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<!here> Question for you all... with limited customer marketing resources, who at your company handles (or should handle) the myriad of requests for customer speakers at events, customers to speak with analysts/journalists, nominating customers to industry awards (IDC innovation, Ventana research) etc? We are spending about 75% of our time fielding those requests. Meanwhile, case studies (and everything else) seem to be languishing. Should those requests go directly to the customer team? Or is there another solution? We did finally get folks to use a request form in Asana, so we can at least track the requests and activities associated.
I totally get this, @Michelle Cloutier. It depends on what else you manage and who all is on your team but here's what we do:
• Reference requests go thru us
• Event speakers and logo usage (by marketing) goes thru us
• Journalist requests go thru PR
• Industry award noms go thru CSMs
IMO it's not ideal since we don't have good line of sight into those other requests and may double dip on some customers accidentally. But we can't do it all so this is the compromise (and we ask that those other teams fill us in on their comms but they never do).
We also ask that people fill out a request form to help us track, which has been helpful although not perfect. We work very closely with the partner and regional field marketing teams, and they typically take the lead on speaker recruitment for their events, with our team in a more consultative role. We found that in many cases, they were already working closely with the account teams in their region, so it was more streamlined for them to make the asks and then work with the customer through the entire event process. For larger scale events (like our conference) or for analyst requests, we typically take the lead.
@Michelle Cloutier Our Field Marketing group starts this off, since they are probably coordinating event participation on our behalf. That may change over time, but for now, it works for us.
What’s the process now for finding speakers? I’d look for an approach that allows you to identify people more quickly. Is there a database of people who have already spoken, do you have to get CSM approval first?