One of the most common challenges companies will face when looking to make advocacy a strategic function is stakeholder buy-in. It is also the most important aspect of running a successful advocacy program.
So let’s look at the different stakeholders, why their investment is important, and some ideas on how to get it.
Customer Advocacy is a must-have for any company that wants to build trust or strengthen its position in the market. Therefore, most already have at least a few customer stories – or case studies – published on their website.
A question I have seen come up on many occasions: is there a particular number of customers that a B2B company needs to recruit before starting an advocacy program?
There is often a magic number used – especially among large global businesses – and that a customer advocacy program should include 35% of your customer base. However, I believe you can start on a much smaller scale. And it’s all about ROI.
To develop your advocates and have them become part of your Customer Advocacy Program, you have to pay attention to what your customers’ needs are and be mindful of the fact they will vary from customer to customer.
Your goal is to turn Passives (customers who are happy with your brand or product but won’t actively promote it) and Promoters (the satisfied customers that actively recommend you, even without being part of any program) into Advocates. You do this by climbing the hierarchy of Advocate needs.
There are many definitions out there, so chances are that you will never receive the same answer when asking this question. However, one could argue that the best advocacy program is whatever fits within your organization, and it’s not ‘one-size-fits-all’.
When building out a global customer evidence or advocacy program, there are many pitfalls to avoid. Especially when you want to scale globally.
There are a lot of conversations lately about how to make Customer Advocacy a strategic function of every company. So here is the value Customer Advocacy can bring to any company...
These days, all companies with an existing marketing function create Customer Stories. (And if they don’t, they know they should!). This is an industry standard. But to be able to gain the full benefit of them, it is key to be effective during the creation process, make sure they are being used to bring in more customers, and finally, measure the ROI.
These are four stages of the Customer Stories production process that will help you to bring a programmatic approach:
In every company, when you start the journey to identify and classify potential advocates, you will face three basic types of people.
The term “advocate” is used everywhere when we talk about Customer Advocacy programs or activities, but it might not mean the same thing for every company. Are they companies or people?
