Building strong customer advocacy is essential for driving long-term success in any organization.
I'm Kevin Lau, Senior Manager of Customer Advocacy at Adobe, and my journey through various roles at companies like Google, AOL, and Marketo has provided me with a deep understanding of what it takes to engage customers effectively.
Over the years, I've honed my expertise in customer marketing, learning the importance of personal branding, rewards, and peer-to-peer networking as the pillars of a successful advocacy program.
In this article, I'll share insights into how you can develop impactful customer advocacy strategies, measure their success, and build the cross-functional relationships necessary to elevate your efforts and drive meaningful results.
Unpacking the myths of customer marketing and advocacy
Customer marketing and advocacy are relatively new concepts, having really only gained recognition in the last four or five years. Because of this, there are a lot of misconceptions about what these roles actually involve.
When people hear "customer marketing," they often think of it in one of two ways. The first is straightforward: marketing to existing customers, focusing on campaigns like cross-selling and upselling. However, this view is somewhat limited.
The second misconception is that customer advocacy is all about the "soft" side of things—sending out swag and organizing fun events, with little real impact. While these activities can be part of the role, the scope of customer marketing and advocacy is far broader and more strategic.
There's a vast spectrum of responsibilities under this umbrella, and it's much more than just the surface-level activities some might assume.
Distinguishing customer marketing from customer advocacy
I often see the terms "customer marketing" and "customer advocacy" used interchangeably, but in my experience, there's a clear distinction between the two, even though they're closely related.
Different companies might approach this differently, but I like to think of customer marketing as a three-legged stool, with each leg representing a crucial focus area.
The first leg is customer adoption and value realization. This is all about helping customers become well-adopted, mature users of your products or solutions. The goal here is to ensure that they see value in what you're offering, which encourages them to stay with you in the long term.
Aunalisa Arellano
The second leg is community. This includes both online forums and the broader concept of community, which involves peer-to-peer networking, learning, and education. It's about creating spaces where customers can connect, share experiences, and grow together.
The third leg is customer advocacy. Advocacy is about turning your customers into raving fans of your products and solutions. However, I see it as a subset of the larger discipline of customer marketing, rather than a separate entity on the same level. Advocacy is one of the outcomes of effective customer marketing, but it's not the entirety of the discipline.
This is how I view the ecosystem of customer marketing and advocacy and how they interconnect to support each other.
The three pillars of customer advocacy
Through my experiences and countless conversations with customers, I've identified three key pillars of customer advocacy. These pillars are the core motivators that drive individuals to engage with your programs, regardless of the company, product, or service you're offering.
Understanding these pillars can significantly enhance the success of your advocacy efforts.
The first pillar is personal branding opportunities. Customers are often motivated by how your program can help them grow and elevate their careers. This includes opportunities for them to gain exposure, advance in their roles, and even earn promotions. Essentially, it's about how you can contribute to their professional development and success.
The second pillar is rewards and recognition. While this might include tangible goods like swag, it's also about the intangible aspects, such as titles or awards that acknowledge their contributions and achievements. This recognition can be a powerful motivator, as it makes customers feel valued and appreciated.
The third pillar, which I believe is at the heart of it all, is peer-to-peer networking. Customers value the chance to connect with others who are like-minded, share similar interests, and use the same solutions. These opportunities to "talk shop" and exchange insights are incredibly valuable. By facilitating these connections, you enable customers to learn from each other and build a sense of community.
If you can develop programs and initiatives that align with these three pillars, you'll likely see significant success in your customer advocacy efforts. These pillars tap into the core motivations that drive individuals to engage and stay involved.
The evolution of swag: Creating memorable experiences
Swag is one of those areas that constantly evolves, but the items that leave a lasting impression are those that go beyond the typical branded merchandise. While everyone loves a good hoodie or jacket—and I probably have more water bottles than I can count—the swag that really stands out is the kind that offers a personalized and memorable experience.
One example of a successful campaign we ran was allowing customers to customize their own Nike shoes. This initiative was incredibly well-received because it let participants personalize everything from the colors to the text on the back of the heel, making it a truly unique item that reflected their individual style.
Another fun idea we executed involved creating customized Funko Pops, which are always a hit due to their collectible nature and the ability to tailor them to reflect the recipient’s persona.
We also did something creative with magazine covers.
We designed covers that featured the customer’s face along with some personal stats, mimicking the style of popular magazines like Sports Illustrated. This not only made for a great piece of memorabilia but also celebrated the customer in a way that felt special and noteworthy.
The key takeaway here is that swag becomes much more impactful when it’s personalized and tied to an experience. It’s these thoughtful touches that make a lasting impression and truly resonate with customers.
Measuring success in customer advocacy: Metrics that matter
Metrics have always been a challenge in the field of customer marketing, and it's something we've struggled with as an industry for as long as I've been involved. The difficulty often stems from what I mentioned earlier—the "squishiness" of focusing so much on relationships that it becomes harder to make data-driven decisions.
This is one reason why demand generation teams often receive the lion's share of budgets and resources. They can directly show how their efforts impact the pipeline by driving new business and converting prospects into opportunities.
When it comes to measuring the impact of customer marketing and advocacy, it's essential to take a broad view. You need to consider what you're ultimately trying to achieve—whether that's influencing new business or improving customer retention. These goals require different metrics and approaches.
To start, it's helpful to measure individual programs within your customer marketing strategy, such as your reference program, peer reviews, or customer awards. But if you want to tell a more comprehensive story—an impact story—you need to look at how all your programs collectively influence customer retention and reduce churn.
This is the North Star for customer advocacy: demonstrating that your efforts are positively reducing churn over time.
There are several ways to achieve this, particularly by integrating your data from various platforms like Salesforce, your CRM, and marketing automation tools. By bringing these together, you can build a dashboard or score that helps you track and illustrate the impact of your programs.
Of course, if you're working with a small team, this can be challenging. We started small too, with just a few team members, and had to figure things out as we went along.
The key is to prioritize what's most critical based on your business needs and decisions. Start with the basics, measure what you can, and build from there.
Key lessons learned in customer advocacy
Throughout my career, I've learned several important lessons that have shaped my approach to customer advocacy and marketing.
One of the biggest lessons is the importance of developing strong cross-functional relationships within the organization. At a company like Adobe, with 30,000 employees, I often find myself spending more than 50% of my time educating internal teams about the value our customer advocacy team brings.
Building these relationships and ensuring that stakeholders understand how they can partner with you is crucial. It can't be overstated how vital it is to invest time in this area.
Another significant lesson is related to metrics, which we discussed earlier. Developing and refining metrics can take years, but it's essential to start with the end in mind.
Before you even develop and launch your programs, think about the impact you want to make and how you'll report on that impact. By having a clear vision from the outset, you'll set yourself up for greater success and make it easier to demonstrate the value of your efforts.
Ultimately, these lessons not only help you achieve your immediate goals but also pave the way for future growth, including opportunities for promotions and career advancement. Understanding the importance of relationships and metrics can make all the difference in your journey in customer advocacy.
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