Shannon Howard's Profile
Shannon Howard
Recent Messages
#jobs - January 17, 2025 at 06:13 PM
Redwood Software is hiring a Customer Expansion Marketing Manager:
#open-share - January 17, 2025 at 05:37 PM
For Base & CMA nominations: Can folks drop in the comments if you want to be nominated and your email? I'm realizing I don't have everyone's email to include on the form.
#general - January 17, 2025 at 05:37 PM
I don't know that I can get past fundamentally disliking the Alliance as a company to attend anything they host.
#welcome - January 17, 2025 at 04:14 PM
Welcome, <@U089548S1EE>!
#jobs - January 17, 2025 at 04:13 PM
Alessandra Colaci is building out her marketing team at GC AI (legal AI space):
Lifecycle & Community Marketing Manager role - Remote - $120,000/year
Alessandra is the founding marketer and hiring manager. You can connect with her on LinkedIn here:
#welcome - January 16, 2025 at 04:09 PM
Welcome. Glad you're here, <@U089BNGJG4R>!
#general - January 14, 2025 at 03:31 PM
@Kevin Lau sounds to me like a post for your LinkedIn series!
#general - January 13, 2025 at 03:30 PM
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.
#general - January 10, 2025 at 11:38 AM
<@U0806J8HHHR> yes. That’s all built into the contract and has to be redlined out.
#general - January 08, 2025 at 08:04 PM
@Jeanne Talbot I'll let you know what we figure out on that front!
@Kayleigh Bateman I'm going to pull from the notes from CustomerXCon from Katlin's session:
#general - January 08, 2025 at 06:12 PM
We run ours through a Google Form
#linkedin - January 07, 2025 at 05:53 PM
Posted about VOC today and how you DON'T always have to get on the phone with them 1:1. Would love your thoughts!
#general - January 06, 2025 at 09:36 PM
Tim, something else I do, and this is the notetaker in me, is I attend sessions and take copious notes (see and notes) and then circulate in Slack groups and on LinkedIn. I missed my calling as a stenographer, so this will have to do.
Often I'll take these and turn them into blog content and LInkedIn recaps.
#general - January 06, 2025 at 09:34 PM
That's a great idea! @Bianca Del Vecchio didn't you do this at CustomerXCon, where you asked people their perspective on different customer marketing topics?
#discussions - January 06, 2025 at 06:30 PM
@Cristina Levenetz I'll send you our recap deck and brief, which includes budget.
#linkedin - January 06, 2025 at 05:08 PM
Posted about VOC today and how you DON'T always have to get on the phone with them 1:1. Would love your thoughts!
#open-share - January 06, 2025 at 04:01 PM
Appreciate what you do for this industry & community! ❤️
#general - January 06, 2025 at 01:09 PM
UserGems sends a survey 3 months before renewal. It's not anonymous, but they offer a $25 UberEats gift card to complete the survey. The email comes from the Director of CS (not the CSM). Attaching a screenshot of the request & the survey.
I asked the Director of CS how helpful these are. This is what he said: "Yes they have helped quite a bit!
We do them 3x per year for each customer account. 100 days in, mid-way, 120 days to renewal.
Helps us keep a pulse on changing objectives/renewal sentiment outside of recurring calls/EBRs.
I've found some people are more brutally honest in a survey than on a call which is exactly what we want. We've uncovered lots of unknown challenges (UG related or not) first this way :)"
#general - January 03, 2025 at 02:06 PM
- Focus on indicators of use. Is one of their current products more powerful if they purchase another? Are certain types of customers a better fit for these other modules? I know you know this, but don't try to sell everyone on everything. Focus your efforts where they matter most.
- Figure out your best approach. If these are self-serve customers, you might use email, in-app, and/or social ads to target them. For enterprise, you might take more of an ABM approach.
- Prepare case studies for different modules. The same way people want to see how people are using a product and social proof in the initial purchasing process, they want to see what kind of results they can drive with this new module.
- If people clicked through an email or in-app but didn't take action, I've also sent a reminder. Like, "did you forget something?" We did actually see conversions for that (that was for self-serve product).
