#general

Launching a referral program pilot - would love any tips people have!

How do you go about finding reference “hand-raisers” (outside of a traditional customer advocacy program)?

OOOHHH I like that @Ashley Ward - did you get a platform for this?

@Mary Green (Owner CMAweekly) nope! just a pilot so verrrrrrry simple - email our customers > ask them to submit a form > send to sales to schedule demo > pay customer when demo is done

Here’s what I’m working on…

Ashley, I think @Rachel Ward might have some ideas on this.

@Maura Frost we ask customers "would you be willing to be a reference?" in various surveys post training/certification events, this is also included in G2 reviews - this has given us a great pool to start with. It's super vague but is a great place to start building a base.

@Maura Frost do you mean find people that want to be references without first recruiting them to your advocacy program?

How do you plan for world domination?

@Mary Green (Owner CMAweekly) Correct - some folks aren’t necessarily interested in joining our advocacy program but are still willing to be references. Wondering what touch points people use to ask about references - like Ashley’s suggestions!

@Kevin Lau ask Pinky and the Brain

I focus on two of the 4 advocacy types for this Maura, the validators who give feedback tend to do reviews, references, and work with your product team. If they are doing reviews or working with product now, I’d reach out to ask. Status seekers (people who want to take their career to the next level) tend to want to network, you’ll find them on social media, doing webinars in your space, participating in communities, and sharing content they’ve created.

If you look at your customer data or the lifecycle, I would look to ask after big wins, renewals, professional services wrap ups, and then post in the customer newsletter or even use an in-app ask.

Love it, thanks Mary!

We also partnered with our training team to incorporate asking if they'd be interested in being a reference and they would share that report!

I'm working on launching a rewards program! Getting my beta group together now. Been working on this for a year and am so excited to see it come to life! Hoping it will speed up my reference cycle

Attending the Gartner Marketing Symposium while also finalizing details for my company's event and CAB next week

Enjoying my vacation 😊

Working on a few things these days 😅
• Most importantly, the Bridgerton x CMA marketing meme crossover on Frank Advocacy's LinkedIn
• Launching a client's awards program
• Preparing my presentation with @Emily Amos for CustomerXCon
• Recruiting new references for a new product for another client
• And! Helping a few amazing CMAers source their next opportunity! Hit me up if you have job postings that are a good fit for senior CMAers.

• a bunch of new customer stories
• trip to Singapore and Paris to film customers
• standing up an advocacy application
• wrapping up Sapphire
• customer awards
• daughter's promotion from 8th grade
• sphere for dead & co
• washing dishes
• folding laundry
• making dinner

Shoutout to Spreadsheet for dominating the CMA vendor market share

I'm brainstorming sending strategies to our customers and also expanding the customer marketing we're doing to EMEA and APAC. 🙂