Building Sustainable Customer Advocacy Programs | Carlos Gonzalez

Build a Scalable & Aligned Customer Advocacy Program

In this short video, CMA expert, Carlos Gonzalez, shares the importance of a strong customer advocacy program and how ReferenceEdge can help you build and scale a sustainable customer advocacy program.

Why Customer Advocacy Matters

Modern buyers lean heavily on peer experiences, referrals, and authentic customer voices — making customer advocates a strategic asset, not just a “nice-to-have.” Without a system to continuously identify, recruit, and engage advocates, programs tend to be reactive, scrambling to fulfill ad-hoc requests rather than proactively building a strong pool.

Defining Your Advocate Needs

Think intentionally about which types of advocates you need:

• Segment: by industry, region, product use case.
• Activity: speaking at events, doing reference calls, appearing in case studies or videos.
• Persona: technical users, business execs, practitioners — what your stakeholders need most.
  

Estimate your “true need” — not based on a vanity % of your customer base, but on what your business goals (sales, marketing, success) actually require.

Recruiting Methods for Advocates

Carlos outlines several channels to recruit advocates, each with pros and cons:

Through Sales

Pros: Sales teams know the customers well, can warm-introduce good advocate candidates.

Cons: Sales may see it as extra work or may not be incentivized to help.

Customer Success (CS)

Pros: CS has deep relationships, understands customer health.

Cons: CS may not be measured on advocacy, so prioritizing advocate recruitment might not feel aligned to their KPIs.

Direct to Customers

Use satisfaction/NPS surveys to identify highly satisfied customers.
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Engage them via email or campaign automation.

User Events / Conferences

Use your company’s event presence (user conference, booth) to identify and recruit advocates.

Film short videos or collect testimonials during the event.

Executives

Leverage executive-to-executive relationships for high-profile, strategic advocate activities.

Marketing Team

Partner with your PR, content, events, and RFP teams — they already interact with customers and may have relationships with potential advocates.

AI / Data-Driven Methods

Use AI to scan customer sentiment data (e.g., from survey comments, call transcripts) and flag potential advocates.

But: quality control is important — not all “good sentiment” equals a good advocate.

Program Structure & Adoption

• Align sales, marketing, customer success, and support around a shared advocacy framework to avoid silos.
• Embed advocacy activities directly into your CRM workflows (e.g., Salesforce) so they become part of everyday processes.
• Identify and recruit the right advocates using data (e.g., by analyzing usage, satisfaction, or business impact).
• Track advocate engagement and business metrics: link advocacy to revenue influence, win-rate lift, and support deflection.
  

Measuring ROI & Communicating Impact

• Use structured dashboards to report on: advocate growth, activation rates, and business impact (pipeline, deal influence).
• Monitor advocate fatigue to avoid overuse, and track how often each advocate is requested.
• Report regularly to leadership (e.g., weekly to CMO, quarterly to Sales/Marketing leadership) to keep advocacy top-of-mind.
  

Best Practices for Scaling

• Start with a clear, aligned strategy: define what success looks like, who your advocates are, and how you’ll engage them.
• Don’t rely on one recruiting method — use a mix of Sales, CS, direct outreach, events, and AI.
• Integrate advocacy into core systems (CRM) to ensure adoption and accountability.
• Continuously iterate based on feedback from both your advocates and internal stakeholders.
• Make the value visible — show how advocacy drives business results, not just “feel-good” stories.

Learn how using ReferenceEdge you can build and scale your customer advocacy program.