What does real customer advocacy look like? It’s a question we often get asked when talking to new or prospective clients. And, at its core, there is no definitive answer: a strong customer advocacy program will look slightly different in every organisation, dependent on factors such as size, priorities, customer base, and even product range. There really is no one-size-fits-all strategy which, depending on your position, will either delight or frustrate those within the industry.

However, whether you’re rolling out a new advocacy program, or looking to expand and perfect your existing offering, we encourage a back-to-basics approach. Define your ideal customer advocate, understand what success looks like to you, and create a comprehensive recruitment strategy.

It’s important to remember that customer advocacy goes far beyond just content creation; it encompasses the full advocacy enchilada, from a simple customer logo or quote, through event speaking opportunities, 1-to-1 or 1-to-many reference calls, all the way to site visits and PR/analyst engagements.

A good program is nothing without a strong pipeline

In my opinion, creating a healthy, active customer recruitment pipeline is the single most important thing you can do when establishing an advocacy program. After all, what use is having great processes if you don’t have customers to fill them? Customer recruitment is often driven by good visibility of your program across the organisation, so make sure you’re shouting about it from the rooftops!

Set up regular meetings and emails to sales teams, ensure your program is prominent in every edition of your company newsletter, and keep pushing to really drive the message home. Making it as quick and easy as possible for sales to nominate customers never hurts, either.

Fill in the gaps for a well-rounded approach

Something I’d advise every program lead to do annually is to sit down and take stock of all their current customer advocates and activities over that year. Assess and map all of these by customer industry, size, product, and region. Are there any gaps? If so, where are they? Are there any categories that you have in abundance already? Such as advocates in particular geographies or industries or choosing only specific activities?

A well-conducted, thorough gap analysis can be illuminating; it’s an ideal foundation to shape your advocacy strategy. Especially since representing customers from across the globe in all your key verticals and business units can be incredibly important. After all, prospective customers want to hear success stories from businesses just like theirs.

The opportunities are limitless (almost)

When it comes to customer advocacy, most people think of the usual written case study. And while written and video content play a big role, you need to ensure your activities cover all stages of the customer sales funnel: awareness, consideration, evaluation, and conversion. It’s also important to assess your advocates, understand what they’re looking to get out of your program, and map them to the right opportunity.

Do you have a C-level exec that would love to boost their thought leadership profile, but isn’t able to commit to a published testimonial? Speaking at an event might be just the right fit. Got an engineer or developer willing to go into detail around how they implemented your product? A 1-to-1 or 1-to-many reference call could be the perfect space for them to drill down into the specifics and answer technical questions.

Define your success… and be realistic

At the end of the day, customer advocacy is there to influence sales and increase deals, so it’s important to track your program’s success and showcase its value across the organisation. Understanding your program’s success rate and showcasing its influence against recent wins and deal values is essential to understanding how your program sits within the wider business.

When tracking your content, it’s also worth noting that less is often more. After all, it doesn’t matter if just 10 people watched a customer video, if one of those 10 is the CEO of a major company looking for a few final testimonials ahead of purchasing your product. Engagement and audience are often far more important than views and clicks when monitoring customer content on your website.

Overall, just remember that a well-balanced, established advocacy program will often blend all advocacy disciplines, with a clear strategy to fill any missing gaps and a strong outlook on the future. Want help to build and enhance your reference program? Contact us today to subscribe to our newsletter or consult and collaborate on how we can help you achieve your goals.