways on social media
Add your brand’s tone of voice into their outreach efforts
Provide balanced advice to customers

Issuing a list of instructions reduces the risk of brand damage and lets ambassadors know how they should represent you. Remember, many of them won’t have done any marketing or social media outreach before and will need clear guidelines on how to proceed.

5. Provide guidance

Finally, always provide ambassadors with plenty of resources and support on how to be a brand ambassador. Giving them the tools they require to succeed helps them promote you online, increasing your return on investment.

The tools you provide depend on your niche and could include:

Product demo videos showing ambassadors and micro-influencers the proper way for customers to use what you sell
Information regarding your brand story and mission so influencers can relay these data to their audiences
Frequently asked questions running through the most common queries (so ambassadors don’t take up your team’s time)
Brand assets like digital files containing your logos and templates
Ambassador discount coupons or codes for extra money off products online
Brand portals where ambassadors can access the materials they require from a single location
Mentorship program to help brand ambassadors work more effectively on behalf of your organization
Check-ins and meet-ups to help them feel like part of the community
Webinars to speak to executives and other brand leaders about strategy and direction
Performance-related tools to see commission and bonuses earned over time
Templates for blogs, social media posts, and web pages to improve brand recognition

Don’t feel restricted to this list, though. If you can think of another way to support your brand ambassadors cost-effectively then do.

6. Build Loyalty And Engagement

Once ambassadors are working for you, sales should transform from a trickle to a torrent. However, proceeding cautiously is still essential: your highest-performing ambassadors could leave at any time.

The simplest (and cheapest) way to retain people is to maintain communication with them. Setting up a weekly email schedule or call-in keeps them up-to-date and makes them feel involved.

During communications ensure you keep them apprised of everything they need to know. Talk about program updates and brand news, including any exciting new initiatives you want to explore. Help them with content inspiration and guidance if they can’t think of new angles.

Make sure you leverage the power of recognition, too. Organizations with robust recognition programs in place experience a voluntary 31% lower turnover rate.

When delivering recognition, offer a combination of public praise and exclusive incentives. For example, mention them in your upcoming newsletter and give them an extra 15% on top of their existing commission.

At the same time, ensure you dedicate some of the interaction to a question-and-answer session. Give brand ambassadors the space to ask relevant questions and get ideas off their chest. Engaging in two-way conversations makes them feel loved and appreciated.

Finally, encourage ambassadors to generate content themselves. Put them to work on interesting projects that motivate them.

You could do this by:

Providing them with a content calendar and getting them to fill in the blanks
Developing a brand asset library containing images, video, and other materials they can use to create pieces to share with their audiences quickly
Setting up ambassador groups on social media where they can share their latest ideas and get feedback on their published work
Offering incentives and performance-based rewards to encourage them to spend more time developing and generating content
Rating one ambassador as “ambassador of the month” based on their performance metrics
Encouraging ambassadors to tailor their content to their audiences’ unique requirements and styles

Ambassadors can sometimes run hot and cold because they are not regular employees. Therefore, encouraging activities like these are essential. Supporting your brand should feel intrinsic and something your partners want to do naturally. The more ambassador-generated content you can create, the better.

7. Measure Your Success

The last step brands looking for ambassadors use is measuring their success. After all, running these campaigns can be expensive.

To do this, you can leverage relevant key performance indicators (KPIs), such as performance data. These should reflect the goals of your campaign. Suitable metrics include:

The number of sales ambassadors generate (via their codes)
The average order value (and whether it increases when it comes through an ambassador)
Click-through rates on ambassador content
Mentions in the media generated by ambassador activities
Growth in the number of people following you on social media
The amount of website traffic you are receiving
The cost per acquisition (how much it costs you to bring in a new customer via the ambassador program)

Fortunately, you don’t need to collect these metrics by hand (an impossible task). If you are using a platform like Billo, such information is provided for each creator automatically.

Otherwise, software tools can do it for you.

Decent tools include:

Google Analytics for website analysis (and seeing where your customers come from)
Google Forms (for creating forms you can use for surveys)
Hootsuite for tracking the performance of brand ambassador content on social media

Continue learning:

Brands that use brand ambassadors

Numerous brands have successful ambassador programs in place you can emulate. For example, Microsoft’s Xbox built one of the best campaigns in history when it faced stiff competition from PlayStation and Nintendo in 2001. The company saw the future of gaming was online, so it encouraged fans to join its team and make experiences more fun for everyone by building a community.

Incredibly, that happened and now Xbox offers more support than any other console. Gamers participate in designing and creating new titles along with developers and engineers.

Looking for UGC platform to source brand ambassadors?

Check out the Billo database with over 5000 creators in the US, Canada, UK, and Australia.