Should I have a Customer Advocacy Program or a Customer Advisory Board?
Word of mouth exists since the beginning of commerce. But it has evolved over centuries and exploded into a hot new trend since social media exists. You want as many advocates as possible to empower your sales, marketing and product development.
A customer advisory board is a very select subset of your advocates. It is a group of people who meet regularly and collaborate to take your company forward in the long term. It is an activity reserved from your most prized and active customer advocates. The C-levels of your customers.
According to productplan.com businesses assemble customer advisory boards with several common objectives in mind, including:
- To create champions for their brand
- To validate product ideas and guide the product roadmap
- To help shape their marketing messaging
- To gather market intelligence
Other strategic tasks a customer advisory board could help with include:
- Discover new markets or new opportunities in the current one
- Uncover the marketing triggers that make customers press the buy button
- Understand major trends in the customer industry and anticipate a solution
While a Customer Advocacy Marketing Program influences the current market, helps with sales and enhances your product, it is the Customer Advisory Board that will keep your business future proof and always growing.
Related Knowledge-Base Articles:
How Customer Advocates Help Prospects?
Asking a customer to take a reference call or visit is awkward for most sales and marketing professionals. After all, you’re asking a paying customer to do you a favor, right? Well yes, to some extent, but very often they would gladly help you. A reference is not a favor, it is a win-win. And advocates have their share of benefits from being in your program.
Why do I need a customer advocacy solution deck?
Public customer advocacy statements are cool. Your sales team loves them and would love to use as many as possible in sales decks and in response to RFPs. So, they spend precious time scouring the customer evidence section on your website to gather quotes and business case info and put that into a slide.
Why Advocates Should Work With an Advocacy Marketing Agency
Customer advocacy marketing agencies are like a Hollywood talent agent but helping technology deployment rock stars make the most of being in the programs.
