#announcements
Important info for Customer Marketers & Community members
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Has anyone created some type of SLA or guidelines document regarding securing customers for marketing opportunities? I often have team members reaching out asking for a customer for a webinar in 3-4 weeks (or less) which is basically impossible for me. I'd like to share something that shows the time it takes to secure a customer (X amount of days to create a short list, X amount of days to work with them on content, X amount of days to have consent & release form signed, etc.). I'm just trying to think of the best way to lay it out and present it to them to get it to stick.
I've done this where I outlined:
• Advocacy opportunities
• WHO would be the best fit/criteria
• Incentive for participation
• Lead time
Curious: Are they only able to give 3-4 weeks' notice for webinars because of their current planning?
I ask because, I totally hear you on how hard it is to find someone with so little lead time. But as the person who plans and hosts our webinars, I'm one of the few people who actually plans out content clusters in advance. Most marketing teams couldn't give you a 6-month calendar that outlines topics they're planning to cover. My own calendar got bungled when the product team changed their roadmap recently, which led to more last-minute outreach. 😞
@Shannon Howard Campaigns are planned out in advance... and then changed haha. It's not just webinars - press releases, blogs, a lot of on the fly ideas they have, often with unnecessary strict go live dates. Our customers are enterprise-level as well so it makes it more difficult with their lengthy approval processes. I just received a request for a customer for a last-minute webinar on Oct 4 that we would need to start promoting early next week and promote the customer's name in the comms. It's just not feasible.
In a previous role, I inherited a process that provided different levels of support depending on the timeline. The idea was if you come to us 2-3+ months out, we can source the customer, help with prep etc - essentially be full service. If you come 1-2 months out, we can help prep the customer you've already secured, and if you're within a few weeks, you're mostly on your own but we'll help day of
I don't think it totally worked, and depending on your organization, there could be a lot of risk in having other teams doing the customer sourcing. But it was helpful to have something to point to to help set expectations for how long it takes to pull off something like "have a customer speak on this webinar" that sounds so easy but actually isn't
@Kendall Matthews GAH. That's so frustrating. I mean, I know we gotta roll with the punches sometimes in marketing, but constantly changing our marketing campaigns means maybe we're not.... I don't know... STRATEGICALLY THINKING about marketing?
I support a number of programs with public SLAs. To be honest, while helpful, they do create a new set of challenges because internal partners are always going to submit requests with timelines that don't align to the SLAs. I love what @Lauren Stefano has outlined above, as I think a full process that transparently shares what the marketing team can support under the wire helps a lot. BUT—all this to say, the average internal partner doesn't refer to SLAs or processes for other teams unless there's leadership support and back up when your team inevitably has to say no. Truly swapping one headache/problem for another ...
Here’s a few flowcharts I put together that you can repurpose as a template for standard and expedited SLAs related to references - could be any marketing reference request