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That You Can Apply To Your Business Today

TABLE OF CONTENTS IntroductionBest Referral ProgramBest Product Review CampaignBest Social EngagementBest Use of Advocates at an EventAbove & Beyond AdvocateBest Content CreationBest Advocate ExperienceBig BAM Business ImpactAdvocate Marketer of the YearAdvocate Marketing Program of the Year

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INTRODUCTION

THE BEST OF ADVOCATE MARKETING

In the second annual BAMMIES, honors were awarded in

10 key categories designed to recognize creative excel-

lence, innovation and results in B2B advocate marketing.

Winners were recognized and celebrated at a special

BAMMIES awards ceremony and dinner on March 24,

2015 in San Francisco. These are their success stories.

This short eBook is a compilation of their success stories

– goals, methods and insights you also can apply to your

business to generate incredible results. Whether you

want to increase referrals, boost social media

engagement or transform your whole business with

advocacy, you can learn how these award-winning

marketing programs are already doing it.

The annual Best Advocate Marketing Awards, also known as the BAMMIES, bestow the highest honor on B2B companies, large and small, that are taking the future by force and mobilizing advocates through marketing that is smart, engaging, intuitive, powerful and effective.

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BLACKBAUD CHAMPIONS

THE GOAL: Blackbaud’s customer marketing team set a goal to generate $200,000 in sales pipeline from referrals in 2014.

METHOD: Upon relaunching their advocate marketing program using Influitive’s AdvocateHub in September 2014, Blackbaud chose to cultivate relationships with their 400+ Champions first before asking for referrals. After building trust through a series of smaller asks, such as social shares, engaging with peers and writing product reviews, Blackbaud made referrals fun by offering limited-time monthly contests and rewards.

THE IMPACT:

» Generated a year’s worth of referrals in only 3 months

» 30 referrals made on-site at BBCON, Blackbaud’s annual user conference

» 59 marketing qualified customer referrals

» 37% close rate (22 closed won deals)

» $213,000 in new revenue from customer referrals

We were expecting only a small uptick when we launched Blackbaud Champions. However, we quickly saw that when you ask advocates to do one thing, they’ll do much more. We're looking to grow our referral program 100% YOY in 2015 as a result of the exceptional results we received in a short amount of time in 2014.

– MICHAEL BEAHM | CUSTOMER ADVOCATE MARKETING MANAGER AT BLACKBAUD

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THE SQUARE

THE GOAL: Upon launching The Square in September 2014, the Cambridge-based startup was still in the early stages of growing its presence on review websites like G2 Crowd, TrustRadius and GetApp. The goal was to generate 10 reviews across these sites within the first quarter of launch

METHOD: Before requesting any reviews, InsightSquared ensured that advocates understood the mission of The Square, engaged in the program and experienced InsightSquared culture. Advocates progressed through a series of welcome, fun and educational challenges before being asked if they

would recommend InsightSquared. If an advocate answered “Yes”, they would eventually be asked to write a review - but only one at a time. Instead of asking for a positive review, they explained why and how reviews impact their business.

THE IMPACT:

» 100+ customer reviews across leading review websites

» #1 in customer satisfaction and #2 in popularity among Business Intelligence software on G2 Crowd

» #2 in Sales Intelligence software on TrustRadius

This new presence has been a driving force behind several review-based sales inquiries, including this actual response from a prospect to a sales email: ‘Looks like you have the highest customer satisfaction on G2 Crowd and so I’m willing to take a call.’

– JACKIE SHYDLOWSKI | ADVOCATE AND DIGITAL MARKETING AT INSIGHTSQUARED

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HOOTSUITE AMBASSADORS

THE GOAL: In early 2014, Hootsuite had only 84 Ambassadors scattered around the world. They told Hootsuite they wanted to be more connected to the global community across the social web. With this in mind, Hootsuite set a goal of increasing the group’s social engagement by 30% to increase retention, attract other passionate social media experts, and create greater advocacy for Hootsuite.

METHOD: Hootsuite implemented Influitive’s AdvocateHub in June to mobilize their Ambassadors more efficiently and at greater scale. They encouraged members to share the latest content from Hootsuite as

well as their fellow Ambassadors using the hashtag #HootAmb, so they could track the conversations. Hootsuite also asked Ambassadors to publicly welcome the newest members each week on Twitter.

