As companies face tighter budgets and rising expectations, customer marketing is emerging as a critical lever for growth, retention, and long-term loyalty. 

At UKG, we’ve learned that customer engagement is a strategic necessity. When done right, it drives efficiency, builds advocacy, and empowers customers to succeed on their own terms. 

By blending high-impact experiences with scalable, self-service programs and meaningful measurement, we’ve made customer marketing indispensable to our business, and we’re continuing to push the boundaries of what’s possible.

The investment conundrum

One of the biggest challenges we’ve faced is what I call the “investment conundrum.” Within most marketing teams, the lion’s share of budget typically goes toward lead generation, social media, analyst relations, and advertising. All of these efforts are focused on acquiring new customers and supporting the sales organization.

But in a subscription-based business like ours, most of our revenue actually comes after the sale, from keeping customers, not getting them. Despite that, customer marketing tends to receive a fraction of the overall marketing budget.

My team is the only one within marketing focused on existing customers, yet we’re tasked with supporting a huge ecosystem: professional services, relationship managers, support, renewal teams – you name it. Meanwhile, the resources allocated to us are far smaller than those given to teams focused on acquisition.

We’ve made a concerted effort to rebalance this over time. Through a robust customer engagement strategy, we’re gradually shifting the mindset and the investment. But if you’re facing a similar imbalance, know that you’re not alone.

What’s the secret to justifying customer engagement marketing?

If you’re looking to elevate the role of customer engagement marketing in your organization, the secret sauce comes down to three key things:

  1. Driving internal scale and efficiency
  2. Creating self-sufficiency for customers
  3. Never sacrificing the experience

And above all, you have to measure it. Just like we measure the sales funnel from top to bottom, we need to apply the same rigor to the post-sale experience. That’s how you justify the investment – and your team’s impact.

Finding the balance between high touch and digital touch

The first and most important step is figuring out how to drive scale internally. That means knowing when to apply a human touch and when not to. For me, it’s about understanding the right balance between high-touch and digital-touch interactions.

A simple two-by-two matrix can help you map this out. I know most of your customer interactions are likely more complex than that, but the principle still applies. You need to identify which interactions can and should be digital. 

These are usually the lower-value moments – either for your organization or the customer – or things that can be delivered just as effectively through a digital channel.

Some interactions should start digitally and escalate to a high-touch moment only if necessary – say, if the customer hasn’t taken an action. Your customer success or account managers don’t need to reach out to everyone, only to those who truly need that extra support.

Conversely, you might start with a high-touch approach but shift to digital once the personal interaction is no longer adding value. Of course, there will always be escalations and sensitive scenarios where high-touch is essential – but that should be the exception, not the rule.

Mapping the customer journey and modernizing your touchpoints

One of the most effective ways to gain efficiency is to map out your customer journey and determine which touchpoints are currently high-touch versus digital. Then ask: What could be digital? What should be?

As we move into more self-service, consumerized experiences across all industries, our customers expect faster, more seamless interactions. 

So take a close look at how you're engaging with them across different product lines and lifecycle stages – and identify opportunities to modernize.

Yes, it will take effort. Yes, you’ll need to reset customer expectations. But the result is a more scalable and more consistent experience.

How we do this at UKG

At UKG, we’ve implemented several strategies to help our customers help themselves, without sacrificing the experience:

  • In-product messaging: We provide helpful, real-time resources right inside the product interface, exactly when and where the customer might need them.
  • Educational content: Thousands of customers subscribe to our blog, which we use to share knowledge and best practices in a friendly, digestible way.
  • Judicious email use: We avoid over-emailing. When we do reach out, it's always to drive traffic to our community or a helpful resource. We're teaching customers where to go to get what they need – creating long-term self-sufficiency.
  • Newsletters: These allow us to batch content instead of sending constant one-off messages.
  • Community: This is a big one for us. Our community platform plays a central role in customer education, engagement, and support.

Examples in action

Let me give you a couple of concrete examples.

1. Pre-onboarding support:

Sometimes, there’s a delay between when a customer signs a contract and when implementation can begin. Rather than leaving them idle, we send a “Welcome to UKG” email with clear next steps: join the community, explore key user groups, get familiar with the training platform, and start gathering data they’ll need later. 