#general - January 02, 2025 at 08:35 PM
Great question, and sorry to hear about the restructuring!
New initiatives for 2025:
• VOC research to understand how we can better enable our customers
• Journey mapping to align lifecycle communications and activities
• VOC content library and enablement (using Airtable as database and probably going to build a ChatGPT model on top of it, like <@U07U20TAH6C> did)
• Getting all advocacy into Airtable (right now, a lot of logo rights, restrictions, etc. are only available in contracts 😩 )
Deprioritizing:
• Review campaigns (we didn't find this driving much meaningful impact and figured we can use our time and $$ elsewhere)
• Video stories (hard to get customers to commit to this)
#open-share - January 02, 2025 at 08:09 PM
Love that, @Daniel Palay!
#open-share - January 02, 2025 at 08:00 PM
Last year, @Daniel Palay and @Katlin Hess helped me prepare for a customer speaker at RKO. Doing that again this year, so figured, in case this is also on your Q1 agenda, I'd share my prep doc with y'all to steal from. 🙂
For a gift, we did:
• Swag from the RKO
• Nice note signed by everyone in attendance (especially execs)
• Good chocolate 🤤
• A $75 gift card to the local butcher (his fave spot in town. haha)
If you've got other ideas, throw them in the thread here so we can learn from each other!
#general - January 02, 2025 at 07:54 PM
Great idea! I haven't done this before, but looking forward to hearing how this goes for you!
#open-share - January 02, 2025 at 04:40 PM
Amazing! Incredible work, Cara! Hope you're proud of such significant achievements!
#open-share - January 02, 2025 at 04:39 PM
Happy 2025, friends! On a personal level, what's something you're looking forward to this year and/or hope to achieve this year?
#general - December 17, 2024 at 09:52 PM
Usually because you send out a campaign through the G2 platform
#general - December 12, 2024 at 04:28 PM
We published 3 case studies recently. Was in a case study desert between spring-summer, so happy these went live!
#general - December 12, 2024 at 04:27 PM
I'll start by saying that I think people underestimate the work that goes into a successful referral program and the logistics to operate one. And I don't know that it's always best for B2B because of the tax issues, some companies having policies against referring to a vendor, complexities of buying groups, etc. (usually the person who is influenced by an incentive doesn't have the decision making power).
1) When should we offer incentives? I would agree with you. Incentive should be based on deal closing. It's not uncommon to have payout be net 30 or net 90 post-sale. That way they get paid when you get paid. Otherwise, CPL is going to skyrocket, and unless those are real and closing at a higher rate, that's going to hurt your marketing metrics.
2) How do you prevent fraud? If you incentivize based only on close, you avoid this. Any time you incentivize lead gen, you run into a likelihood of low-quality leads that won't convert.
3) What is the best way to streamline and automate this process? You could build this into your CRM or use a referral platform that integrates with your CRM.
Something other things to consider:
• what happens if multiple people try to refer the same person? Who gets the credit?
• How long does someone get to be the referrer of a lead? Is it forever? 90 days? 6 months? Depending on your buying cycle length, the longer it's been since the lead was referred, the less likely the referral is an influence on close.
• How are you training referral partners on your product so they're setting the right expectations? Are you offering them any collateral to help promote your product?
#general - December 12, 2024 at 12:55 PM
LET’S GOOOO!
#general - December 12, 2024 at 12:50 PM
Hey Sarah! I have thoughts here. I’m at an event today, but remind me if I don’t respond by tomorrow?
#general - December 10, 2024 at 07:45 PM
Was reminded it's been a minute: What's a WIN you want to celebrate with folks who get it?
#discussions - December 10, 2024 at 06:57 PM
Or case studies created from award submissions and their influence on revenue.
#discussions - December 10, 2024 at 06:22 PM
Like you, we ran our first awards program alongside our virtual summit/conference.
We included some of the measures @Alexie Glover outlined above, but we kept our goals more objective-focused.
I've attached some of the recap slides. One of the executive champions at an account kept promoting the crap out of the awards, opening the door to expand into other new groups at that company. So those are the types of stories we told, about how this was a feel-good for our customers and created recognition within their org that would actually elevate us to their executive team.
