Beyond references: How to grow invested customer advocates

This article comes from the panel, ‘The revenue-driving secret weapon: How to win & maintain advocates’ , at our Las Vegas 2023 Customer Marketing Summit, check out the full discussion here.

Want to know the revenue-driving secret weapon winning over today's leading tech brands? Customer advocacy.

Passionate users are a marketer's dream - they voluntarily promote your product, provide insights, and drive growth. In this can't-miss panel, customer advocacy experts from Cisco, Yubico, Upwork, VMware, and ShoutOut shared their top tips for advocacy success.

With our industry leaders, Preston Ritter, David Olsen, Jessica Noland, Erin O'Quinn & Dan Gable, you'll learn how to identify true advocates, prove program value, nurture relationships over time, and maximize content reuse.

Join these advocacy all-stars as they pull back the curtain on their secrets to customer loyalty. Whether you're new to advocacy or a seasoned pro, you'll leave inspired to turn your customers into raving fans. So let’s dive in!

Defining the field

Jessica Noland, Customer Advocacy Manager at Upwork loves the highly cross-functional nature of customer advocacy. Her team works closely with groups like sales, product, investor relations, marketing, and more.

This gives her exposure to parts of the business she wouldn't normally interact with day-to-day.

Preston Ritter, Americas Customer Marketing Leader at Cisco is the self-proclaimed "chief fun officer" in addition to his official role. Working at Cisco for 10 years, his passion lies in the community-building aspect of customer advocacy.

Cisco even has an "insider advocate" program that keeps their most loyal users engaged through both private reference opportunities and fun social interactions.

For Preston Ritter, advocacy is all about making real connections with customers, not just using them as marketing assets. Building genuine relationships is the key to success.

Dan Gable, Founder of ShoutOut unsurprisingly is a huge believer in the power of customer story videos. For Dan, he feels that the short-form user-generated video content is an underutilized way for advocates to share their expertise and stories.

Video campaigns don't have to be expensive productions - things like one-word compilations or slideshows set to music also work great.

Erin O'Quinn, Global Director of Customer Advocacy at VMware has been tied to customer advocacy for 7 of her 10 years at the company, but loved the experience and thrives on sharing her insights with those newer to customer marketing roles.

David Olsen, Director of Customer Advocacy at Yubico, believes content is king when it comes to advocacy programs. With 7 years of experience in customer advocacy at Adobe before joining Yubico, David has seen firsthand that case studies are the most critical type of content.

Under David's leadership, the Yubico advocacy program expanded into new content types like video and speaking opportunities. Through this he recognized quality content creation as the core of customer advocacy success.

Distinguishing advocates from references

A key part of managing an advocacy program is understanding what actually makes someone an advocate versus just a reference. Let’s dive into our expert’s definitions of this:

Jessica Noland has a clever example to illustrate the difference - say two people are asked about their experience with a fitness app like Peloton.

One person simply confirms "Yes I use it, it's a great app. I have the bike at home and use it around 3 times a week." This is a reference.

Whereas an enthusiastic advocate would say:

"Oh my gosh let me tell you about Peloton! I've been using it for six years and it's completely changed my workout routine. It's not just spinning classes - they have strength training, yoga, outdoor running, you name it. I went to Peloton Homecoming and met the instructors. I have the apparel, and I tell literally everyone I know that they need to try Peloton!"

Advocates actively and continuously promote the brand, not just when asked for a reference.

For a display of incredible brand passion, take a look at Preston Ritter’s example from a Cisco customer in Latin America. The individual actually got a tattoo of the Cisco logo after the company's training programs helped him launch his technology career! This exceptional level of brand loyalty makes someone an advocate rather than just a transactional reference.

Overall, the key distinguishing factor is advocates feel real passion for the product and care deeply about the company's mission. References are simply willing to provide information when asked.

Building emotional investment is key to creating advocates rather than just references.

Proving the critical value of advocacy

One of the major challenges our experts named with customer advocacy is proving the tangible value of programs. Marketing budgets are tightening across the board, so demonstrating clear ROI is crucial.

Luckily, our experts have several tactics and examples to quantify the impact of advocacy on revenue:

📋 Leverage credible research on advocacy's benefits.

Erin O'Quinn’s company VMware cites studies by research firms like IDC that show customer advocacy leads to a 25-40% faster deal progression.

📣 Use comprehensive voice of the customer insights to shape positioning, messaging, and sales strategy.

Preston Ritter chooses to gather feedback from multiple sources - surveys, interviews, discussions, social media, and channel partners. This well-rounded perspective provides actionable insights across the business in product, marketing, and sales.

📊 Conduct sentiment analysis on customer content to quantify impact.

David Olsen highlighted the significant opportunities for companies to expand their advocacy content when switching from long-form case studies to snackable social media videos. Tracking views and engagement will also further demonstrate value.

💵 Analyze reach of advocacy content as equivalent ad spend replacement.

For Jessica Noland, featuring a customer story in a campaign can replace expensive paid media. Assigning a dollar value to that content reach demonstrates hard savings.

Nurturing advocates over time

Managing an advocacy program isn't just about recruiting - you need to actively nurture relationships over time. Here our the explored best practices for sustaining engagement our experts shared:

Start wherever the advocate has interest, then expand from there.

David Olsen works with new advocates to quickly build on whatever level of participation they feel comfortable with.

Presented with a speaking opportunity, one customer created their first video to use in the talk.

David Olsen then expanded the relationship further by traveling onsite to film a case study video featuring the happy advocate.

Help advocates build their personal brand through platforms like TikTok.

Dan Gable highlighted user-generated social content as a huge opportunity for advocacy programs.

Followers want to learn from real users, not just paid influencers, and short videos allow advocates to share their expertise.

Set clear expectations upfront about the time commitment and value to them.

According to Jessica Noland, being transparent about requirements is hugely important in preventing advocate burnout.

A specific pitch leads to higher willingness and retention vs a vague "would you speak at our event?" invitation.

Check in regularly and gather feedback after engagements.

Preston Ritter uses post-activity reviews to continuously improve advocate experiences.

This builds loyalty and uncovers any lingering frustrations or challenges.

Closely manage incoming requests and be protective of advocate time.

Demand for "high value" advocates can quickly lead to fatigue.

Make sure cross-functional teams aren't overwhelming advocates even with well-intentioned asks.

Focus on genuine relationships, not transactions.

Incentives and rewards should be meaningful to that specific individual.

Building a relationship can involve shared interests, like how David Olsen bonded with an advocate over a shared love of bourbon.

Key recommendations and takeaways

Here are the most important lesson or piece of advice for customer advocacy professionals from our experts:

Package advocacy content for maximum reuse across teams.

David Olsen urges marketers to make content modular and plug-and-play. For example, create a short video version of a case study along with summarized slides and social posts. Sales, social media, and other groups can then easily access and leverage the content.

Proactively explain and "market" customer advocacy across the company.

Jessica Noland finds herself constantly explaining the function to colleagues. Take time to educate teams on what customer advocacy is and how to best collaborate. Treat it like an internal marketing campaign.

Start small and focus on quick wins, don't overextend early on.

Even though Cisco already had strong advocacy in place, Preston Ritter admits he still tried doing too much too fast when he joined. New leaders should take time to learn and build relationships first.

Shift from paid influencers to user advocates on social platforms.

Dan Gable would like to see more real users sharing their experiences rather than celeb-style influencers. Creative campaigns can enable this authentic expertise-sharing.

The future looks bright for customer advocacy.

With a strategic approach to winning and maintaining brand loyalists, the advocacy program can become a company's competitive advantage.

What are you waiting for? Get out there and turn your customers into advocates.