I know you’re just dying to get your advocate marketing campaign rolling, and that you want to make sure you do it right.
Maybe you have some ideas; maybe you have a full plan. Maybe you’re coming in with nothing but hope and good intentions. Whatever the case may be, it’s all good – Influitive Advocacy Coaches like me are always pumped to help you get started.
We have collectively launched and coached about 100 advocate marketing programs, so believe me when I say that we know our stuff!
As your Advocacy Coach, I’m not looking to make sure you’re kind-of-sort-of-maybe happy with your advocate marketing strategy. I want you to get super into it. I love it when the marketers I work with are so excited about their programs that they email me in the middle of the night with a great idea they just came up with.
This actually happens! And when it does, I’m already working out ways to fit it into your strategy. Why? Because success, for me, means that my customers look like rockstars to their bosses, colleagues and peers.
What does customer onboarding and success look like?
The fun begins when you are assigned your very own Advocacy Coach. Together, we walk through an in-depth customer onboarding program consisting of five calls (six if you’re integrating AdvocateHub with Salesforce.com), as well as a number of recommended and optional follow-up activities that you’ll complete individually or with your team.
While most companies move through the customer onboarding program at a rate of one call per week, the process can be sped up or slowed down a bit depending on your timeline.
Before our first call, I’ll invite you to join our online project management portal, which contains all the tools, materials and information you’ll need to get your program off the ground in the coming weeks. You’ll also be invited into our own advocate marketing program, Influitive VIP, to help you better understand how our software works from the advocate perspective.
On each call, you’ll learn a combination of advocate marketing strategy and how to use our advocate marketing software, AdvocateHub, as an administrator.
Here’s a brief overview of each call:
Call #1: Kick-off
On this first call, we get to know each other and start to get organized. Prior to the call, I’ll send you a brief planning questionnaire that we’ll discuss during this call. Your answers to this questionnaire outline your objectives for the program as well as the resources you’re able to devote to launching and managing your advocate marketing program. It will also guide the results we’ll focus on in the early days of your program. Your objectives can always change, of course, but it’s a good idea to start somewhere.
Call #2: Challenge creation
Challenges are the things you ask your advocates to do.
Before this call, I’ll ask you to check out some recommended reading on challenge creation.
During the call, we’ll discuss what challenges you came up with and, out of those, which are the best.
We’ll look at how those challenges fit with the objectives you set out and which ones will drive the most customer engagement. And, of course, you learn how to actually create them in AdvocateHub!
Call #3: Recruitment and promotion
During this call, we’ll work together to figure out who your advocates are, how many you think will join and how to segment them so you can make your invitations relevant specifically to them. You’ll also get tips on invitation best practices and how to send your invitations out.
To prepare for our next call, I’ll ask you to start thinking about what motivates your advocates and how you want to recognize them for the advocacy they do for you.
Call #4: Achievement and recognition
I love this call because it’s when we brainstorm about all the rewards and perks you can use to show your advocates you think they’re awesome. You’ll learn how to create rewards within AdvocateHub, as well as configure levels and badges, and set up a default point structure.
“Influitive meets you where you are, whether that is with or without advocate marketing expertise. They customize their approach based on your needs, which takes time. They make you feel like your program is the most important thing since sliced bread, and they mean it.”
“I’ve been consistently amazed at the onboarding process (and this is coming from my experience from being an inbound marketing consultant at HubSpot). Shannon knew pretty much everything there was to know, and mobilized internal resources to help me get up and running FAST. I had an aggressive deadline (3 weeks) to roll out my hub, and thanks to her flexibility and willingness to move at my speed, we beat that deadline.”
“What a great process – you’ve thought of everything to make getting started SIMPLE. All the materials for reference as well as the straightforward nature of the process allowed me to learn and understand the platform very quickly. I have been doing customer marketing for many years, and it’s so nice to finally work with a company that so fundamentally understands customer experience and satisfaction. I am so excited to get this party started!”
“Clearly organized from the beginning, Sydney’s course of action kept us on track and well-informed for making launch decisions. She was also incredibly responsive and I could always count on a very speedy response to my hundreds of questions. Maybe best of all, Sydney was so encouraging as we got going, taking time to commend creative challenges and make us feel like we were rocking this very new area for us.”
“Influitive’s onboarding process is awesome. I’m appreciative that we get to meet up regularly to make sure we’re getting the most out of our advocate program. Most technology vendors just sell you a piece of technology and make you figure it out. Influitive helped us throughout the entire process, and for that, I’m super grateful.”