Every month, over 220,000 unique experts log on to the ExpertVoice platform. We dug into our audience insights to deeply understand our members— where they work, play and what they're passionate about. Data from the platform tells us how often experts jump on just to learn or provide feedback vs. logging in to shop for new products. (Spoiler: In August alone 62,434 experts engaged in some form of education without ever purchasing.)

Sometimes it’s nice to step out of our data-laden world and get to know a little bit more about the individuals themselves. Here are a few nuggets we learned this year that might be helpful as you think about your next big product launch and how to activate and interact with your expert audiences to develop deeper advocacy.

First, some fun demographic updates:

• 55% of the ExpertVoice audience are parents to future experts - so chances are 1 in 2 of the experts you engage can provide valuable insights about how your products perform with children.
• Almost half of our audience has a household income of over $100,000, which is valuable info for those of you with high price point items. 
• No matter the category, there is strong universal interest in the following activities: walking, hiking, general fitness and travel. Translation: if you have a product that services one of these activities or you are considering entering one of those markets, you might want to engage additional audiences to gather new insights and perspectives.

The nitty-gritty about the experts’ experience:

• 55% of our audience give a verbal recommendation at least once per week, with 24% of them giving multiple recommendations every week. PS - Experts are twice as likely to recommend your brand after engaging with it on ExpertVoice—think about what you can do to boost the number of recommendations about your brands with this already active audience!
• 45% of experts still visit another website to do research and read product reviews… and these are experts. Think about your standard consumer—are you gathering quality, trusted reviews and displaying them in as many places as possible to help them make a better buying decision?
• 88% of experts use ExpertVoice as their learning platform of choice. 
• Experts are knowledge hungry - 39% of retail experts spend at least 8 hours every month on education, with 29% of nutrition experts researching brands at least once daily.  

78% of experts are reading about or researching topics related to brands at least once a month. These experts are hungry for information. Do you have a strategy to always be sharing new information about your brand and products?

94% of experts have discovered new brands through ExpertVoice with 49% expressing they have discovered more than 4 new brands. What does this mean for you? If you are a newer or smaller brand, have a strategy to catch their attention and offer a compelling incentive - experts are willing to explore beyond the brands they already know.

Activate your brand advocates. 

As Communities become more prevalent on ExpertVoice, we were curious to hear what kind of activities experts want to participate in. If you’re thinking about developing a brand ambassador program or another type of community, here are some ideas to get you started:

Long story short, if you do the work to recruit and vet the right members for your community, there are endless ways to activate them on behalf of your brand.

Do these audience insights have your wheels turning about how to evolve your brand advocacy program? Has it spurred other questions we should include in our next audience deep dive? We want to hear your thoughts. Reach out to your account executive or submit it here.