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Fun tips for boosting LI engagement. It’s subjective so grain of salt
👋 Hi CMAers!
Just dropped a new LinkedIn post for anyone managing customer references
"How many advocates do you actually need to support Sales this year?"
If you've ever felt caught in the scramble to find references after the ask comes in — this one's for you.
I shared a simple 5-step planning method to help:
• Forecast reference demand using revenue goals
• Prioritize where advocacy will matter most
• Align with Sales and protect your advocates from burnout
If you want the plug-and-play spreadsheet, comment on the post or shoot me a DM.
Disclaimer: not a perfect model but definitely helpful in understanding how many advocates you may need to meet reference call demand aligned to expected regional growth
T Minus 90 min til @Liz Richardson and I break down our new ~56 page report on the Customer Marketing Technology Landscape live. We analyzed 14 customers marketing/advocacy vendors in the 3 core CM disciplines - Customer Content Creation, Customer Reference Databases, and Advocate Activation & Mobilization - as well as 8 adjacent categories (Review Sites, Testimonial Videos, CM Agencies, Gifting, Community & Referrals, CS Tools, Sales Asset Management, and Competitive Intelligence)
The scope and complexity of the CM function is growing, expanding from reference management, to advocacy and content creation, and now to a whole host of related functions - lifecycle marketing, upsell/x-sell, customer education, community, and voice of customer.
While the degree of difficulty in execution is going up, this is a huge opportunity for CM to own more scope, deliver more value to their organizations, and solidify a position at the executive table. To seize this opportunity - technology almost has to be part of the solution (if not purpose-built vendors, at least AI-enabled DIY tools) at any 100+ employee org.
Luckily, the CM Technology Landscape is experiencing a wave of innovation, disruption, and new investment that is ushering in a new era of unprecedented power and capabilities for CMs who take advantage of these technologies. And while CM technology is borderline essential in this market - it’s tough for a customer marketer to make sense of the rapidly evolving landscape. This report and webinar will help you (start) to make sense of the landscape.
Register here (and if you can't join you'll at least get a copy of the recording) -
See you soon!
I think this is a great reminder to treat people like people and not like they are your next big opportunity.
In the end, we can leverage relationships and networking, and I don't think people mind, as long as they are treated with kindness and consideration.
Just shared a new post on how we reimagined the use of customer proof across the sales cycle.
Instead of saving references for the end, we looked at where different types of customer stories can actually move the deal forward—from discovery to closed-won.
If you’re looking for ways to build buyer confidence earlier or make better use of existing content, give it a read and let me know what you think:
New Peerbound Podcast episode with Ali Jawin, CMO at Pontera (formerly CMO at Outreach), who is super smart and wildly funny. Check it out!
Can you mention the companies you know are hiring, or anyone under the radar? Even a comment to help with reach would be great!
Hi, all! I'm hosting an event for Grammarly users in NYC next Thursday, April 10 at 10 a.m. If you use and love Grammarly and would like to attend, please let me know. I'd love to have you join us. It's a first-of-its-kind event, so not only will you have the chance to shape the future of Grammarly products, but you will also have the chance to provide feedback on future exclusive regional product roundtable events. Details in thread!
Me again, with another G2 event 😅
We're hosting an AI in Action Roadshow -- think half day of hands on learning.
A lot of this is focused on AI thought leadership, use cases for AI Agents, and the full afternoon is basically a prompt-writing session. The event is totally free, we'll be in New York, San Fran, Atlanta and London and I'll personally be in New York and would love to see some of you IRL!!
Link to register here:
where my white lotus fans at? 😂
👋 Quick share for anyone who is trying to drive better adoption of case studies & reference programs within their organizations
I just posted a breakdown on LinkedIn of a survey I ran with AEs to understand why Sales wasn’t using our case studies or reference program—despite saying they wanted them. Spoiler: it wasn’t about volume, it was about access, relevance, and friction.
The post includes:
• What I asked in the survey
• The gaps it uncovered
• What we changed in our advocacy approach
• How we’re measuring progress
• A free survey template if you want to run this internally
If that sounds useful, check it out
NEW RESEARCH INCOMING!! 📈
No doubt that our industry is at a pivotal point, with acquisitions, sunsetting platforms, and rising demand for proof of ROI. That's why UserEvidence has been diligently working alongside the Captivate Collective team for the past 6 months to put together the first-ever Customer Marketing & Advocacy Tech Landscape Report!
What's inside:
• Detailed breakdowns of leading customer marketing platforms
• Exclusive insights from 200+ CMA practitioners
• Side-by-side vendor comparisons
• The new state of customer marketing technology–and where your focus needs to be
The report launches later in April, but if you'd like a sneak peek at some of the most surprising and pertinent findings, @Liz Richardson and @Evan Huck are hosting a webinar on April 8th to dig into the goods.
Register to join us:
Can I get some support to get this message more exposure on LinkedIn?
I want to boost people up and help them have some excitement to get out there and share their expertise when companies are actually spending now!
If you're free tomorrow at 2pm ET, SlapFive is doing the finale episode of CustomerX Chopped. We will be going over how to prove the value of your reference programs to leadership!
It's not linkedin and it's a week late, but since it's been a while since Jacob made an appearance...Happy belated St. Patrick's day from this almost 8 month old (relatedly, where the f did the time go?!?)
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We're hosting a webinar on Review Generation strategies We'll be sharing best practices, real world examples and new tools from G2 to help streamline review generation. Webinar is Wednesday afternoon:
Hi all! I was a guest on the Empire State of Grind podcast recently and it launched today. Would appreciate you checking out this brief clip about why CEOs should invest in the customer marketing function:
I totally agree that stock images in case studies are awful. However, from working with engineers and developers, I have to say that some of the headshots and photos they send me are atrocious.
One time I got a headshot from a VP of Engineering that was a picture of her on her couch with her husband and she just cropped him out.
Don't disagree at all, but I think part of the reason is because it's yet another thing you need to get permission for (their photos). Sometimes you can just pull nice pictures from the customer's site and ask for permission, but often the customer has no team photos to use
i share this pet peeve, and i know multiple CEOs of public SaaS companies who also hate it and actively call out their teams when they see stock images instead of real customer or employee photos.
In case you missed it last week - here's a summary and the recording of the webinar our Director of Product Marketing at UserEvidence, , did last week with some examples of modern approaches to case studies (think my favorite are the "playbook" style stories - see Sequel and Clay examples), and what the future of case studies might look like -
Hey all -- wanted to share an upcoming G2 Innovation Webinar that's particularly relevant to this group! Our product team will be sharing new tools built to help you collect more reviews and some of the ways we're making every review work harder and expanding their reach.
Webinar is tomorrow at 11am ET, but even if you can't make it, register and we'll auto-send the recording!