Why did the marketer bring a ladder to the podcast recording? Because they wanted to 'reach new heights' in customer marketingš„
Put on your headphones, because we've curated a top-five list of must-listen episodes from Customer Marketing Catch-up, the podcast that brings you conversations with some of the biggest names in the customer marketing field!
Sponsored by Influitive, this podcast is your ticket to navigating the ever-evolving landscape of customer marketing. Weāve finally breached double digits with our eleventh episode being released last week, so, let's celebrate the episodes we've released so far by uncovering the most valuable gems from our guests āØ.
Customer Marketing Catch-up is dedicated to providing you with the latest strategies, trends, and real-life scenarios in the realm of customer marketing.
Our goal is to empower professionals like you to excel in the competitive world of customer-centric business, so read on to find out more!
- Why Customer-Marketing Catch-up matters
- The top 5 must-listen episodes
- Implement the insights from the podcast
- Final thoughts
Why Customer Marketing Catch-up matters
In today's fiercely competitive landscape, customer marketing has become an indispensable strategy for businesses striving to build strong relationships with their customers.
Staying up-to-date with the latest trends and tactics in customer marketing can make all the difference in driving customer loyalty, advocacy, and ultimately, business growth š.
By tuning in to Customer Marketing Catch-up, you gain access to a wealth of knowledge from industry experts who share their experiences and expertise. It's an opportunity to learn from the best and apply their insights to elevate your customer marketing game.
We'd also like to extend a special thanks to Influitive, the world's number one customer marketing and advocacy platform, for sponsoring our podcast.
Influitive's innovative platform empowers businesses to supercharge customer engagement and deliver social proof at scale. Through challenges, referrals, product reviews, and more, Influitive enables you to build a community of advocates who actively promote your brand.
With a customer-first approach, Influitive helps you close more deals and cultivate a loyal customer base and their support has played a vital role in making Customer Marketing Catch-up possible.
The top 5 must-listen episodes
Now, let's dive into the top five must-listen episodes from Customer Marketing Catch-up, picked especially due to the sheer level of engagement with these specific episodes, they must be doing something right!
These episodes feature in-depth conversations with industry thought leaders, providing valuable insights and practical strategies for your customer marketing endeavors. Here are the episodes that made it to our highly recommended list:
- Collette Johnson | Why customer references are important, and how best to use them
- Cassie Sneed | The foolproof process to getting the right case studies for your brand
- Cetiera Carmona | Five types of customer data to leverage during the growth stage of the customer journey
- Kevin Lau | Three essential tenets that instantly improve your customer advocacy plan
- Meaghan Sullivan | How to excel in the digital workplace as a customer marketer
Letās get into a little more detail! Here are the key takeaways and insights summarized just for you:
Collette Johnson | Why customer references are important, and how best to use them
In this episode, we spoke to Collette Johnson, Product and Strategy Consultant, about customer references, their importance, and how they can be used. We also discussed some common mistakes and pitfalls that most clients fall into.
š£ Key takeaways:
- Customer references are vital for building trust and credibility in marketing by providing social proof and allowing potential customers to hear directly from satisfied customers.
- Authenticity and relevance are key in collecting and using customer references. References should be representative of the target audience and showcase specific use cases.
- Continuous collection and updating of references is important to keep the content fresh and engaging.
- Objectivity and obtaining permission is crucial when using references to ensure credibility and transparency.
- Pitfalls to avoid include writing references for customers without their approval, lack of relevance, and insufficient traceability.
- Customer references have multiple uses beyond external marketing, including internal education, sales enablement, brand elevation, and feedback for product development.
- Using references internally helps teams understand the customer perspective and demonstrates that the company listens and responds to customer needs.
- Refreshing and using different formats for references, such as videos and case studies, keeps the content engaging and relevant.
- A successful example of customer referencing involved organizing ālunch and learnā sessions where potential customers could ask questions directly to satisfied customers, resulting in conversions and significant business growth.
Fill out the form below to download our ebook on the essential elements of a customer marketing plan. This eBook focuses on six elements to build into your customer marketing plan, from the early stages to elements thatāll support you during growth and scale-up.