#discussions - December 04, 2024 at 02:49 PM
@Tim Jahn How are you finding the calls to pull from for case studies/testimonials?
#discussions - December 04, 2024 at 02:23 PM
@Tim Jahn Can I ask how you're using it?
I'm trying to understand more about Gong's capabilities and how I can leverage it for customer marketing. Right now, calls are being recorded, but we really don't do much with Gong to leverage that data.
#discussions - December 04, 2024 at 01:37 PM
Anyone super familiar with Gong for customer advocacy?
#general - December 03, 2024 at 08:53 PM
ALWAYS INTERESTED. 🙂
#general - December 03, 2024 at 08:23 PM
Any chance you have a copy of the State of Customer Engagement report??? 😇
#general - December 03, 2024 at 08:21 PM
Reading now 👀
#welcome - December 03, 2024 at 05:15 PM
Welcome!
Also a fan of meal planning over here. Starting to get into freezer meals so I can batch cook, but not eat the same thing for a week. 🤪
#open-share - December 03, 2024 at 04:09 PM
Congrats on the public launch! 🎉
#general - December 03, 2024 at 04:08 PM
Good to hear from you—and congrats on the nomination for top women in eCommerce!
#open-share - November 21, 2024 at 02:44 PM
Thanks for sharing here, @Mary Green (Owner CMAweekly)!
#random - November 21, 2024 at 02:00 PM
Would you help me share this out?
I'm working on a research survey to understand how companies are using education to drive growth. We all know that education is KEY to happy, healthy customers—which in turn leads to new customer acquisition. The goal of this research is to present business leaders with data that helps them see this opportunity that everyone here in the CE Slack clearly sees.
You (or the customer education/customer training people at your company) can participate here 👉
As a thank you for participating, people will be entered to win access to Julie Dirksen’s Design for Learning course!
Thank you in advance for participating and sharing!
#random - November 20, 2024 at 10:08 PM
Would you help me share this out?
I'm working on a research survey to understand how companies are using education to drive growth. We all know that education is KEY to happy, healthy customers—which in turn leads to new customer acquisition. The goal of this research is to present business leaders with data that helps them see this opportunity that everyone here in the CE Slack clearly sees.
You (or the customer education/customer training people at your company) can participate here 👉
As a thank you for participating, people will be entered to win access to Julie Dirksen’s Design for Learning course!
Thank you in advance for participating and sharing!
#discussions - November 20, 2024 at 03:15 PM
Undisputed. Unparalleled. Industry leader for years and going.
#discussions - November 20, 2024 at 03:15 PM
Wonder if you could change it to something like "The unchallenged leader for over 2.5 years" or something to that effect.
#discussions - November 19, 2024 at 05:52 PM
We have this built into contracts and customers can strike that out or revise to something like, "Can use with express permission for a particular use case." And we keep a record (not perfectly) of which permissions we have.
If we do a specific advocacy activity (like a case study), I let them know where, when, and how we're using their case study. So we have freedom to repurpose, turn it into carousels for social, etc. And we keep those live unless a customer churns and/or asks to take it down (like if they've acquired a competitor).
It's also part of our 2025 plan to streamline how we track all this, and we'll likely pull it into Airtable. Working on requirements in Q1.
#discussions - November 19, 2024 at 03:11 PM
When I had Sendoso at a previous company, we built out a landing page where people could fill in their name, mailing address, and any info to send a gift (t-shirt size, choose your gift, etc.).
Wonder if you could create pages for different types of advocacy activities, then automate sending that page over after the successful completion of an advocacy activity.
#general - November 18, 2024 at 03:25 PM
Not sure I have the capacity to commit to ongoing mentorship, but have the ability and willingness to meet 1:1 with folks who are stuck.
Things I'm good at:
• Starting a V1 customer marketing function (going from random acts of CMA to something more intentional)
• Building relationships around the organization
• Getting buy-in for more formal programs
Happy to share briefs, decks, and program documents with anyone, if I have something available as well.