Fred Bals, Customer Advocacy Manager at Ektron and Jim Williams, VP, Marketing at Influitive discuss how to identify, nurture and mobilize your advocates by designing an interactive community for your fans, evangelists and advocates from among employees, customers, brand newbies and partners.
Six tips you will take away from this webinar:
• Why advocacy is an essential part of marketing in 2013
• How to identify and engage your best advocates
• How to mobilize your advocates with activities they will embrace
• Reward or recognition - What motivates your super fans?
• Identifying ownership for your advocate marketing program
• How to measure results and secure executive buy-in.
Ektron London Conference - Ektron Case Study: The Global Fund
6 Tips to Mobilizing Brand Super Fans - Ektron and Influtive Webinar
1. 6 Tips to Mobilizing Brand Super Fans
I’m not
really
I’m
Fred
definitely
Jim
Jim Williams
Influitive
Fred Bals
Ektron
2. HOUSEKEEPING
How to participate
• For audio choose “Use Mic
& Speakers” or “Use
Telephone” in your Audio
window
• Submit your text question
using the Questions pane
• Note: A recording will be
made available
Tweet with #superfans to win a
Starbucks gift card!
3. The Big 6 Tips
1. Why advocacy is an essential part of marketing in 2013
2. How to identify and engage your best advocates
3. How to mobilize your advocates with activities they will
embrace
4. Reward or recognition - What motivates super fans?
5. Identifying ownership for your advocate marketing program
6. How to measure results and secure executive buy-in.
4. Fred Bals:
Customer Advocacy Manager at
Enterprise Digital
Content Experience
Management Software
#superfans
5. About Ektron
• Founded in 1998
• Headquarters in Nashua, NH
- Worldwide offices in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom
• 200+ Employees
• Over 3,800 customers and 12,000 sites
MISSION: Empower marketers to connect content to revenue
through best-in-class solutions for WCM and DXM
WEB CONTENT MANAGEMENT
Create, deploy, and manage enterprise-scale, global,
dynamic websites.
DIGITAL EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT
Personalize, analyze, and optimize content delivery
to digital channels – web, mobile, and social.
7. • A community for Ektron fans
followers
Ektron Inner
Circle • Influence Ektron through
Program participation in surveys and
questions
• Recognition from Ektron through
perks and special programs
• Join today!
• http://www.ektron.com/Community/Nominate/
• Fred.bals@ektron.com
#superfans
8. Advocate Marketing Experts
Influitive helps B2B
marketers
recruit, mobilize and
recognize an army of
advocates that outsell
their best sales reps.
• Founded in 2010
• HQ in Toronto, San
Francisco
• Private, VC
backed, >$11M
raised
9. Tip: #1 Start paying attention to
advocacy today
“…their top priority
is to enhance
customer loyalty
and encourage
satisfied customers
to advocate their
brands.1”
1. IBM Global CMO Study, 2011
10. You’re Not in Control of the Buying
Process
of the buying process is complete before
75% a B2B prospect contacts a company
Reliance on knowledgeable peer
2X references has more than doubled
in the past 5 years
4/5 Reference process is considered a
“fire drill” in over 80% of
companies surveyed.
11. Buyers don’t trust corporate
marketing and sales
Pe e r s
&
u s e r s
Ad s , a d s
& mo r e
a d s
12.
13. Tip #2
How to identify and engage
advocates
#superfans
14. All companies have Champions.
The trick is to organize and acknowledge them.
16. The Inner Circle helps Ektron
recruit, manage, and acknowledge its
advocates
Invite Mobilize them to Recognize
customers, part complete their
ners, employee „challenges‟ achievements
s
“I could not do my job
without the Inner Circle” #superfans
17. "Our first job in marketing is to help empower our fans to bring others on-board. That's
what makes us grow.“
~ Ken Gullicksen, Evernote COO
OUR GOALS
Who are Ektron’s advocates?
• Nurture our advocates
Customers –
• Grow our relationships Developers, Designers, Content
with them Authors, Administrators, Marketing and
other roles
• Learn from them
Partners – Developers, Sales, Marketing
• Broadcast their and other roles
advocacy of Ektron to
our markets Employees – Everyone at Ektron
20. CHALLENGE: VIDEOS
Crowd-source the “I am Ektron” customer videos to
be shown at the opening keynote.