Cassie Sneed | The foolproof process to getting the right case studies for your brand
In this episode, we spoke to Cassie Sneed, Senior Manager of Customer Marketing at Reputation, Ā about her process for getting the right cast studies for your brand.
š£ Key takeaways:
- Case studies are powerful tools that showcase real customer experiences and demonstrate the value and impact of a product or service. They build credibility, provide social proof, and help potential customers make informed decisions.
- To create effective case studies, it's crucial to identify the ideal customers who have achieved significant success with your product or service. Look for customers who can provide compelling stories, and measurable results, and align with your target audience.
- Developing strong relationships with customers is key to successfully creating case studies. Regular communication, establishing trust, and nurturing partnerships can lead to enthusiastic participation and willingness to share their success stories.
- When conducting customer interviews for case studies, it's important to ask the right questions to extract valuable insights. Focus on understanding their goals, challenges, solutions, and measurable outcomes. Incorporate storytelling elements to make the case study engaging and relatable.
- Data and metrics play a crucial role in case studies. Incorporating quantifiable results, such as revenue growth, cost savings, or improved customer satisfaction, adds credibility and demonstrates the value of your product or service. Supplement internal data with customer-specific data whenever possible.
- To maximize the impact of case studies, make them easily accessible to internal teams and external audiences. Create a central repository or library where case studies are categorized by industry and product. Promote case studies through various channels, including websites, social media, email campaigns, and sales presentations.
- Regularly review and update case studies to ensure they remain relevant and accurate. Remove case studies of churned customers to avoid potential negative associations. Consider creating updated versions or refreshes of case studies to reflect new data or developments.
- Case studies are valuable for SEO and digital marketing efforts. Optimize case study content for search engines and leverage them in email nurtures, live events, and third-party platforms to drive traffic, conversions, and brand recognition.
Cetiera Carmona | Five types of customer data to leverage during the growth stage of the customer journey
In this episode, we spoke to Cetiera Carmona, Senior Manager, Customer Growth at BigCommerce, about the five types of customer data to leverage during the growth stage of the customer journey.
š£ Key takeaways:
- Data plays a crucial role in customer marketing, helping to understand customer behavior, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions.
- The customer journey consists of different stages, including onboarding, adoption, retention, expansion, and advocacy. Customer marketing strategies should be tailored to each stage.
- Personalization and relevancy are key in customer marketing. Understanding customer personas and utilizing data points like health scores and sentiment can help create targeted and effective campaigns.
- Collaboration with cross-functional teams such as customer success and product teams is important in customer marketing. It allows for better alignment, shared insights, and more impactful customer experiences.
- Automation and AI can greatly support customer marketing efforts, especially with a large customer base. Tools like Gainsight, HubSpot, and Slack offer features that help streamline processes, analyze data, and improve efficiency.
- Customer marketing professionals should proactively identify gaps and opportunities within the customer journey and collaborate with other teams to provide value and support.
- Value realization and avoiding value erosion are crucial in the growth stage of the customer journey. Ensuring customers are adopting and realizing value from the product/service before focusing on upselling or cross-selling is essential.
- Customer marketing professionals should strive for continuous learning and professional development to stay informed about industry trends, tools, and best practices.
Kevin Lau | Three essential tenets that instantly improve your customer advocacy plan
In this episode, we spoke to Kevin Lau, Global Head of Customer Advocacy at Adobe. He spoke in detail about the value of customer advocacy, and how to measure the performance of your advocacy programs, and shared a little about his own journey and what he has learned over the years of specializing in this topic.
š£ Key takeaways:
- Customer marketing and customer advocacy are often used interchangeably but can be seen as different aspects within the larger discipline of customer marketing. Customer marketing focuses on customer adoption, value realization, community-building, and customer advocacy, which is about turning customers into raving fans of products and solutions.