THE IMPACT:

» 8,000 #HootAmb mentions on Twitter

» 81 million social impressions

» 55% of Ambassadors joined the program through a social referral

» 9,000 content shares across social channels

» 245,000 clicks

Needless to say, we blew our goal out of the water. The Hootsuite Ambassadors are highly engaged with each other, and they are always ready to share content and contribute to online discussions.

– STEPHANIE WIRIAHARDJA | GLOBAL COMMUNITY MANAGER AT HOOTSUITE

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RELEVANCE REVOLUTION

THE GOAL: In 2012, 6 customer advocates spoke at Relevance Revolution, xMatters’ user conference. For 2014, the goal was to get 10-15 advocates speaking onstage as well as gather a handful of customer success stories on-site during the event.

METHOD: xMatters CMO Randi Barshack asked potential customer speakers to share their individual success stories. Then she and her team worked closely with each customer to help them tell a compelling story onstage, holding more than 60 preparation meetings with 22 speakers before the event. Along the way, they made a concerted effort to tell their advocates how

much value their participation was bringing to the company.

THE IMPACT:

» 266% increase in customer speakers

» Months of content from customer-led sessions

» 18 video case studies recorded on-site

» 18 professional customer headshots for case studies

Our marketing team worked together to identify potential customers to speak at our 2014 event, worked closely with each customer to tell their stories on stage and, as a result, increased our customer speaker base by 266 percent. We are honored to see all of our hard work recognized by Influitive with this prestigious award.

– SAMANTHA BROWN | DIRECTOR OF MARCOM AND BRAND AT XMATTERS

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CHARLES STALEYWHO: Charles Staley is the Director of Technology at Central Catholic High School, a college preparatory school in California that uses Blackbaud’s school management software. WHAT HE DID:

» Created an analog version of the Blackbaud Champions program in his school, posting “challenges” on the faculty lounge whiteboard and offering teachers rewards in exchange for their responses

» Spent a week meeting with teachers to discuss their needs and concerns regarding Blackbaud

» Sends a weekly email to colleagues called “Chuck’s Blackbaud Tech Tips”

» Volunteered to educate colleagues about IT on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

IMPACT: Charles’ engagement in the Blackbaud Champions program has been invaluable to the company’s customer marketing and sales teams. He regularly shares honest, helpful and inspirational feedback. He was also one of Blackbaud’s most engaged advocates in 2014, making referrals, blogging for Blackbaud’s npengage website, sharing Blackbaud content on social media, inviting colleagues to join the Champions program and more. LIFETIME STATS:

» 11,665 points

» 170+ advocacy activities in 2014

» 16 badges, including Referral Maven (10+ referrals)

As a company that embraces social responsibility, marketing and selling with a noble purpose, and making the world a better place, Charles embodies all we could ask for and more in a Blackbaud Champion and customer advocate of Blackbaud.

– MICHAEL BEAHM | CUSTOMER ADVOCATE MARKETING MANAGER AT BLACKBAUD

BLACKBAUD CHAMPIONS

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THE SUMMIT CLUB

THE GOAL: ReadyTalk believes that no one can tell their story better or with more passion than their customers. Their goal was to leverage ReadyTalk’s advocates as authors, contributors, bloggers and promoters of ReadyTalk-branded content, including 11 new pieces of content and lots of social sharing.

METHOD: ReadyTalk ran a variety of challenges in the ReadyTalk Summit Club program encouraging advocates to create, contribute to and share content. For example, they asked advocates to answer three questions about webinar best practices and then published

their responses in an eBook: 6 Reasons Why Other Companies’ Webinars Are Better Than Yours.

THE IMPACT:

» Met or exceeded content goals, including 2 case studies, 2 eBooks, 2 infographics, 4 guest blog posts and 10 video testimonials

» Bonus content: 1 whitepaper and testimonials for product support materials

» 760 net new leads resulting in 3 closed-won deals

» $70,000 in TTME

» Additional $60,000 in the pipeline

Based on our content success with advocates in 2014, we are investing more resources into our content program and will be working closely with more advocates to give them recognition and exposure through our content.

– BO BANDY | MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER - BRAND, CONTENT AND CUSTOMER ADVOCACY AT READYTALK

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SALESFORCE DATA.COM OHANA HUB

THE GOAL: Salesforce.com’s customers have always been involved in sales and marketing initiatives, such as references, case studies and events. In 2014, the Data.com team wanted to centralize all of those activities and more in one place to create the best possible experience for their most engaged advocates.

