There is nothing more powerful-and useful for your brand-than converting your customers into brand evangelists. These are customers who will take every opportunity to recommend your business to their friends, families, business partners, tennis coach, and anyone else who will listen.

Unfortunately, the process of creating such evangelists has long been something of a mystery. In the absence of a clear plan, many digital marketers have become overly reliant on incorrectly received wisdom. They've known for a long time, for instance, that digital marketing increases online engagement and that marketing automation makes this process even more efficient. Yet, recent research indicates personalized content marketing-on its own-is less effective than we might think for creating brand evangelists.

Instead, it appears, it's most powerful when combined with personalized service: providing a unique, relevant experience for each customer. These systems can be implemented via an automated segmentation system, or simply through motivated customer advisors, but they all aim at the same thing – making sure that each customer gets exactly what's or she wants from your organization.

In this article, we'll take a look at this research and think about what it means for companies looking to create brand evangelists.