Emily Coleman

#general - February 21, 2025 at 04:30 PM

@Vera Flores this is a really cool idea!

#general - February 21, 2025 at 04:29 AM

@Lauren Locke-Paddon this is the example I saw! Thanks for mentioning it.

#general - February 20, 2025 at 11:15 PM

I feel like I saw something somewhere recently about advocacy activities that were focused on building stickiness and advocacy within existing accounts, but I have no idea where.

We've got a Fortune 100 customer with an internal champion who is super enthusiastic about our product. He's a design partner for our new product offerings, and he's interested in doing some kind of advocacy stuff with us, but there's some hesitancy (rightly so, probably) about going through internal approvals. What he really wants is to get more teams using our product and to share the things his team has done more widely.

I am meeting with him on Monday, and I want to come with some ideas on how we can help build materials for him to share and use with other teams, like a short video, an internal-only case study, or templates for his how-to docs. Is there something I'm missing that would also be useful?

#general - February 20, 2025 at 09:52 PM

@Daniel Palay no worries. That's where I was last week. It's a lot.

#general - February 20, 2025 at 05:21 PM

@Sarah Miller I really like that idea. I always love gassing up customers.

#general - February 19, 2025 at 07:49 PM

@Jennifer Lyons we are developing new integrated campaign frameworks and content assets to go along with that, and my vision is that if there's some kind of advocacy content used in those assets, I could measure influence.

Example:
We create a blog post featuring practitioner perspectives on why they won't go back to the old way of deploying software. In this blog post, we use customer examples and direct customer quotes. The CTA at the bottom of the post has a free trial sign up. We promote this on LinkedIn and our customer newsletter.

If I know we've used customer quotes/proof in this piece, I'd like to understand how it performs against other assets.

• Higher view count
• Reduced bounce rate
• Increased trial sign-ups
• Increased social engagement (click-through, comments, likes, shares)
It doesn't necessarily need to be attributed back to the specific piece of content. I'd be okay with the general question of "did this asset include customer advocacy content y/n?"

#general - February 19, 2025 at 07:40 PM

@Joel Primack we are getting ready to launch our new Highspot library to sales in a week or two, so that's something I'm really excited to see some results with.

#general - February 19, 2025 at 05:23 PM

SFDC is our CRM. We don't have a dedicated advocacy platform yet. In the interim, we're using a combination of spreadsheets and SFDC reports.

#general - February 19, 2025 at 04:40 PM

I'm looking for someone I can have a nitty-gritty, brass tacks, ropes, [insert other idiom/phrase] discussion with about attributing customer advocacy content in marketing campaigns specifically. I have a kind of vision for how I'd like it to work, but marketing operations is just not my area of expertise. Our MOps team is open to helping me make the attribution happen, but we're all a little unsure on how to actually execute it using our existing stack. If you're willing to have a call with me and my MOps colleague, I'd love to know what the actual workflow looks like (is it SFDC custom objects, UTM parameter tags, spreadsheets, or something else?).

#jobs - February 12, 2025 at 05:39 PM

I interviewed with them several years ago. I got through 4-5 interview cycles before they sent me a rejection email. There were a couple of people who I really liked and connected with. But, I interviewed with a director/VP level who told me at the beginning of the interview they were really busy and basically not to waste their time. When the recruiter emailed to tell me I was out of consideration, I replied back and said the feeling was mutual.

#open-share - February 10, 2025 at 06:02 PM

@Kevin Lau I'm crossing my fingers you're going to address how you've built your attribution and influence in this series!

#general - February 07, 2025 at 07:18 PM

@Jeanne Talbot yeah, I had reps and PMMs trying to use quotes from about that far back, too. It's wild.

#general - February 07, 2025 at 07:16 PM

@Dan Kalmar in my previous role, I was never able to get a customer to agree to a refreshed case study. Either they didn't respond, they had been acquired by another company and that company didn't want to participate, the customer churned, or the internal champion had moved on, so the relationship wasn't as strong. I haven't tried asking for a refresh at the company I'm with now, so that experience may be totally different.

#open-share - February 07, 2025 at 05:23 PM

I feel like if I can get to a point where I can report on ROI for customer advocacy content, it will be my crowning career achievement. I'd really love to get away from metrics that are just publish X case studies per quarter.

#general - February 07, 2025 at 05:21 PM

I'm working on a project to audit our existing case studies and redo our customer/case study page on the website. I am curious how you all decided when/if to deprecate case studies. Here's what I've come up with so far, but I'd love to know how others have approached this.
• Remove case studies and quotes 3 years post publication
◦ Still considering whether we just take them down or ask the customer if they'd be willing to refresh. Asking for a refresh on a case study hasn't been very successful for me in the past.
◦ Consider leaving up case studies post 3 years if they still have strategic value (logo, valuable industry, still used frequently, etc.)
• Remove case studies and quotes if the customer churns
◦ Do not automatically remove a case study if the person quoted leaves the company UNLESS requested by the customer

#jobs - February 05, 2025 at 09:14 PM

This is definitely true. During my job search, I had to compromise on title and instead focus on a wage I was comfortable with.

