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It's every company's dream... having a community of customers who are so devoted to your company that they market to and evangelize among other members of their community—customers who feel a sense of ownership in your company and want to spread your message to others.

Such strong bonds between companies and their communities of customers aren't the norm, and they cannot be developed without great planning and dedication. But for companies that are willing to embrace and empower their communities, the results can be magical.

Here are five companies that have embraced their community of customers as their marketing partners.

1. Fiskars

Fiskars makes scissors that are pretty popular with scrapbookers. So Fiskars decided to go into the scrapbooking community and find members who were using Fiskars scissors in their scrapbooking.

After identifying these community members, it then created the "Fiskateers," a group of brand ambassadors for Fiskars. Then Fiskars set up these four Fiskateers—Stephenie, Holly, Cheryl, and May—with a Web site and their own blog. There, the Fiskateers blog about their crafting and scrapbooking projects, how Fiskars products are helping them complete their projects, and life in general.

Spike Jones at Brains on Fire, the agency that worked with Fiskars to implement this ambassador program, explains why this works:

And the key part of the movement was to find those passionate people, give them the online and offline tools and opportunities to talk to one another (and also reach out to potential kindred spirits) and then get out of the way. Sure, we expected a lot of things to happen. But even in its infancy, it's gone far beyond what I ever imagined.

Now, unprompted, these passionate advocates are creating their own marketing tools. They are stepping up and taking ownership in an international brand.

2. Maker's Mark

Since the 1980s, the Kentucky distillery has always embraced its network of brand ambassadors as true marketing partners for its products.

The CEO, Bill Samuels Jr., knew he could stay in constant contact with his Kentucky base of evangelists, but wanted a way to keep his community across the country inspired to continue to market for the company. So Maker's Mark created an ambassador program for evangelists, who would promise to continue to spread the Maker's Mark message to other community members and also encourage bars to start carrying the Maker's Mark brand. In return, the name of each ambassador would be featured on a barrel of the whiskey, which takes six years to ferment.

Maker's Mark took an activity that these evangelists were already engaging in (word of mouth about Maker's Mark) and in return gave them a sense of ownership in the brand, and personalized their input into the product. This goes to the heart of the concept of empowering your community.

3. Mozilla

To help promote its new Firefox browser, Mozilla created a community of evangelists called "Spread Firefox." A Web site was created for the community in the summer of 2004, and in October Mozilla announced that it was planning on running an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal promoting the release of Firefox 1.0. The advertisement would be funded by members of the Spread Firefox community, and all community members would have their names listed in the ad.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Mack Collier

Mack Collier is a social-media strategist based in Alabama. He helps companies build programs and initiatives that let them better connect with their customers and advocates. His podcast, The Fan-Damn-Tastic Marketing Show, discusses ways that brands can turn customers into fans. His first book, Think Like a Rock Star: How to Create Social Media and Marketing Strategies That Turn Customers Into Fans, was published in April 2013 by McGraw-Hill.

Twitter: @MackCollier

LinkedIn: Mack Collier