This article comes from Kevin Lau’s talk, ‘Seven steps to a CMO-approved customer marketing charter in 2023 & beyond’, at our April 2023 Customer Marketing Summit, check out his full presentation here.
Tired of excuses and empty promises when you advocate for customers? Learn how I transformed customer marketing into a core growth strategy.
Early in my career, I struggled to garner executive support for customer marketing programs. Despite innovative ideas and passion for the customer, my charters seemed to land with a thud.
But over the last 9 months, things changed significantly when my team and I cracked the code to elevating the customer's voice within our organization.
Now our quarterly planning has customer obsession as a core pillar of leadership priorities. As such we’ve had significant resources shifted to fund our new initiatives that drive loyalty and retention.
What changed? I developed an executive-approved customer marketing charter that aligned directly with the C-suite agenda and metrics for success.
From my experience, this takes patience - but keep the end goal in mind. With increased budget and resources, you’ll drive greater results and returns for your team.
Let's get your well-deserved seat at the table together!
Step 1: Start with the right questions
When I approach a new program or charter, I always start by asking myself:
- What business problem are we trying to solve?
- What do the CMO and executive team care about most?
- How can I make my boss’ job easier?
- What’s achievable in a 90-day window to demonstrate quick impact?
- Who can I partner with internally to deliver results?
- How will we measure marketing’s contribution and return?
Getting clear on the purpose and priorities upfront ensures your initiatives ladder up to company goals. It also identifies key stakeholders to enroll early on.
Step 2: Do the research
I’m extremely data-driven when investigating new opportunities. This means partnering closely with:
📈 Our analytics team to assess customer trends, win/loss reports, etc.
💸 The finance group to review actual revenue results and pipeline mix.
📊 Sales ops for details on closed deals, marketing influence, product usage gaps, and more.
💬 Customer insights from NPS surveys and other VOC programs.
Combining quantitative data with direct customer perspectives paints a far more comprehensive picture. It highlights potential areas where we can make the biggest impact through new programs.
Step 3: Validate findings with customers
While data provides directional input, I prefer to validate my hypotheses or findings directly through customer conversations.
Over the past quarter, I’ve met with about 50 customers in one-to-one, small groups, and one-to-many, interviews.
The goal is simple: understand the ‘jobs to be done’, their pain points, and their desires when engaging with our products. I ask targeted questions and then listen intently for common themes.
This stage validates if we’re focusing on the right priorities. I’ll even test potential ideas to gauge interest and collect feedback to integrate. Customer validation ensures we don’t go too far down the wrong path.
Step 4: Spot big cross-functional challenges
Next, I connect with peer stakeholders in marketing, sales, services, support, and beyond. My aim is two-fold:
First, identify leadership priorities based on earnings calls, analyst presentations, and announcements.
What pressing business issues are top of mind for the executive team this quarter and next? How do my peer leaders talk about challenges and plans in team meetings?
Second, share my own point of view on gaps I see based on customer insights. I’ll provide specific use cases of solutions in other companies or industries.
This showcases possibilities while grounding recommendations in customer needs.
By turning known challenges into shared goals, I define initial programs that help the business while advancing my customer marketing agenda. Getting alignment from the start also prevents future roadblocks when I need assistance and funding.
I also take Nick Mehta’s advice, CEO of Gainsight, to heart: “Retention is the new growth.” Customer retention and expansion is an enduring executive priority.
Step 5: Focus on “The Big Three”
To drive scale, I architect broad platforms around three customer Engagement Pillars: Community, Loyalty & Retention, and Customer Advocacy.
Our community platform nurtures an ecosystem where users can connect, gain insights, and self-serve support needs and loyalty programs boost product adoption, retention, and expansion over the customer lifecycle.
Through customer advocacy, we activate passionate fans to showcase success externally - the best endorsement possible for the brand.
Combined, these pillars enable a scalable customer engagement experience that delivers on key metrics from pipeline influence to NRR.
In my charters, I think BIG - even for capabilities not fully owned yet. I sell the long-term vision then backcast what’s actually achievable this year.
With executive support, additional budget and resources flow to turn the vision into reality. For example, when I first joined, our customer marketing scope was limited to loyalty nurtures and customer evidence like references.
But based on benchmarking other advocacy programs at companies like Adobe, Salesforce, and Cisco, I painted a five-year vision for a unified customer engagement platform.
This ultimately earned me a coveted spot within the C-suite strategic plan and gave me the resources to scale.
Step 6: Create a success system
When designing programs, I architect integrated systems - not just tactical campaigns. The goal is to drive predictable results while saving time, energy, and money long-term.
My ideal system achieves six outcomes:
- Solves a strategic business objective
- Streamlines operations
- Reduces inefficiencies
- Saves money
- Scales impact
- Drives clear ROI
For example, I’m currently building a system to support the full post-sale journey - from onboarding and adoption to retention, expansion, and renewal, which will ultimately ladder up to higher NRR.
Based on usage data, we feed customers targeted onboarding assets like documentation and peer chat forums, and then as users become more sophisticated, they graduate to advanced nurture tracks and live expert sessions.
Ultimately loyal fans join the customer advocacy program to drive referrals and expansion within their organizations.
This full lifecycle system scales personalized marketing without excessive direct intervention and the executive team understands exactly how it impacts important metrics.
Showcasing clear ROI builds credibility for customer marketing and your team.
Step 7: Pilot first, scale later
The best way to build confidence in a new initiative is through rapid prototyping. For example, when we first tested the Insider program concept, we localized it to Australia & New Zealand.
With demonstrated traction, we expanded regionally, and then globally.
Another successful pilot was our series of Customer-Led Retention Workshops. During COVID, we hosted virtual skill training sessions for users led by product experts from the customer community.
Over 1000 attendees flooded in within months so we scaled to even more topics and presentations.
Low-risk testing refines concepts while teeing up wider support for company-wide rollout. Start small, learn quickly, and build internal advocates along the way.
While articulating a bold vision, I made sure to never lose sight of what really mattered: Marketing ROI.
I work closely with executives to showcase customer marketing impact through dashboards and reports focused on their KPIs, and the metrics I track fall broadly into four areas:
💡 Program reach & engagement - Track program enrollment, event participation, community interactions, and more.
🤝 Customer loyalty - Connect initiatives to NPS, CSAT, product usage, account expansion, and retention rates.
🖥️ Product adoption & usage - Analyze feature activation, workflows, and scenarios influenced by your programs.
📈 Business performance - Tie customer marketing campaigns to pipeline velocity, deal size, retention revenue, and other critical outcomes.
Illustrating exactly how initiatives move the needle on corporate scorecards - certified by credible data - builds rock-solid credibility for my team and our customer engagement agenda.
Final thoughts
I hope this guide gives you a blueprint for aligning customer marketing with executive priorities to secure resources, budget, and a seat at the leadership table.
Rome wasn’t built in a day so don’t get discouraged! Lay the right foundation following these best practices and growth will come.
Most of all, enjoy the journey and take pride in delivering awe-inspiring customer experiences. That’s an incredibly rewarding pursuit in its own right!
Wishing you massive success on your journey to a CMO-approved charter and beyond! Onwards and upwards to even bigger customer innovation!
