As an entry-level marketer, how do you start with customer interviews without existing relationships, get buy-in for a research program, and ensure its is used effectively?

Start by building relationships with the field (and if you need help doing that, ask your manager). In a healthy organization, where Sales and Product Marketing work well together, AEs will likely be receptive to working more closely with Product Marketers. From an AE’s perspective, they tend to assume that Product Marketers have the inside scoop on the product roadmap, or how that cool new feature works (and can you demo it?). 

Here are some tactical steps that I’ve seen lead to success:

1. Determine what you can offer to an AE that will be of interest to them (eg, offer to talk about a new feature, or run a demo, etc)

2. Identify a dozen or so AEs, including their accounts, regions, etc (typical Salesforce data)

3. Download the items from #2 into a spreadsheet

4. Craft a message that you think will resonate with a given AE (see #1). Treat the AE as if they were your customer, and treat the message as if it was “messaging” → Emphasize the value to the AE, get their attention, be concise, and have a clear call-to-action

5. Reach out to each AE on your spreadsheet with the message from #4, and track their responses. Follow up, as-necessary, until you’ve reached your goal.

6. Bonus: As you do this, you will naturally build relationships with certain AEs that will serve you (and them) going forward