METHOD: Data.com created the Ohana Hub in July and invited their top speakers, references, advisory board members and other customers to join. Ohana means family in Hawaiian culture, so their objective was to treat these advocates like family both in the Hub and offline. Nowhere was this more evident than

at Dreamforce 2014. Before the event, the Data.com team used the Hub to gather intelligence about their advocates’ favorite things and then surprised them with a personalized VIP experience upon their arrival at Dreamforce. Participation in the Hub also gave them exclusive access to conference perks, executive meetings and reserved seating. THE IMPACT:

» 44% increase in reference customers » 16% increase in customer stories

» 100% increase in customer story slides

Giving our advocates a better experience has helped us forge stronger relationships with them and make them happier customers.

– KATIE YEIGH | DATA.COM CUSTOMER MARKETING PROGRAMS SENIOR SPECIALIST AT SALESFORCE.COM

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IRON MOUNTAIN INSIDERS

THE GOAL: Create an integrated approach to customer engagement that would allow Iron Mountain to expand existing relationships, share content and best practices, reward advocates for their support and identify new revenue opportunities. They also wanted customers to be able to engage with Iron Mountain on their own terms.

METHOD: Through the Iron Mountain Insiders program, the company’s customer marketing team quickly accomplished a number of projects for which they would have previously used a costly, slow-moving external agency. They invited select advocates to exclusive customer networking events as well as tested

various messaging, go-to-market approaches and web elements before they went public, providing invaluable feedback to the sales and marketing organization.

THE IMPACT:

» Identified 391 new advocates

» Influenced $335,000 in pipeline and $108,000 in bookings

» Gathered detailed feedback from 60+ customers on two separate corporate initiatives in a matter of days

» One of the Insiders customer engagement events resulted in a new lead with a Fortune 200 company that could potentially be worth several million dollars in long-term revenue

Our customers consistently say they want Iron Mountain to share more thought leadership and help them connect the dots with their peers and other industry experts. The Insiders community has given us the ability to engage in new ways, ensuring that we can build sustainable and targeted relationships over the long term. This has sparked other marketing teams within Iron Mountain to look at Insiders as a key customer channel to share content, test new concepts and build relationships.

– DAVID COATES | CUSTOMER MARKETING MANAGER AT IRON MOUNTAIN

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LIZ PEDROWHO: Liz Pedro is the Director of Customer Success Marketing at Mitel, the world’s fastest growing provider of cloud communications. She is the brains behind the Mitel Champions, one of the largest B2B customer, employee and partner advocate marketing programs in the world. WHAT SHE DID: Under Liz’s leadership, the Mitel Champions program became the vehicle for educating, aligning and mobilizing employees across 80 global offices to launch Mitel’s new brand in October 2014. Building on that success, she has engaged hundreds of partners and customers through the program as well. Furthermore, Liz has become a passionate and vocal

evangelist for advocate marketing itself. She has made extraordinary efforts to educate her peers about the power of advocate marketing through 1:1 conversations, thought leadership and engagement on social media. IMPACT:

» 1870 advocates, including 1300 employees, 500 partners and 72 customers

» Increased employees actively promoting Mitel on the social web from 30 to 1300

» 201,000+ advocate activities completed » 160,000+ actions performed on social media

» Generated 889 referrals

We are engaging with our employees, customers and partners like never before. Mitel Champions has united us with a single mission we can all work toward: promoting Mitel so it can continue to grow!”

– LIZ PEDRO | DIRECTOR OF CUSTOMER SUCCESS MARKETING AT MITEL

MITEL CHAMPIONS

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CUSTOMER CONNECT

PEOPLE’S CHOICE: BMC Software rallied their customer, partner and employee advocates to vote more than 11,000 times over the course of nine days! When finally voting closed, BMC dominated with 53% of the votes with the runner up capturing only 17% of the votes

METHOD: In response to customer feedback, BMC Software relaunched the Customer Connect program in May 2014 to provide a more rewarding experience for the company’s advocates. Through the program, advocates are invited to participate in content creation, social media, reviews, peer references and analyst

relations, as well as to provide feedback on the direction of the company and its product.

THE IMPACT:

» 2,200 customer and partner advocates

» $100M in revenue influenced by customer references

» Generated 40 customer case studies and 10 videos

» 40+ customers interviewed by industry analysts, including Gartner, Forrester and IDC

» Saved $750K in software license fees

Not only have our customers expressed their appreciation for the experience they are now getting through the Customer Connect program, but my fellow BMC employees are also seeing benefits through their customers!

– KIM ELLIS | DIRECTOR OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AT BMC SOFTWARE

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