Then, when their project manager is assigned, they can pick up the conversation and check in on that progress. It keeps customers moving forward – even before we’re ready to start.

2. Targeted event outreach:

When we promote customer events, we use a mix of digital channels and high-touch follow-up. Our relationship managers can view registration lists and reach out only to the customers who haven’t registered but previously expressed interest. 

It's targeted, relevant, and efficient. We're not asking them to chase every contact – just the ones that matter.

Scaling the seemingly unscalable

Let’s talk about how we scale experiences that, at first glance, might not seem all that scalable. A great example of this is how we’ve scaled meaningful engagement for our most passionate customers – our advocates.

The power of our advocacy program

At UKG, our advocacy program is called UKG Insiders. It lives as a private, moderated group within our broader community, and it’s where we recognize and reward our most engaged customers. 

These are the people who show up consistently, ask questions, and contribute value to others. They even help each other by voting up product ideas to influence the roadmap.

The UKG Insiders group is also where we manage exclusive, members-only event invitations, send friendly reminders, and build excitement around these special opportunities. But it’s not just about events – we lean on this group for honest feedback.

When we rebranded, we turned to our Insiders:

  • “Here’s our new advertising – what do you think?”
  •  “Who wants to weigh in on the last event we hosted?”

And they love giving feedback. Whether it’s product-related or campaign-specific, they’re eager to contribute. That engagement gives us a powerful channel for co-creating better customer experiences at scale.

Creating connection at large-scale events

Another area where we’ve found creative ways to scale is our annual customer conference, Aspire. It’s our flagship user event, hosted in Las Vegas, and it attracts about 5,000 attendees.

To support the experience, we set up a dedicated group in our community where attendees can find “know before you go” resources and ask pre-event questions. What’s amazing is how organically it becomes a space for customers to support each other. 

People posted things like:

  • “I’ve never been before – what should I expect?”
  • “I’m traveling solo – anyone else?”

That led to something really special. We used that momentum to create a meet-and-greet zone inside our welcome pavilion – complete with tables, chairs, and drinks. People actually scheduled time to connect there. It felt personal, even at a 5,000-person event.

Rethinking logistics to deliver value

One piece of feedback we heard loud and clear: Vegas is a lot of walking. Customers told us, “If I stay for the sessions all day, there’s no time (or energy!) to go back to my room before the evening events.”

We explored all kinds of options:

  • Could we rent golf carts?
  • Provide scooters?
  • Use a side entrance for transportation?

None of the options were feasible due to hotel restrictions.

So we reframed the question. If we couldn’t move the people, could we move their stuff?

That’s when we came up with the idea to install a huge bank of lockers right at the venue.

Customers could drop off their bags or anything they didn’t want to carry – and we even partnered with a sponsor to cover the cost.

The takeaway? You can scale things you thought were impossible. Sometimes, it just takes looking at the problem from a different angle.

Building customer self-sufficiency at scale

Let’s talk about self-sufficiency. This is about empowering customers to create their own success, so they don’t have to call us. Because let’s face it: calling is expensive, and customers would often prefer not to if they can help it.

One of the most powerful ways we do this is through personalized, in-product support. We know a system administrator has vastly different needs than an HR director, so we tailor our messaging accordingly. That level of customization helps ensure relevance and keeps support accessible at the right moment.

Leveraging the community for scale and visibility

Our community has over 100,000 members, and it’s a huge engine for self-service. One customer asks a question, and many can benefit from the answer. So we always encourage people to start by crowdsourcing their question in the community. It’s fast, it’s scalable, and it builds a culture of peer-to-peer support.

We also use banners in the community to promote upcoming events and recognize our most active members on the homepage. That public recognition on the leaderboard has become something our customers take real pride in.

Curation plays a huge role here, too. My team is responsible for creating “moments that matter” by building resource hubs for key times of year. 

For example, during year-end payroll, when the stakes are high and everyone wants to get it right, we publish a curated community page with everything they might need: required trainings, top FAQs, common trip-ups to avoid. We then run a campaign to drive traffic to that page, which dramatically reduces call volume and stress.