#jobs - February 05, 2025 at 09:10 PM

Surprised is probably the wrong word here. More like dismayed. 🙃

#jobs - February 05, 2025 at 09:08 PM

Not calling out any individual job post here, but I am surprised to see experience requirements of 5+ years, and responsibilities that are really broad in scope (manage references, create case studies, run CABs/executive programs, and drive review campaigns) for roles that don't have a senior title.

#general - February 04, 2025 at 04:52 PM

You can ask to anonymize the case study (many public sector prospects and customers understand this and don't mind reading them anyway). You can also ask if you can at least use the quotes they provided anonymously or internally only.

Also, I agree with Shannon that it's better to get to no upfront before the case study interview happens or it's drafted. We require a signed release agreement for case studies upfront for this reason.

#general - February 03, 2025 at 05:23 PM

We did a joint blog post with Ally bank at the end of last year that was really successful. We collaborated on two separate blog posts that went live on the same day along with social promotion. You can check those out here:
• https://launchdarkly.com/blog/moderinizing-software-delivery-ally-financial/
• https://www.ally.com/tech/release-modernization-how-we-got-our-weekends-back-one-feature-at-a-time

#general - January 30, 2025 at 05:48 PM

@Mary Green (Owner CMAweekly) can you add me to this channel, too?

#discussions - December 16, 2024 at 06:13 PM

I'd also love to know if you all connected or if I can join the discussion. I'm considering doing this as well.

#jobs - December 12, 2024 at 06:08 PM

I will say though, that I generally apply for hybrid roles anyway just to see if they'll make an exception for remote work. The role I took at LaunchDarkly was listed as hybrid/on-site and they hired me remote anyway.

#jobs - December 12, 2024 at 06:07 PM

@Jennifer Lyons, they will likely choose someone in the ATX area who can be hybrid. I was remote because I was part of an office location that was closed during the pandemic.

#jobs - December 11, 2024 at 01:44 AM

The role I vacated at SolarWinds is open! https://jobs.solarwinds.com/job-detail/?gh_jid=4499693005

If you're interested in this job, feel free to connect with me and I'm happy to give you some interview prep!

#discussions - November 19, 2024 at 05:44 PM

At my last company, we didn't really do logo rights. We had a policy of using any customer logos unless they told us not to. At my current company, those things are in the contract. They are frequently stricken out, and eventually I'll tackle how to better educate reps to try to keep more of those terms into the contracts. I think the question about agreements is largely driven by legal and how conservative they want to be. The legal teams I've worked with have liked an agreement for each activity, unless they're kind of linked together. But, we don't need an agreement for everything. For instance, with quotes and testimonials, I prefer to just work with documented agreements like an email or recording or something.

I want to make this process easier, so I'm feeling out the possibility of using basically checkbox forms for consent, but that's a work in progress.

#general - November 19, 2024 at 05:40 PM

@Shelly Ryder do you know why? What I like to do is just set up calls with reps and ask them a bunch of discovery questions about what they know about finding and using customer evidence, what they don't know but wish they did, what's stopping them from using the current system, etc.

#general - November 19, 2024 at 04:34 PM

The thing you need to figure out is where are sales and CSMs most of the time? Salesforce, or some other tool? Then, once you know that, you need to figure out how to get your stuff in there in a place where they would naturally look. I'm working on trying to take it to the next step by proactively serving up content based on their open opportunities or upcoming check-in calls.

#general - November 19, 2024 at 04:31 PM

I'm happy to be a mentor. I have 7 years of experience in customer marketing/advocacy and I've done about everything--ABM, lifecycle, all the advocacy programs, sales enablement, etc. Some of the things I'm good at are design-centered thinking and strategy (basically, how do you identify the problems you need to solve so you can come up with a better solution the first time), tying advocacy programs to revenue, and getting executive buy-in for your programs. You can connect with me on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyecoleman/)

#general - November 13, 2024 at 05:44 PM

@Amy I've used UserEvidence previously as well, and I've liked it for that reason. It becomes a little trickier when we're using existing recordings from Gong and other sources when they haven't expressly given permission for the recording to be used that way. Even though we would definitely ask for permission prior to publishing the testimonial.

#general - November 08, 2024 at 08:14 PM

I use UserEvidence, and found it to be really powerful for this kind of thing. Especially when it comes to collecting ROI specifically.

