This article comes from Cathy Jordan’s talk, ‘Celebrating your customers: The keys to successful awards programs’, at our 2023 Las Vegas Customer Marketing Summit, check out the full unedited version here.
Celebrating customers shouldn’t be an afterthought. It should be the pinnacle that everything else builds towards.
When I took over our Innovation Awards program years back, it was just a small pre-conference event few knew about. But I had a vision for an awards celebration that would wow our customers and executives alike.
Flash forward to today. Our revamped Innovation Awards program has become a focal point of our global conference, drawing praise from our CEO as his “favorite part.”
So, how did we get there? Well, it took six years of patience, persistence, and plenty of roadblocks we had to overcome!
In this article today, I’m excited to share my personal blueprint for creating customer celebrations that truly shine. You’ll discover how we gained executive buy-in, fostered cross-team collaboration, and created advocates for life.
Join me for an inside look at transforming an under-the-radar program into the high point of your company’s year. Use these lessons to make your own customer celebrations must-attend events!
Let’s get started …
The origins of Informatica’s Innovation Awards
First, some background, I’m Cathy Jordan, Director of Global Customer Advocacy at Informatica and the Informatica Innovation Awards is an annual program that’s been around for over 20 years.
Each year, we recognize a select group of customers who have achieved extraordinary outcomes with our data solutions.
The program has always been run by our Customer Advocacy team as part of our Informatica World conference. We celebrate one winner and two honorees in each category, with the categories changing year-to-year based on that year’s messaging.
When I first joined Informatica’s Product Marketing team years back, I’ll admit – I had no idea the Innovation Awards even existed. While walking into our conference venue one year, a colleague invited me to an awards luncheon happening that day.
I was surprised to learn it was for our Innovation Awards! This small pre-conference event made me realize the program wasn’t getting the visibility it deserved.
Fast forward to late 2017 when I moved over to lead Customer Advocacy. With our annual conference around the corner, I decided it was time to level up the awards. I wanted it to be part of our main conference, not just a side event.
The only problem? The packed conference schedule left no room for an awards program. But I remained determined! With some persistence, I got approval for a 45-minute executive networking reception on the first day. It was a start.
Gaining momentum
In 2018 and 2019, my team and I worked hard to gain momentum for the Innovation Awards program. With a full Customer Advocacy team in place, we:
- Created internal marketing to drive awareness across the company
- Offered incentives for customer-facing teams to nominate deserving customers
- Held executive meetings to get nominations from our product leaders
- Remained “always on” promoting the awards at sales kickoffs and company all-hands
- Secured promo videos from our CEO to encourage nominations
- Developed a social media presence and campaign leading up to the event
This multi-channel promotion resulted in major achievements for the program. For the first time, we got main stage recognition at our 3000+ person Informatica World conference!
We even introduced a new “Intelligent Disrupter of the Year” category with the winner honored on stage alongside our CEO. This felt like a huge step for the program.
We also hosted an exclusive networking reception with our executives in attendance. With photos and details of all nominees displayed, our leaders could personally congratulate the winners and honorees. From no budget to no awareness just two years prior, we finally felt like we had arrived!
Adapting through COVID-19
Just as we’d hit our stride, the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything in 2020. With our conference going virtual, how could we still recognize our customers?
My team and I decided to embrace the moment as an opportunity. Since our virtual conference essentially had one “main stage,” we gave all our Innovation Award winners main stage honors with custom congratulatory videos.
We also held virtual networking receptions tailored to different time zones!
Despite the difficult global climate, it was so fulfilling to celebrate our customers’ achievements virtually. Our CEO even joined the virtual receptions and was highly engaged the whole time.
The tremendous response we received was validation that we could still connect meaningfully with customers, even online.
In fact, the success of our virtual awards program inspired our Chief Product Officer to ask us to launch a new awards program recognizing Chief Data Officers specifically.
Having developed an effective playbook, we were able to quickly spin up the new Chief Data Officer (CDO) awards for a virtual CTO event in 2021.
The CDO program provided another way to honor leading data & analytics professionals at customer organizations.
Back in person
After two years of virtual events, our in-person conference returned in 2022.
This brought new questions: How could we maintain the engagement and exposure from our virtual awards while also incorporating the in-person celebrations customers enjoyed?
Here are some key aspects of our 2022 strategy:
📅 Start planning early – We began preparations 6-7 months before
💵 Get budget buy-in upfront based on previous spend
📝 Create a detailed timeline and assign cross-functional tasks
💡 Engage stakeholder teams like Product Marketing early on
🎁 Incentivize nominations from sales and customer support reps
🎤 Develop concise pitches and scripts for executives to easily participate
📢 Remain relentlessly persistent in driving awareness!
The 2022 awards ended up being our best yet. From 77 nominations, our CEO personally chose the most deserving customers. I joined him on main stage to congratulate the winners, a first for me.
We also hosted an executive reception with photos, champagne toasts, and lots of social media buzz.
Seeing it all come together left me so proud of my team. Six years of learning and persistence took this program to new heights in terms of exposure, budget, and prestige across the company.
While challenges always arise, it’s been so fulfilling to make the Innovation Awards a marquee part of our customer experience.
Launching our Chief Data Officer Awards
Given the success of our 2022 Innovation Awards, our Chief Product Officer asked us in late 2020 to launch a new awards program specifically for Chief Data Officers. Thanks to our work on the Innovation Awards, we already had a blueprint to follow.
For the inaugural CDO Awards in 2021, we took our virtual know-how from 2020 and tailored it to this new program. Instead of company-based awards, these awards recognized excellence in data & analytics leadership.
We honored five outstanding CDOs across regions with personalized congratulatory videos and social media celebrations.
When the CDO Awards shifted back to our in-person event in 2022, we had to adjust our approach in just a few weeks’ time. The solution? We focused on having one regional Chief Data Officer winner in each category with targeted honors at the conference.
Despite the quick turnaround, this gave a global spotlight to leading CDOs in EMEA, North America, and APJ.
Like with the Innovation Awards, the CDO honorees have become advocates for us long after winning. One winner promoted his award on social media a full year later!
The CDO Awards created another way to celebrate customer leaders, inspire them to share their stories, and build lasting connections.
Key takeaways
After six years developing Informatica’s Innovation Awards and CDO Awards from fledgling beginnings to established programs, I’ve learned a great deal about what makes an awards program truly stand out.
While every awards program is unique, I hope these lessons from my experience are helpful as you develop experiences to celebrate your own customers.
It takes passion and persistence, but the payoff of thrilled customers and strengthened relationships is so rewarding.
If you make the time to create a first-class awards program, you have so much to gain. And remember - always keep raising the bar!
Just when you think you’ve perfected it, find ways to take it even higher. Your customers and company will thank you.