- Kevin Lau discussed three key pillars of customer advocacy. First, personal branding opportunities help customers elevate their careers and gain exposure through their relationship with a company. Second, rewards and recognition, such as titles, tangible goods (like swag), and awards, play a role in incentivizing customer advocacy. Finally, peer-to-peer networking allows customers to connect with like-minded individuals who use the same products and share their experiences.
- Measuring the impact of customer advocacy efforts can be challenging. To measure the effectiveness, it's important to align the metrics with the overall objectives of the organization. The ultimate goal is to show how customer advocacy programs positively impact customer retention and reduce churn over time. This can be achieved by using data-driven decision-making, tying in various marketing and sales technologies, and developing dashboards or scores that tell the story of the impact of customer advocacy.
- Developing strong cross-functional relationships within the organization is crucial for customer marketers. Educating internal teams about the value of customer marketing and advocacy is essential to gain support and collaboration. Building these relationships and ensuring stakeholders understand the value can take time but is necessary for success.
- When developing customer advocacy programs, it's important to begin with the end goal in mind. This means considering how the programs will make an impact and how the results will be reported. By having a clear vision of the desired outcomes and the metrics to measure success, customer marketers can align their efforts effectively and demonstrate the value of their programs.
Meaghan Sullivan | How to excel in the digital workplace as a customer marketer
In this episode, we spoke to Meaghan Sullivan, Marketing Customer Programs Lead at Google, about how to excel in the digital workplace as a customer marketer.
š£ Key takeaways:
- The digital workplace provides adaptability and accommodates human resourcefulness, especially in dealing with challenges like COVID-19.
- Regular meetings over digital tools like video conferencing can help build partnerships and connections with customers. Using chat or messaging tools allows for ongoing effective communication and collaboration and building informal relationships.
- Hybrid events (combining physical and digital elements) provide inclusivity and enable a more diverse set of voices in panels and discussions.
- Finding a balance between physical and digital strategies is crucial in customer marketing. This balance allows for both physical connections and the benefits of digital engagement.
- Lifecycle marketing, focusing on the entire customer journey from adoption to advocacy, is gaining importance. Supporting customers from the early stages and helping them become advocates and subject matter experts fosters long-term loyalty.
- Building a two-way street with customers, facilitated by digital connections, is essential in establishing strong partnerships. Celebrating customer milestones and being accessible throughout their journey strengthens the relationship.
- Unified experiences across different platforms and tools, along with gamification and incentives, enhance customer engagement and loyalty.
- Customer marketing is evolving to include a broader focus on the entire customer lifecycle, loyalty, and seamless experiences that hide the seams between different tools and platforms.
Implement insights from the podcast
Now that you have a glimpse of the fascinating topics covered in these top episodes, it's time to put these insights into action!
In Customer Marketing Catch-up and all eleven of our released episodes (woo-hoo!), our experts provide practical tips and recommendations for implementing the knowledge gained from these conversations.
You'll discover actionable strategies to enhance your customer marketing efforts and drive better results.
Remember, these episodes are just the beginning. For a deeper understanding of the concepts discussed, we encourage you to listen to the full episodes and unlock a wealth of knowledge to propel your customer marketing endeavors.
Get ready to be inspired, and learn from our experts!
Final thoughts
In these top five episodes, we've gathered insights from some of the brightest minds in customer marketing. From the importance of customer references and case studies to leveraging customer data and building effective advocacy programs, each episode offers actionable strategies to enhance your customer marketing efforts.
So take these insights and put them into action!
Start by collecting authentic and relevant customer references, creating compelling case studies, and leveraging customer data to personalize your marketing efforts.
Build strong cross-functional relationships, measure the impact of your customer advocacy programs, and find the right balance between physical and digital strategies.
Customer Marketing Catch-up is your go-to resource for staying at the forefront of customer marketing. By subscribing to the podcast, you'll receive regular doses of inspiration, knowledge, and practical tips from industry experts.
Keep up with the latest episodes to stay updated on the evolving landscape of customer marketing and gain a competitive edge in the industry.
Subscribe to Customer Marketing Catch-up, apply the insights from the top five episodes, and unlock the potential to excel in the customer-centric business realm. Your customers will thank you, happy listening š§
