AMA: Paycor Senior Director, Customer and Product Marketing, Gina Leranth on Customer Marketing

When building a customer marketing team one of the most critical characteristics I consider is that the individual is truly customer-centric and committed to improving upon and delivering a strong customer experience. Customer marketing requires many skills and talents similar to other marketing roles, but must also always layer in the additional dynamic of considering how to best relate to the customer to continue to drive brand loyalty and advocacy, to impact retention and revenue growth. Customer marketers must have extremely strong interpersonal communication skills, and also the ability to view an organization holistically to effectively partner cross-functionally. 

I first gained interest and experience in customer marketing through customer-focused and customer-exclusive events. Events that are designed specifically to bring customers together to form a sense of community and enable customers to become power users of your product bring you immediately close to understanding the voice of the customer and drawing insights that inspire future customer marketing initiatives. After spending time in person connecting with customers it was a natural path to begin to formalize an advocacy program, powered by technology, and developing marketing campaigns to drive loyalty, retention, and add-on product upsell or cross-sell - all empowered by the insights gathered when networking directly with the customer base.

When first establishing customer marketing at an organization it is key to prioritize the design of the role and establish expected outcomes and goals based on the needs of the business. For example, a new business with few customers and focused on net-new growth would benefit greatly from identifying key marquee customers to act as advocates and references to drive demand and accelerate the sales cycle. Alternatively, a customer marketer at a large company with a large customer base that is growing through product innovation should invest in ongoing customer education of new product features and releases, as well as upsell or cross-sell campaigns to drive deeper penetration within their customer base.

Customer Marketing teams should align their success metrics to the broader organizational goals and objectives. Some sample metrics of success include: * Upsell or Cross-Sell Revenue Growth * Overall organization retention * Product adoption and utilization * Customer Engagement Score modeling * # or % of the base that is an external advocate (participating in testimonials, reference calls, etc.) * Customer Lifetime Value * Customer Effort Score

One common mistake that people make when establishing a customer marketing function is failing to be driven by customer insights. Organizations investing in customer marketing for the first time likely recognize a need for the function, and each internal team has its own perspective on the value their team will gain from the role. However, the strongest voice to help identify and prioritize where marketing can make the most significant impact is that of the customer. A second mistake that customer marketers must avoid, is failing to understand the product. While the experience and brand relationship is critical to customer retention, it's impossible to effectively support and communicate that experience to build the brand relationship without a true, deep understanding of the product.