#general

One thing I've done in the past is create a bucket of money for creating a few 'big' advocates. For example, for us, we needed a strong Marketing Ops leader who would advocate for us. We set aside money to nurture one by submitting them to speak at another event and then paying for their travel. We also submitted them for a few awards during the year which often has a fee associated with the submission process.

Thank you, Heather - I missed that, I need to include a bucket for some additional funds for things like that. I've done similar in the past!

I wonder if @Shannon Howard, @Alexie Glover, @Kevin Lau, @Ari Hoffman - Amplitude, @Melissa DiBernardo, or @Melissa VanPelt have some thoughts to share on this.

This is just how I do it, but I think about what my goals are, what advocacy programs we're running, the incentives I want to offer for each, and how many I'll need. So if we're offering customer speakers an incentive worth $50 and I need one a month, I have a line item for $600 that breaks that down. Same with references, reviews, CS spiffs, case studies, etc.

I’d definitely leave some room for AI tools (whether Laudable or not) - content creation, voice of customer analysis, etc - bunch of cool stuff possible and will be possible over the next year 😸

Definitely ensure you're maintaining enough budget reserve for a full year of review incentives and customer thank-yous! These always seem to pop up as running low on budget, and when you need them, you need them!!!

We’re going through AOP right now. This is my approach:
1. What are the big bets we want to make tied to company okrs
2. What are the jobs to be done against those goals (lights on + new/different programs)
3. What are the current gaps from a people, process, tech cost to get us there
4. What is the ROI for any incremental $$$ with a valid business case (good, better, best breakdown)

Outsourced customer story writing 😅

In addition to the items above, we've been more frequently funding customer speaker travel to speak at events (our own or industry events) with us (flight, hotel room mainly).