Customer Marketing: Part 4 – Engagement
Three customer engagement initiatives that CSMs can own: building a customer community, hosting networking events, and running a customer advisory board.
TL;DR
- Engagement is the fourth customer marketing initiative CSMs can own, alongside advocacy, content, and sentiment.
- Three engagement initiatives CSMs can drive: a customer community, networking events, and a customer advisory board.
- A customer community brings customers and companies together to share learning, increase partner visibility, and grow revenue across the lifecycle.
- CSMs should own the logistics and coordination of the customer advisory board to keep it mutually beneficial and on objective.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring some of the different types of customer marketing initiatives that CSMs can own to deliver fantastic customer experiences. From building customer advocacy to creating customer-centric content to measuring and sharing customer sentiment, customer marketing programs can come in different shapes and sizes.
Today, we’re going to take a look at a fourth customer marketing initiative: engagement. Your customers can be your biggest advocates, your biggest cheerleaders, and some of your best resources for growth – if they’re engaged correctly.
Here are three customer engagement management initiatives that CSMs can own with customers:
1. Community
Your customers want to engage with your organization and your other customers, especially if there are things they can learn from these new resources. Your customer community provides an active channel to bring customers and companies together throughout the journey to help build champions at every step of the customer lifecycle. Communities can:
- Provide a way to showcase the great work your customers are doing
- Increase your value and visibility as a partner, not just a vendor
- Facilitate learning and information sharing across your customer base
- Help grow revenue
Communities can be incredibly powerful and, when leveraged correctly, can help transform your entire customer engagement strategy.
2. Networking events
Connecting with your customers personally is more important now than ever before, and networking events are a great way to do that. Now that virtual events have become the norm (for most teams, anyway), it’s easier than ever to connect with your customers through online channels, including:
- Happy hours, game nights, and celebratory events
- Round table discussions and feature launches
- 1:1 meetings, executive fireside chats, and customer showcases
Given that customer marketing initiatives are ideally supposed to be all about the customer, they should be built around the kind of events that your customers will appreciate.
3. Customer advisory board
While a customer advisory board is a cross-functional initiative that is often driven from the top-down, customer marketing teams (and CSMs!) should own the logistics and coordination of these meetings. This is to ensure the board – and the customers selected for the board – is mutually beneficial and is meeting outlined objectives. CSMs can help ensure the participants are getting as much value as they are giving. In addition, CSMs can help select different types of customer accounts for a broader swath of viewpoints.
Ready to learn more?
You can learn more ways to set up winning customer marketing strategies in your organization with our first three entries in this series:
- Customer Advocacy
- Content
- Sentiment
You can also learn more about how to build and optimize your customer relationship management strategy with these additional resources from ClientSuccess:
- Webinar: Cultivating Customer Relationships Through Crisis
- eBook: Customer Success Best Practices from 20+ Executives
- Toolkit: Customer Journey Toolkit
Frequently Asked Questions
What customer engagement initiatives can CSMs own?
How does a customer community help customer engagement?
What is a CSM's role on a customer advisory board?
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