Helping new admins succeed

Another favorite initiative of mine is our New Administrator Bootcamp. We know that new system admins can be overwhelmed when learning enterprise software, so we designed a seven-week, step-by-step experience to guide them.

Each week, we introduce one manageable task:

  • Join the system administrator group in the community
  • Complete key trainings
  • Review top resources

We even show them their progress week-by-week to prevent burnout and create a sense of accomplishment. This has been incredibly successful – not just in reducing support load but in building confidence and early engagement.

Surprise-and-delight experiences that scale

You can still create wow moments at scale – and sometimes, those small, thoughtful gestures go a long way. Here are a few “delighter” examples we’ve used at UKG to show appreciation and reinforce value:

  • National Systems Administrator Day: We sent a fun, dragon-themed email recognizing their hard work – “you’re slaying it!” – with a link to claim a Starbucks gift card. Simple, clever, and appreciated.
  • End-of-summer HR recognition: We sent HR leaders a cheerful message celebrating all the vacation time they approved, framing it as them helping employees find work-life balance. A small gesture with a big feel-good impact.
  • Cheers to a billion: For large customers who hit a billion shift punches using our time management solution, we sent a celebratory message. It reinforced the value they’re getting from UKG – and gently reminded them why we’re indispensable.
  • Employee Appreciation Day: We reached out to our customer contacts and asked: Who are your internal champions? Who deserves recognition? On the big day, we sent those nominated users a message and a link to choose a gift through our Thanks platform. One customer told me, “Thank you – this let me recognize my team even though I didn’t have the budget.”

And the best part? Every one of these programs is 100% digital. You don’t need a huge budget to make your customers feel seen and valued. You just need creativity, empathy, and the willingness to do something unexpected.

Don’t forget to measure what matters

Hopefully I’ve shared some ideas you can take back to your own organization, but none of it means much if you can’t prove it’s working. So let’s talk about measurement, because the proof really is in the pudding.

You can’t stop at click-through rates. That’s just scratching the surface. Instead, ask:

  • Did they take the action?
  • Did they complete the training?
  • Did they engage with the product updates?

That’s your baseline. But where we really need to go – and to be honest, we’re not fully there yet – is deeper, more holistic insight into engagement. That means looking at everything a customer is doing and understanding the value of each interaction.

Are they:

  • Opening our emails?
  • Showing up to events?
  • Part of our UKG Insiders community?
  • Active in the broader community?

Not all of those touchpoints are equal, so the goal is to assign weights and points to each one. Then, aggregate that into a single engagement index that we can track over time. That allows us to measure changes in engagement as we adjust our strategies, and most importantly, correlate that with CSAT, growth, and retention.

Tying events to business impact

From an event perspective, yes, we track all the typical metrics:

  • Are we growing registrations?
  • Are attendees happy with the content and experience?

But we don’t stop there. We’re focused on linking event participation to real impact.

  • Are attendees more satisfied?
  • Are they becoming Insiders?
  • Are we generating or progressing pipeline?

This year, we took a big step forward. We can now directly connect event attendance to how much new business was opened, and how much of it actually closed, after the event. That kind of data closes the loop and proves the value of what we’re doing.

Transparency and accountability

One thing I believe in strongly: don’t hide. We publish an internal advocacy report card every month, and it’s visible on our intranet. It also feeds into our board materials and QBRs.

That report covers:

  • How much business our advocacy efforts are influencing
  • How many deals we’re touching
  • Whether customers are taking advantage of the advocacy offers
  • How many new Insiders we’re bringing in
  • Whether we’re generating excitement internally, too

We want to see more people across marketing and sales actively engaging with the programs, not relying on the same few back-pocket references. That’s a sign we’re growing and embedding advocacy deeper into the business.

Customer marketing deserves a seat at the table

Here’s the bottom line: Marketing has the power to build programs that are highly relevant, personalized, and scalable. When we do it right – when we drive efficiency, empower customer success, create “wow” moments, and measure our impact – we make a compelling case for rebalancing investment toward customer marketing.

Whether you call it customer marketing, engagement marketing, or something else entirely, it deserves a seat at the table.

This article is based on a presentation given by Lisa at our Customer Marketing Summit in February 2024.

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