船员

2015年，尽管世界其他地区都集中在如何最好地在社交媒体上推销自己，但艾伦·范托伊（Alan Vantoai）在物理世界中看到了一个机会。大多数营销眼睛都在看什么屏幕可以为他们做什么，Vantoai似乎很明显地意识到人们仍然需要每天进入世界。他推出了船员，作为广告客户经常在街上与观众见面的一种方式。

Crewfire was—and is—an app for managing your brand ambassadors, but in its early years those ambassadors were participating in offline campaigns. Social media post-sharing was also heavily in its DNA, but Crewfire’s differentiator was the way it enabled businesses to find ambassadors within their customer base and incentivize them to bring the brand message out into the world.

But then 2020 happened—you may have heard of something called Covid—and drove the world indoors and decidedly online. Crewfire then made the decision to shift its app’s focus to e-commerce. Note that we use the word “shift” and not “pivot.” That’s because, fundamentally, Crewfire is doing the same thing as it did before—managing brand ambassadors—while not straying at all from its original conceit: meeting audiences where they are. In 2015, Crewfire ambassadors were handing out products and participating in publicity stunts on college campuses and at events. Today, they’re creating content and handing out referral codes and affiliate links on social media channels.

Crewfire still emphasizes community building for brands, it’s only the location of that community that’s changed. Big names like Red Bull and P&G, along with more modestly known brands like Vitae Apparel and Sportsmans Warehouse, all use Crewfire to build and nurture relationships with their customers, converting them to ambassadors who can convert content into sales.

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概括：

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Pricing

像大多数SaaS产品一样，Crewfire提供没有承诺的每月计划，也可以激励年度预付款。提供的三个计划是：

• Starter, $1k/mo ($10k/year if paid annually) —2名管理员可以管理多达500个大使，并拥有无限数量的活动（活动）和奖励。包括自定义品牌和电子邮件和SMS广播。
• Growth, $2k/mo ($20k/year if paid annually) —以上所有内容，但最多可容纳5名管理员和1,500个大使，以及一个定制领域以及连接多个品牌Instagram帐户的能力
• Business, $4k/mo ($40k/year if paid annually) —所有以上所有内容，但最多可容纳10名管理员和多达5,000个大使，以及高级报告和整合

There is also a $1,000 setup fee, which is only waived if you pay for an annual plan. On its own, and without making a judgment as to the software itself, this pricing is on the high side—and the setup fee is not a standard requirement for software like this. Especially at this price point, onboarding and setup should be part of the deal.

Of course, if the software works as promised, you’ll make that money back and then some as ambassadors help you drive sales, and the reporting will very clearly tell you if it was worth the investment.

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细节

Because Crewfire’s focus is on nurturing communities, we’re going to take a different approach in this review and start with the ambassador experience. The idea here is to keep them engaged, so it’s worth finding out if they can deliver on that. Note that Crewfire does not include a search function to find influencers. Ambassadors are going to be people that are your customers, who you will find yourself and invite on to the platform.

我们被告知，尚无机组大使的本地移动应用程序，即将到来。它是一个网络应用程序，但响应迅速，因此，当您从移动设备访问它时，它看起来和感觉本地。他们还设计了将其像社交媒体应用一样工作的经验。加入品牌大使计划的人会发现它的作用很像Facebook组。大使将看到该品牌的帖子提要，还可以从集中页面访问任何内容。如果他们参加了多个计划，他们可以像在社交媒体上一样滚动浏览供稿并查看所有帖子。他们可以喜欢并评论他们，并在品牌页面上发表自己的帖子（品牌请注意：您正在学习大使的反应并激励他们）。

不过，内容品牌在这里分享的不仅是愉快的时光和笑声。使Crewfire成功的核心是其营销活动的游戏化，供稿是他们宣布这些游戏（在平台上被称为活动）以及如何“玩”它们的地方。这是一种更有趣的方式来说这些品牌正在设置广告系列并发布参与条款和条件。大使始终可以在“活动”选项卡中看到当前的广告系列。假设您希望大使通过向他们的朋友和追随者提供优惠券代码来推动销售。他们可以导航到Web应用程序的这一部分以设置其代码（CREWFIRE允许他们创建自己的代码），并且与Shopify，WooCommerce和Magento进行了内置集成以自动化佣金。大使将能够看到他们进行的每笔销售的历史以及总共赚取的佣金。

Activities aren’t just sales based. Again, there’s that focus on community, and Crewfire has included an activity that’s all around engagement. Brands can connect their social accounts; ambassadors can, too. When the brand posts on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, Crewfire sends notifications to ambassadors in their program. They are then rewarded for liking and/or commenting on that post. The brands can set up point systems where ambassadors accumulate points they can redeem for a reward when they have enough. This is a good way to reward them for participating in surveys, too.

There’s a third category of activity that functions more like a traditional influencer marketing campaign, in that you’re getting your ambassadors to create and post content, and speaks to the flexibility of what Crewfire offers. When ambassadors submit their content, it goes through the brand’s portal to make sure that it conforms to the requirements of the campaign. It also gives the brand the chance to reward outstanding work, because you can make a last minute boost and give more than initially promised. On the flipside, they can also decrease the reward. This is something we haven’t seen, but it’s a real nice efficiency that’s built in to Crewfire. Let’s say the ambassador made a small mistake like leaving a hashtag out or has typos in the caption: it’s not really worth the time to decline the content and have them go back and change it and resubmit. You can instead just approve the content but with some deductions.

从品牌方面来说，管理层主要专注于带上大使，然后为他们提供活动。正如我们之前说过的，没有发现功能，尽管这种设置并不像这样的损失。而且有一些令人惊讶的有影响力的关系管理。您可以查看他们的联系信息的摘要，他们的所有内容，佣金，所获得的积分，他们对您在注册期间提出的问题的答案，并且您的团队有空间留下笔记/评论。

但是最大的问题总是在报告。Crewfire的报告非常具体，即平台上发生的情况，也就是说，分析的方式不多。您不会对大使与大使有关的观众了解，甚至对大使在社交媒体上的影响。但这并不是Crewfire试图实现的目标。就建立社区而言，这些工具在那里，报告表明它是否有效。但更重要的是，您将获得有关大使正在驾驶的销售的详细信息，并且不要忘记，当人们从网上购买您时，您就会有新的新兵。

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Conclusion

Crewfire开端来动员品牌mbassadors at the street level has a lot to do with how it’s built out today. It doesn’t look like a lot of influencer marketing platforms because, really, it isn’t. That’s not meant in a negative way: Crewfire is one of the handful of platforms that come at influencer marketing from a different perspective, but it’s one that makes sense. Popular social accounts with big audiences are great, but a lot of brands already have their own popular social accounts with big audiences. Why not focus on that audience instead? Loyal and happy customers are always going to be your best bet for word of mouth, whether that’s out in the real world or done online—and Crewfire makes some very clever use out of that fact.