No Recruiting!
Videos collected
on the spot.
40 “I am Ektron”
Videos Collected.
#superfans
21. CHALLENGE: FUN
Mobilize attendees to build “one great song” for
keynote breaks.
“…One of the
most popular
challenges we‟ve
ever done.”
#superfans
24. EIC in Action
• Over 200 reference contacts
coordinated through EIC
• 50+ nominations for 2012 Site of
the Year
• 73 sign-ups to participate in
Beta Programs
• Feedback on Aloha
Editor, eSync, Ektron Support
• 247 Tweets, 25 LinkedIn
recommendations, Dozens of
survey
responses, testimonials, quotes,
etc.
#superfans
25. Tip #4: How to motivate
Superfans
Hint: It’s
not about
rewards
#superfans
27. 10 ways to love your advocates back
1. Guest blogging opps
2. Media interviews
3. Invitations to executive retreats
4. Invitations to industry
conferences
5. Special status at user
conferences
6. Participation in product sprints
7. Job recommendations
8. Social media love
9. Introductions & connections
10. Linked-in skills &
recommendations
29. Getting Everyone Involved
GOALS
Product Mgt. Sales
&
• Create a stronger Engineering
Marketing
connection between Support
internal teams and
References
external brand Feedback
Referrals
advocates to help drive Desired Product Features
Participation in
What’s Working
success. Marketing Activities
• Create goals for Other
departments so they
participate, contribute
and create challenges. ?
• Drive revenue to
demonstrate program’s
worth to management
30. Tip #4: measuring your advocate
marketing program
Three factors ROA:
1. Revenue impact
2. Cost deflection
3. Earned media
(eyeballs & traffic)
#superfans
31. R.O.A. Map
References
Analyst
interviews
Revenue
Referrals
Product reviews
Blog Customer
surveys
comments
Cost
Traffic
Retweets, like
s, shares
Deflection
Media
interviews Beta
programs
32. Fred Bals Jim Williams
fred.bals@ektron.com jim@influitive.com
@fredatektron
#superfans
Editor's Notes
Ektron overview
Ektron was founded in 1998 with headquarters in Nashua NH. We have more than 200 employees in offices around the world, and more than 130 partners. Ektron has more than 3800 customers powering more than 12000 sites, with a wide range of businesses and organizations in that community. And our approach and vision is supported and validated by the analyst community.
Influitive is the advocate marketing company. Our AdvocateHub app makes it easy for marketers to recruit, mobilize and recognize an army of customer advocates that support marketing campaigns, refer new clients and help close deals faster.
So what is on the Boss’s Agenda? The top priority is to encourage satisfied customers to advocate. So why is that? It’s very simple. Your advocates are an extraordinarily effective yet unpaid sales force. In fact, I don’t think that a company can be profitable without advocates and the advocate leader in most industries are almost always the category leader.CEOs want you to create advocates. Even better, a predictable process for recruiting and adding value to advocates. Notice that I didn’t say references. This conference used to be about references but nobody is talking about references any more, they are talking about advocates. What is going on with that?
In today’s connected world, the last person your buyer is going to talk to is your sales rep. They’re going to talk to your customers – so it seems kinda crazy to leave those conversations to chance! Advocate Marketing is a discipline that puts your best customers at the center of your marketing and sales efforts – where they can sell on your behalf. It involves tools and best practices that are proven to accelerate revenue growth and offer a better buyer experience. What are the benefits of advocate marketing?People trust their peers more than salespeople. Tapping into trust can benefit your business in so many ways:Faster sales cyclesBetter buy experienceBetter brand recognition & reputationMore high quality referral leadsHigher customer lifetime valueBigger deal sizes Lower lead generation & sales costsSimpler management & mobilization of customer referencesHigher customer satisfaction
Identify – Use Your Internal Resources to find `emCase studies/PRThe obvious – Sales and referencesServices, SupportEverybody else in the organizationExternal – Use Social to find themTwitter, FB, LinkedIn
EngageShow them that you careRespond, thank them, comment on what they’re doingBuild a community with them at the centerEarn their trustServices, SupportEverybody else in the organizationExternal – Use Social to find themTwitter, FB, LinkedIn