The Collective

We get it. There are a lot of things to balance when it comes to managing your customer advocacy program—or, programs (we see you, portfolio managers). But without this one critical piece of the puzzle, your efforts will only take you so far: alignment.

What’s in a customer program name? Would that which we call an advocacy program by any other name smell as sweet?

‍‍As a business, having customers that actively advocate for your brand can be incredibly valuable. Not only do they help to promote your products and services, but they can also act as a trusted source of information and feedback for potential customers.

There are only a handful of organizations with advocacy programs that have achieved broad-scale brand recognition outside of their own customer base or industry. Cisco is one of them.

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𝙷𝚎𝚛𝚎’𝚜 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚢𝚘𝚞: 𝙰𝚗 𝚊𝚍𝚟𝚘𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚔𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚊𝚕𝚔𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚊 𝚋𝚊𝚛. 𝙷𝚎𝚛 𝙲𝙼𝙾 𝚜𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝’𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚁𝙾𝙸 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚚𝚞𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚎𝚛? 𝙱𝚊 𝚍𝚞𝚖 𝚙𝚜𝚜𝚑! 𝙲𝚞𝚎 𝚛𝚊𝚞𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚕𝚊𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚎𝚛.

When I ventured out into the world of B2B customer engagement and advocate marketing, I felt adventurous. Eight or nine years ago, very few B2B organizations, outside tech giants such as Microsoft, had successful customer engagement programs that were delivering measurable influence on company growth.

This article is the second in an Advocacy-Loyalty Fusion series that explores a question.