#general

I think we’re seeing a lot of Customer Demand Gen and CMA roles needing folks to think about how some, not all, of their work will directly impact revenue.

Yes, impact and support for demand generation and revenue, but this JD assigned customer advocacy responsibility specifically for the customer acquisition strategy.

I guess I struggle over when to take JDs literally and when to take them with a grain of salt, since they are all over the map. Often if I ask for clarification during the interview process the response will be noncommittal or vague… it will appear that they aren’t sure what their expectations really are.

In this case I’ll come prepared to talk about how I’ve supported the lead pipeline, renewals, etc. by collaborating with demand gen, product, and content.

Unfortunately, companies aren’t always clear or aligned on what they’re looking for vague is the best you get during an interview process. I’ve definitely walked away from some opportunities because of a lack of clarity.

Me too, which is unfortunate. It makes for a bad candidate experience.

I similarly stumble over what to describe as a function of the role vs what is officially a ‘customer program’. It seems there are vastly different views of what this is.

Also, I get a lot of inquiry from start-ups about what programs I’ve created from scratch and owned, which is honestly zero because my roles have always been cross-functional… So maybe I’ve had full ownership and commandeered a program in a different direction, improved it, etc.

But that is more the nature of the companies than my ability to envision and execute a program. For example, I once worked for a non-profit and our road to funding relied on my ability to envision new community programs and get them executed…

I think you answered it here with: It depends.

Many here will likely disagree, but I think there's more job security in having a blend of pre- and post-sale marketing responsibilities, especially if your company doesn't have a full-blown customer marketing team (which is usually a sign they already understand and will invest in CMA). Most companies won't cut an acquisition marketer, and you can always use that leverage to spin up new customer programs and float them until the business sees the value of investing in customer marketing.

This thread from @Nick Venturella has some good perspectives - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nickv_simply-an-observation-but-would-love-activity-7283121927156592641-dez8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios

@Shannon Howard outside of sales reference calls, what customer advocacy/marketing programs have direct, measurable connection to revenue? Everything else requires foggy attributions.

@Evan Huck yes! I remember this string @Nick Venturella started. When I was reading the JD for the role I was thinking that it really is partially a customer success operations manager role not really a customer advocacy & engagement role.

The phrase lifecycle marketing can be triggering for DG folks that believe it's all about expansion and upsell campaigns - that often is where the crunchiness lies when they want to show the complete end to end support from a lead acquisition > revenue impact. I've been chatting with quite a few folks in here about this lately - imo, CMAs are the best positioned to orchestrate it from a post-sale experience standpoint and this puts us in a better light when most CMOs are DG or brand focused and less on the customer experience

As the onboarding & adoption marketing at Snyk, I've realized my team plays a crucial role in setting up expansion opportunities.

For example, we're currently promoting a free feature that will become premium later this year. By building a strong user base now, we're developing a warm audience of users who understand the feature's value and are more likely to upgrade when it becomes paid.

While the distinction between adoption and expansion marketing can overlap sometimes, we're demonstrating how driving awareness and adoption directly supports expansion success. It's collaborative effort between our teams and has worked well so far!

I also think our strengths are best leveraged post-sale but can absolutely help impact NRR. We're starting to get closer to metrics/programs that show a more direct impact across onboarding & adoption marketing and hopefully community when we mature that program!

Agreed - when we say customer marketing, 95% of it usually refers to advocacy only - and while there’s nothing wrong with that - it limits our ability to be seen as full lifecycle marketers and have a seat at the table IMO

@Irwin Hipsman in this JDs and other similar JDs I believe they are specifically wanting customer marketing to own strategy and execution for demand generation (new prospects) so full customer lifecycle. + engagement/nurturing + content production + PR + + + “all the things”. And in the case of most they have staff in these roles already In some cases I will look at the profiles of the folks in their respective roles and they don’t appear qualified so then I feel like companies are taking advantage of customer marketers…

@Kevin Lau sounds to me like a post for your LinkedIn series!

It's on my calendar 🙂

actually I decided to make it today's post since its timely