We partnered with a prominent software and services vendor to launch a customer advocacy outreach program aimed at recruiting customers and updating its global client database. The company previously had limited focus on advocacy promotion and sought our expertise to revamp and reenergize its program.
The outreach initiative increased interest among account executives and customers and strengthened the software vendor’s overall customer relations. We achieved all of our client’s objectives, including the recruitment of high-profile customers, positioning the company for enhanced brand promotion and sales success.
Through extensive communication with hundreds of account owners and customers, the Advocacy Maven team gathered critical client data — enabling the creation of a fully cleansed, updated, and consolidated database. Employing our multilingual approach and global reach, our consultants communicated with customers in their native languages and promoted the advocacy program’s value proposition through targeted onboarding calls.
A structured customer advocacy outreach program unified global client data and activated priority accounts.
Our customer is a software vendor that provides data integration, master data management, enterprise application integration, as well as big data software and services. With offices in North America, Europe, and Asia, and an international network of technical and service partners, the company delivers its solutions and services to a wide clientele that includes some of the world’s most prestigious companies.
Client Profile
➤ Industry: Enterprise Software / Data Integration
➤ Audience: Global enterprise customers and account managers
➤ Business Model: Software and services for data integration, master data management, and enterprise application integration
➤ Objective: Recruit priority accounts into the advocacy program and consolidate the global client database
Challenge: Fragmented Advocacy and Disconnected Data
Our client had launched a limited advocacy program that included engaging its current customers for a range of promotional activities. These included the creation of success stories to be published on the company’s website and used during sales and marketing activities. It also entailed participation at professional events where customers shared their experiences of the brand’s products and services.
However, due to the software vendor’s rapid growth in multiple regions, it had spent little time on advocacy promotion. The company had not standardized its advocacy activities on a unified platform, and it did not have a single global source of truth on its customers or their willingness to participate in the program.
Responsibility for customers was in the hands of the company’s account managers in each region, whose main focus was achieving software and solutions sales targets. The account managers had different levels of experience, expertise, and advocacy knowledge, and also managed different numbers and types of clients, which added to the complexity of driving advocacy promotion.
Strategy: Structured Global Outreach and Database Alignment
Recognizing that customer success stories were going to be a key driver of brand promotion and sales moving forward, the IT company opted to relaunch its program, starting with a universal recruitment campaign across its client base. But without a single view of its current customers, and the extent of their hitherto advocacy activities, it was unable to launch a targeted and engaging campaign that would be effective in boosting uptake for the program.
The company contacted Advocacy Maven due to our experience in launching, managing, and recruiting customers for advocacy programs, as well as our multilingual expertise in communicating with a global audience. Our four-month remit was to work alongside account managers to update the global customer database, assess which customers were prime targets, and recruit and onboard advocates into the program.
Implementation: Global Database Alignment and Advocate Recruitment
Global Database Alignment
Our client understood that timely and complete cooperation from its account managers would be critical to the success of the project. Before the project kick-off, directives were sent out from the organization’s headquarters to all account owners globally to drive their participation.
The Advocacy Maven team reached out to nearly 100 account owners — responsible for more than 900 customers — to request basic data about their clients and to set up briefing calls where more detailed information was needed. This enabled us to report back to the company’s headquarters with an updated, refined database of their active customers globally.
The engagement also provided a solid overview of the company’s high-priority customers for its advocacy program. Where the software company had large conglomerate customers with a range of subsidiaries, we worked with the account owners to identify the most appropriate contact person to represent their organization for advocacy activities.
Advocate Recruitment and Onboarding
Based on the account managers’ introductions, our advocacy specialists reached out by email to the IT vendor’s customers with the goal of onboarding them as future brand advocates. Our multilingual experts ensured favorable responses by communicating with customers in their native languages — using French, Italian, Spanish, and English.
We organized onboarding calls with interested customers where we highlighted the personal and professional benefits of joining the company’s advocacy program, using specialized recruitment techniques which we have honed over more than a decade of advocacy consultancy. We gauged each party’s level of interest and the extent to which they would be willing and able to involve themselves in a range of advocacy activities — such as participating in sales calls, presenting at trade fairs and associated events, as well as sharing their brand experience.
Over the course of the project, we handled more than 1,800 customer and account owner emails, held 139 briefing calls, and helped with the onboarding of 49 new brand advocates.
For each client, we sent a comprehensive outreach report to our customer’s marketing and project lead, noting the client’s activity status, location, and products or services used, along with a summary of our engagement. We also delivered regular project progress reports and worked closely with customer stakeholders to resolve any issues, such as unresponsiveness from customers or account managers.
Results: Unified Data and Priority Account Activation
Impact Highlights
➤ Consolidated global client database into a single source of truth
➤ Recruitment and onboarding of 49 priority brand advocates
➤ 139 executive briefing calls conducted across regions
➤ 1,800+ coordinated global stakeholder communications
➤ Improved cross-functional alignment across sales, marketing, and advocacy
At the end of the project, our client gained a fully cleaned and updated global client database, enabling a confident relaunch of its advocacy program.
Our outreach program improved the software brand’s overall customer relations, sparking and renewing client interest in its advocacy program.
The initiative also saved valuable time for account executives, enabling them to focus on software and solutions sales instead of maintaining outdated client records and reports.
The project achieved all defined objectives — including the onboarding of several high-status customers — establishing a strong operational foundation for sustained advocacy growth.
The measurable impact of the outreach initiative reinforced the organization’s confidence in its advocacy strategy. Along with its fully renovated customer database, it now has the tools and framework to venture out on a new path of advocacy excellence.
From Fragmented Data to Structured Advocacy
Fragmented customer records and inconsistent engagement were transformed into a unified, scalable customer advocacy outreach program. Through global coordination, multilingual engagement, and disciplined database consolidation, the software vendor established a reliable foundation that now supports sustained advocacy growth and tighter alignment between sales, marketing, and customer engagement teams.