#general - November 07, 2024 at 06:38 PM

Just to be clear, I understand the approval process, but it's not me I have to convince, it's the lawyers. Especially when we're dealing with security/privacy sensitive customers in developers/engineers.

#general - November 07, 2024 at 06:35 PM

Right, I explained the approval process for customers but legal has a concern that even the act of going to a customer and surfacing a quote from a Gong call to ask for approval could have unintended consequences and put off customers because they may feel like they didn't consent to have these calls reviewed for marketing purposes.

#general - November 07, 2024 at 05:47 PM

That a customer being recorded on a Gong call and having a quote pulled later could be a liability if the customer didn't know that the transcript or recording could be used for that purpose.

#general - November 07, 2024 at 05:43 PM

Yeah, unfortunately, legal sees it pretty differently.

#general - November 07, 2024 at 05:37 PM

@Joel Primack have you used a tool that does this? Or are you just sharing how you'd approach it?

#general - November 07, 2024 at 05:23 PM

I think the features are so new that a lot of legal teams don't even know they exist yet. I think a few use cases from orgs that have tried it would go a long way toward building trust with our legal team.

#general - November 07, 2024 at 05:14 PM

I have a questions for the CMA folks who are using tools like PeerBound, Laudable, or UserEvidence with Gong or Chorus integrations to find testimonials. How have you positioned this feature with your legal teams? Do you have your customer facing teams disclose in their calls with customers that their recordings can be used for training, quality, AND marketing purposes? Have you encountered any negative feedback from your internal teams or customers who might get a request to use a quote from a Gong call? Or, has it all worked pretty smoothly?

#discussions - November 06, 2024 at 04:41 PM

The ideal state for me would be collaborating with CSMs and other field/customer-facing teams to make sure they're asking the right questions and collecting good data during their interactions with customers. Then, the customer advocacy team can build off that relationship to identify advocate accounts and personalize the approach. For pretty much all accounts, except identified strategic accounts, I prefer to do the outreach myself rather than add another to-do to those teams. Strategic accounts are different, because you really want to be in sync with everyone involved with those accounts, and in many cases, it's best to have one POC for all asks.

#general - October 31, 2024 at 10:34 PM

I agree with others here that high touch and some coaching the customer through what the GPI review process entails is important. We collected 20+ reviews at a recent user conference, and I believe they were all accepted.

#general - October 30, 2024 at 06:37 PM

If you're using SmartSheet I would highly recommend connecting with Steve Lampert and Michelle Heimerl on the PMM and advocacy teams there. They did a presentation at CustomerX Con, and I believe they said they had templates or workflows using SmartSheet for case studies. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/michelleheimerl_customercontent-customerxcon-activity-[…]077098954754-QhPG?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

#general - October 29, 2024 at 03:37 PM

@Shannon Howard I'm really hoping you find the Grammarly Insights article. We're getting ready to launch something similar to this in product, and it would be cool to have some complimentary email/touchpoints outside of product.

#open-share - October 29, 2024 at 03:36 PM

I did something like this when I first started taking over case studies at SolarWinds. I did a bunch of internal interviews, then put together the main takeaways into a deck. Once we started a new process, I documented the heck out of it in a bunch of different ways. I had a one-pager for customers, a different one for internal teams, and a longer step-by-step doc.

#general - October 18, 2024 at 04:44 PM

I'll be there! Really excited about this one.

#general - October 17, 2024 at 05:58 PM

Great question. I like that.

#general - October 17, 2024 at 03:58 PM

I did a demo with ShoutOut at SolarWinds, and wanted to do a trial, but we couldn't make it happen. Definitely looking forward to continuing the conversation in this new role. I'll send you a message!

#general - October 17, 2024 at 03:45 PM

Oh, that's a great idea!

#general - October 17, 2024 at 03:41 PM

I started a new job this week 🥳! My first priority is meeting with a LOT of people across product, marketing, sales, customer success, etc. I'd like to have a standard 3-5 questions I ask everyone, and I was curious what you all would ask your cross-functional stakeholders during your first 30 days. Here's what I have so far:
• What role should customer advocacy play in the organization? Does it serve that function today? Why not?
• What are the biggest pain points on your team related or unrelated to customer advocacy? What questions or problems come up most frequently?
• How do you normally interact with customer marketing and advocacy? What worked well and what needs improvement?

#general - October 09, 2024 at 06:25 PM

I'll be there this year as well. Really looking forward to it!

#general - September 20, 2024 at 08:39 PM

Here is a slide I created with a hierarchy as an example. We are breaking out the reviews based on a few different criteria, including where we're sourcing the customer, their account size, and the account or contact persona, since we have a diverse product set, and certain review platforms perform better with specific personas.