Why Customer Advocacy Programs are key for CMO Success

The only word missing from the title is “Can”—a small omission, but a crucial one. By now, customer advocacy program managers understand that to stay relevant with their executive team, they must tie their efforts to key corporate objectives. This benefits the company, of course, but don’t overlook the personal side. CMOs are looking to shine in their roles. Your program can help elevate their professional success while they, in turn, can boost the visibility and impact of your initiatives.

The Challenge

For some, that may be hard to do. In some companies, those top goals aren’t explicitly shared. If the program manager is new to the space, it may not be obvious how they contribute to leadership’s goals. Staying busy, that’s easy, especially given most programs run on a shoestring. Ensuring program efforts are clearly in support of company goals, and getting those results in front of executives, not so easy. Keeping your head above water is the primary objective.

That said, what happens when leadership knows that the CMA program is part of achieving their goals is the kind of support that results in more resources, not less. In effect, “The program was able to do X with what we have today. If we had [fill in the blank] we could have [2X, 3X, etc.] the impact.”

What CMOs Care About

What are the key priorities by which CMOs are assessed? How can a customer advocacy program directly support those objectives? Let’s explore the top CMO priorities and how aligning your advocacy efforts can help meet both executive expectations and corporate goals.

• Revenue Growth and Pipeline Influence
  CMOs are under pressure to prove marketing’s contribution to revenue. Your advocacy program should align with demand generation, pipeline acceleration, and deal influence. This could include leveraging customer stories in sales cycles or creating case studies that resonate with target accounts. For example:

Your company has a growth goal that is driven by multiple initiatives. They could be new industries for existing products, or new products for existing industries, or a new sales channel, or new geographies, or any number of activities where leadership sees opportunities.

The CMA leader’s mission is to make sure the advocates needed are in the database and ready to go. Not just the right accounts, but the right contacts in the accounts to match up with buyer personas (e.g., technical exec, business exec, technical architect, business line manager, etc.). And the contacts must be able to provide advocate support where needed (e.g., event speakers, reference calls, site visits, etc.).

Building an advocate database is no small effort. Don’t build one that is misaligned with the needs of the business in terms of growth goals. Maintaining an aligned database is equally important. Stay abreast of changes to those growth goals that may occur in the course of the year. You don’t want to be left in the dust and become irrelevant.

• Brand Awareness and Market Differentiation
  CMOs are tasked with building and maintaining a strong brand presence. Customer advocacy can play a vital role in amplifying brand credibility through testimonials, success stories, peer reviews and public speaking engagements. Prioritize programs that turn advocates into brand ambassadors, making your brand stand out in the marketplace.

Not all happy customers are brand ambassadors. Be sure you know exactly what your brand should look like, as personified by your customer advocates. Usually those are your unicorns, using a broad swath of your solution, producing above average results, in the targeted growth segments, and able to articulate the value your solution has delivered to them.

• Customer Retention & Loyalty
  CMOs care deeply about retaining customers and reducing churn. A customer advocacy program should aim to strengthen relationships by recognizing and rewarding advocates, creating opportunities for customers to feel more connected and valued by the brand. This may have a smaller impact on company growth, but most companies with established CMA programs find that members of their advocacy program 1) remain customers longer than the average, 2) increase annual spend at a higher rate, and 3) have an outsized impact, among all marketing activities, on influencing new revenue.

• Market Differentiation
  In a competitive market, CMOs want to stand out. Advocacy can offer unique insights and customer perspectives that differentiate the company, whether through innovative use cases or powerful success stories. Customer-led content and social proof can set the brand apart. There is something about hearing or reading a peer’s real-world experience with a solution that provides the confidence needed to make a buying decision, especially a big purchase. Advocates using your solution in exactly the way your leadership team intended and imagined can tell your differentiation story better than anyone. Be sure your leadership team is sent these stories, in whatever form, so they can feel the strategic power of advocates.

• Digital and Social Engagement
  Many CMOs prioritize digital transformation and social engagement. Advocacy programs should leverage social platforms, digital communities, and online reviews to broaden the company’s reach and engagement. Integrating customer voices into digital campaigns can bolster authenticity and relevance. Because B2B buyers do so much research before contacting a vendor, doing a good job leveraging customer advocates in the most accessible/searchable channels available is essential. Be targeted, don’t put just any advocate into the social sphere. Be sure they project the desired brand image, and specifically support the top company growth initiatives.

• Data and Measurable Impact
  CMOs are highly data-driven, and they expect measurable outcomes from marketing initiatives. Ensure your advocacy program tracks key metrics such as the impact on sales cycles, content engagement rates, and advocate-driven leads. Show clear alignment between advocacy activities and marketing goals.

Customer advocacy programs have the potential to have the best customer data in the company. Why? In a well-managed program this data is cleaner, more accurate and more current than any CRM data, in general. There are many parts of marketing where impact assessment  (i.e., attribution) is difficult, if not impossible. Not so with customer advocacy, if you have the right technology. Just having reliable data for analysis sets your program apart from many, and CMOs prize data-based decision making.

In Summary

Aligning your customer advocacy program with the CMO’s top priorities is essential for demonstrating value and securing executive support. By focusing on revenue growth and pipeline influence, you ensure that your efforts directly contribute to the company’s strategic goals. Building and maintaining a well-aligned advocate database allows you to leverage customers who not only embody your brand’s value proposition but also act as powerful brand ambassadors. Emphasizing customer-centric growth amplifies the voice of the customer, creating a feedback loop that enhances trust and customer experience. Remember, when leadership recognizes that your program is integral to achieving their objectives, it often leads to increased resources and a greater impact on the company’s success. Contact us today to see how ReferenceEdge can help you align your customer advocacy program with your CMO’s top priorities.

‍