6 Proven Insights for Scaling Brand Advocacy

When a Brand Advocacy program plateaus, it’s usually for the one reason. It was built as a channel, not as a system. The brand recruited for aesthetics, not alignment. They rewarded transactions instead of building belonging.

Beekman 1802 did the opposite, and the results make the case for how to build an Advocacy program that scales. Since launching their Kindness Crew in 2024, the program has grown from 185 to 3,000+ Advocates, drives 45% of total earned media value, and they have never run a single paid ad to drive enrollment.

Jenny Borland, Senior Director of Social & Influencer at Beekman 1802, joined a Duel webinar to share exactly how her team built the Kindness Krew. Here are the 6 lessons you need to know.

1. Start with values, not just tech

Beekman 1802 didn't build the Kindness Crew because Brand Advocacy was trending. They built it because kindness was already the brand's core value, and they wanted to bring it to life at scale.

"We knew when we started the Kindness Crew that we wanted to bring our core value of kindness to life," said Jenny. "That was our first and foremost driving factor."

That matters more than most brands admit. Research from Motista, across 100,000 customers and more than 100 retailers, found that emotionally connected customers have a 306% higher lifetime value and recommend brands at nearly double the rate of satisfied-but-unconnected ones.

Values-based community isn't a soft strategy. It's the structure underneath the numbers.

Business of Fashion identifies three types of community that consistently build genuine brand loyalty in fashion and beauty ("How Brands Build Genuine Communities," April 2025): activity-driven communities built around a shared sport or hobby, personality-driven communities centered on a founder or figure, and values-based communities united by shared beliefs or a common worldview.

Before building a platform, designing challenges, or recruiting a single Advocate, get clear on what your program stands for beyond the product.

2. "On brand" and "brand safe" are not the same, recruit both

This is where first-time Advocacy programs consistently get stuck. While, the instinct to control brand representation is understandable. It's also a limitation.

On-brand Advocates mirror your aesthetics, audience, and tone. They look like the brand.

Brand-safe Advocates love the brand but live in different communities, reach different people, and speak in ways that are different than your core audience.

Programs built with entirely on-brand Advocates are talking to people who already know you. Brand-safe Advocates help you grow.

Beekman 1802 embraces brand safe content, emphasizing quality over “brand-specific” content.

"We really try to honor the individual creator's communities," Jenny said. "They've curated those, they've built those, and we want them to be able to speak authentically to themselves and to their audience."

3. Follower minimums are outdated. Focus on advocates who drive engagement.

Follower counts feel like a quality signal, but it’s more of a comfort blanket.

Today's algorithms surface content based on engagement, relevance, and behavioral signals, not audience size. Duel ran a test with an Advocacy program that accepted advocates with fewer than 1,000 followers on at least one social profile. That cohort generated 33% of the program's total revenue.

"You're missing out on a large pool of revenue and influence by being too exclusive," said Kemar Brown, Brand Success Manager, Duel.

The real challenge with nano and micro creators, as the Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2026 identifies, isn't finding them. It's scaling the infrastructure to support them: intake, vetting, briefing, compliance, asset management, measurement. Miss one layer and the system breaks.

That's an operational problem, not a talent problem. It's also exactly what structured Advocacy platforms are built to solve.

Beekman 1802 uses Duel to run their advocacy program end-to-end, turning creator activity into a repeatable growth engine.

[Read the Full Case Study] How Beekman 1802 empowered its ambassadors to spread kindness and drive over 45% of their EMV]

4. Incentives should reward performance, not just participation

Generosity is essential. Advocates need to feel valued, and they need to feel it early. But remember Jenny’s word of caution: "It's always easier to add than to take away.”

Start with a range of incentives – like free product, early access, founder access, and behind-the-scenes events – that make Advocates feel like insiders rather than contractors. Then build performance into the reward structure.

A 2023 Modash survey found 52% of marketers use multiple commission tiers rather than flat rates. Beekman 1802 does this deliberately.

“I think incentivizing through performance means rewarding people for their video views, rewarding people for the dollars driven,” said Jenny. “It gives a little more incentive to do well. And not to just cross it off the list, but actually do well. So it's a win-win situation.“

Design your reward architecture before launch. Retrofitting it once Advocates have expectations set is harder than building it right the first time.

5. Revenue follows community, not the other way around

Customers might sign up for advocacy programs for free products. But they stay, and become advocates, when the experience adds connection. The bigger the program gets, the more that distinction matters.

Think beyond product gifting: invite advocates to events, give them sneak peeks, and build around a purpose. That sense of insider access and belonging is what converts a member into a long-term advocate.

Effective advocacy programs don’t just reward transactions, they build attachment. The strongest strategies blend value with emotional connection, personalizing incentives to what the customer actually cares about.

It's tempting to measure advocacy programs on revenue from day one, especially when you're trying to secure internal buy-in. But the programs that scale are the ones that put community first.

Kindness Crew Advocates stay connected in a Bumble BFF group chat. Even if there isn’t a product update, community managers check in on everything from the weather to the latest hit song.

There is also a monthly newsletter called “The Kindness Chronicles” for all the members of the Kindness Krew.

Beekman 1802 came to Duel focused on community, not conversion. Two years later, their Kindness Crew is driving 45% of total EMV and consistently supporting major launches.

The community came first. The commercial results followed.

6. Advocacy programs don't run themselves

Advocacy programs can feel like self-running machines once they're live. Challenges are listed and gamification is running. But the programs that sustain engagement are the ones where someone tends to the community.

"How are we engaging them? How are we making them feel like they're our friends that we're talking to – telling about new products and new ideas? Being consistent and creative in how we engage them is what gets them active,” shared Jenny.

That means checking into your group chat even when there's no announcement. It means responding to posts. It means treating advocates like people, not a content pipeline.

The Kindness Crew team has personally met all of their top advocates, by inviting them to local events. They even flew out one advocate to Ulta’s Beauty World.

Today, the advocate program is integrated across the company strategy.

“We have this kind of army that can support us in different things,” said Jenny. “And even if we want to support retail, it’s like, ‘Let's go into Ulta, and let's show the display that we just launched and get people excited in store too.’ We can have them support us on many different channels, but really they're consistently driving to the site through their affiliate links, and we love that.”

Summary

The Advocacy programs that scale are the ones that are built as systems, not campaigns.

Systems have values at the center. They recruit for reach and authenticity, not just aesthetics. They measure engagement over follower counts. They reward performance and build belonging. And they require consistent human energy to sustain.

Advocacy continues to be one of the strongest, most resilient drivers of growth. A 12% increase in customer advocacy can potentially double a company's revenue growth.

[Read More: Statistic Explained: 12% Increase in Advocacy Leads to 2X Increase in Revenue Growth]

Build with creators, tap into existing conversations, and grow traction from the ground up alongside your most passionate fans.

Is your advocacy program built to scale?

Book a call to review your free Brand Advocacy Maturity Score. Find out exactly where you stand across the five pillars that separate programs that scale from ones that stall.