Do your customer references generate demand? One of the many stakeholders of a comprehensive customer reference program is demand generation. The Demand Gen team focuses on the very, very top of the sales funnel, where enticing email campaigns, webinars, and digital marketing are the name of the game.
B2B buyers are bombarded daily with demand gen communications and content. There’s a lot of noise out there, with each company attempting to differentiate itself from the competition. If you’re a customer reference professional, you’d probably be surprised by what a small percentage of messaging includes real customer stories. Yet, it’s common knowledge that customer stories are more emotionally compelling and relatable than vendor-generated solution claims and analyst opinions.
So, why is that? Probably because, like the other reference customer “consumer” in your company, it is difficult finding reference customers who have the desired story. Locating the perfect fit is just as hard for the events and campaign managers as it is for Sales if customer reference information isn’t centralized, clean, accurate, and searchable.
The key to infusing demand gen activities with captivating customer insights is the same as every other possible reference use case — have a formalized and professional customer reference process.
By building a customer reference resource, you remove obstacles and enable the demand gen folks to effortlessly inject communications and messaging with customer stories, which are more emotionally compelling and relatable than vendor-generated solution claims and analyst papers. There is no better source for the experience of “living with” a solution than a peer in an equivalent business setting (industry, size, geo, etc.).
Peer perspective, including customer reviews (short-form customer stories really) submitted to B2B customer review sites such as TrustRadius, G2, Capterra, etc., gives buyers more confidence in your solution and in their own decision methodology. Buyers love performance stats (ROI, increased X by #, decreased X by #, boosted compliance by X, etc.) when evaluating a solution. But those numbers alone lack context. Numbers started in the real world: measurements from real-world actions, real people, and real things that changed. To make those numbers meaningful. enough to generate demand, they must correlate to real-world implications, and stories are excellent for that purpose. Conversely, the numbers give the story credence.
Rather than talk about your company’s best attributes in demand gen efforts, give customers the “microphone” and the spotlight. Each customer has not just one story but lots of story components to share. Those stories generate demand by delivering an authentic voice. They can:
Customer insights can be effectively incorporated at all stages of the customer journey (including retention), but at the top of the funnel, there are plenty of opportunities, including:
The take-away is that a well-run customer reference program can provide extremely valuable resources to power your company’s demand gen efforts. If customer stories are not used generously now, it’s time to provide a better way for advocates to be found, and/or educate co-workers engaged in activities that prime the pump. Sit down with your demand get team to understand what customer stories they’ll need in the coming months based on their targets. Then you need to determine whether or not the customer reference program can supply those required customer stories, and from the necessary persona perspectives (IT, executive, power users, etc.). The demand gen team will appreciate the help, and Sales will appreciate compressed sales cycles and high win rates due to your efforts at the front end of the customer journey. Contact us today to see how we can help.
As this infographic illustrates, a mature advocacy program is responsible for continuously identifying advocates, maintaining accurate advocacy data, protecting customer relationships, and aligning with top company goals to accelerate growth.
The infographic contains six key components. Here's a description of each for you to translate into your own talking points.
Every advocate starts as a customer.
The journey begins when account teams, customer success managers, support teams, and services organizations create positive experiences that build trust and confidence.
As customers achieve success, some become enthusiastic supporters of the company, its products, and its people. These customers are identified as potential advocates and introduced to the advocacy team.
The advocacy team interviews these individuals, learns about their experiences, captures important details about their interests and expertise, and creates a searchable advocate profile.
The result is a discoverable advocate: someone who can be found, matched, and engaged when the business needs credible customer voices.
Without this process, valuable customer relationships remain hidden inside co-workers’ heads or team spreadsheets, unavailable to the broader organization.
Great advocates are rarely discovered by the advocacy team alone. It’s really just too much to ask of any one part of the organization. Every customer touchpoint plays a part in cultivating and retaining advocates.
Customer success managers see customer enthusiasm firsthand. Account teams hear success stories during business reviews. Support teams witness customer loyalty. Product teams interact with passionate users who influence future direction.
A successful advocacy program creates a systematic way for all customer-facing teams to identify and nominate potential advocates, as well as a means for customers to self-identify..
Think of it as building a talent pipeline.
The broader the participation across the organization, the stronger and more diverse the advocate community becomes.
This collective effort ensures the advocacy database reflects the full spectrum of customer success stories across industries, products, geographies, and use cases.
The advocacy team serves as the steward of the organization's advocacy data.
Their responsibilities fall into three primary areas.
First, they recruit continuously. Advocates change jobs, priorities shift, and customer enthusiasm naturally evolves over time. Maintaining a healthy advocacy community requires constant replenishment.
Second, they keep information current. Customer stories, product deployments, business outcomes, and willingness to participate all change. Outdated advocacy data quickly becomes unreliable.
Third, they measure and report value. Advocacy programs must demonstrate their contribution to business outcomes such as customer acquisition, retention, and expansion.
Beyond maintaining records, the advocacy team actively shapes the composition of the database to align with company growth objectives. This is essential if the program is to be seen by executives as a strategic lever vs. a low-level function an intern can run.
If the company’s strategic direction includes expanding into healthcare, launching a new product, selling through a new channel, entering Asia, or targeting a specific buyer persona, the advocacy team ensures the advocate population evolves accordingly.
In many ways, they function as portfolio managers for one of the company's most valuable assets: customer credibility.
Most organizations initially think of advocacy as a sales resource.
Sales certainly benefits from customer references, but advocacy creates value far beyond the sales organization.
The common thread is credibility.
Advocates provide something no marketing budget can purchase directly: authentic proof from real customers.
Most mature advocacy programs include additional components that extend value for both advocates and the business.
These activities are connected mechanisms that strengthen relationships, increase engagement, and create additional opportunities for customers to contribute.
Together, they help transform advocacy from a transactional activity into an ongoing customer experience.
The ultimate purpose of customer advocacy is not activity.
It is business impact.
In Summary
Advocates are valuable assets. The advocacy team's job is to make sure those assets are available when needed, protected from burnout, and aligned with the organization's most important priorities.
When done well, customer advocacy transforms customer success into measurable business value. It is an enterprise capability built on trusted relationships, reliable data, and authentic customer voices.
.svg){kind=icon}
