Advocate Marketing: Strategies for Building Buzz, Leveraging Customer Satisfaction, and Creating Relationships

4. Build an Advocate Recognition Engagement (ARE) Program

In 2006, a midsized company headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, faced the challenge of encouraging more of its customers to share how the company’s environmental, health and safety, emergency, and sustainability software and professional services were helping it meet its strategic corporate goals. On average, on an annual basis, between four and eight customers agree to share their success stories publicly in case studies and press releases. In some cases, the company agrees to some financial discount at renewal that would incentivize the customer to participate.¹ In other cases, the product champion agrees to write a case study, but the organization’s internal legal counsel or communications ...