HOW SHORTENED THEIR SALES CYCLE BY PUTTING CUSTOMERS IN THE DRIVER S SEAT

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1 HOW SHORTENED THEIR SALES CYCLE BY PUTTING CUSTOMERS IN THE DRIVER S SEAT

2 When you re a privately-funded, bootstrapped company, it s tough to stand out. This is especially true when you re competing against huge international brands on one end (Citrix, Cisco and Adobe) and startups with big cash influxes from venture capital funds on the other end (join.me and Fuze Box). That s the situation for ReadyTalk in the web conferencing market. Since the company s founding in 2001, ReadyTalk has differentiated itself as a customer-centric company that takes pride in customer satisfaction. They always go the extra mile for their customers and it has paid off for them: they have a huge base of happy, loyal customers. Unfortunately, ReadyTalk didn t always know what to do with those customers, their feedback, or their love for the company. As a result, ReadyTalk s sales team found itself in a battle for every deal. They wondered: How could they go about asking their customers to advocate for ReadyTalk?

3 goals ReadyTalk knew customer referrals could go a long way toward helping deals close and close faster so they decided to get serious about the race and kick things into high gear. They took steps to implement a formal customer-driven marketing program to engage with and mobilize ReadyTalk s biggest advocates. BOOST lead generation with customer referrals Build a community of engaged customers Solicit product feedback & participants FOR usability testing Speed up the sales process with customer references Increase customer-involved marketing tactics (e.g., guest blogging, case studies, product reviews, etc.) With these goals in mind, ReadyTalk partnered with software vendor Influitive to build an advocate marketing program. Influitive s AdvocateHub allows ReadyTalk to recognize and reward customers for what they were already doing using and talking about ReadyTalk. It serves as the central point for managing and building advocate activities.

4 READYTALK CREW BO BANDY ReadyTalk Marketing Communications Manager Bo Bandy is a triple-threat who manages brand communications, content marketing and customer advocacy here at ReadyTalk. It s Bo s vision, strategy and execution that has taken ReadyTalk s advocate marketing program from 0 to 60 in just a few months. In her next life, Bo wants to drive a Formula 1 car. In this life, she likes driving results. Learn more about those below. BRITTANY JONES Brittany Jones is ReadyTalk s Marketing Coordinator and Bo s go-to girl for advocate engagement. Brittany regularly finds useful, fun and well-thought-out ways to make the program a key destination for all ReadyTalk customers. She recently built a very timely campaign called The Summit Club Olympics, which generated a ton of advocate activity. ReadyTalk s account management team is also instrumental to the success of the program. They continuously work with Bo to rev up customer advocacy engine so they can bring more customers along for the ride.

5 SUMMIT CLUB PROGRAM To kick off the advocate marketing program, which they decided to call the ReadyTalk Summit Club, Bo initially targeted customers who had given ReadyTalk a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 8 or higher on the company s annual customer survey. They also included customers who had previously participated in advocacy activities, such as case studies. READYTALK IMPLEMENTED A COMPREHENSIVE CAMPAIGN TO ENSURE the success of the Summit Club: Personalized invitations from the account manager to the customer Inclusion in the ReadyTalk customer newsletter to provide awareness and recognition Reminder s from account managers to customers who didn t join after the initial invite Challenge notifications for key activities (references and feedback) A series of custom welcome challenges A special perk for advocates that were engaged at the 90-day mark (the perk was a Summit Club coffee mug) Bi-weekly activity digests to build ongoing engagement All of the tactics were branded with the Summit Club logo and, where applicable, personalized for the advocates.

6 INSIDE READYTALK SUMMIT CLUB Once ReadyTalk s customers accepted the invitation to join Summit Club, they could tackle challenges in the program, earn points and redeem them for cool rewards.

7 Increasing lead generation with customer referrals

8 Building a community of engaged customers

9 READYTALK SUMMIT CLUB THE FIRST 4 MONTHS BO & COLLEAGUES RECRUITED CUSTOMERS TO JOIN SUMMIT 470CLUB 1843 CHALLENGES COMPLETED BY READYTALK S ADVOCATES, RESULTING IN... REFERRALS ADVOCATES OPTING TO BE SALES REFERENCES BLOG COMMENTS LINKEDIN RECOMMENDATIONS 33% OF CUSTOMERS REFERRED THROUGH SUMMIT CLUB CLOSED WITHIN 60 DAYS (TYPICAL SALES CYCLE IS 120 DAYS) AND MUCH MORE, INCLUDING... CASE STUDIES PRODUCT USABILITY FEEDBACK GUEST BLOG POSTS WHITEPAPERS SOCIAL MEDIA SHARES AND NEW FOLLOWERS SALESFORCE.COM APPEXCHANGE REVIEWS

10 How are your customers helping you fuel your company s growth? The ReadyTalk Summit Club is powered by Influitive s AdvocateHub, a complete advocate management platform that helps B2B marketers capture customer enthusiasm, and use it to turbocharge marketing and sales efforts. With AdvocateHub, B2B marketers build advocate communities where customers, fans and evangelists can complete high-impact activities, such as referrals, reference calls, product reviews or social sharing. Visit influitive.com to learn more.