the award-winning bomgar insider program

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1 the award-winning bomgar insider program activating advocates by building relationships Forrester Groundswell Awards winner: B2B Social Relationship Best Advocate Marketing Awards winner: Advocate Marketing Program of the Year POWERED BY: advocate marketing experts

2 INTRODUCTION Bomgar has always had amazing customers. From consistently giving their support team five-star ratings to dressing up as Bomgar s remote support appliance for Halloween (seriously), the company knew it had enthusiastic customers who love their product. But as internal marketing demands increased for case studies, event speakers, media interviews, and customer references, Bomgar needed a more efficient way to identify their biggest fans and turn them into active advocates. It was obvious their customers loved them; the question became how to harness that love. Realizing that, in today s world, the company no longer controls the conversation, they also needed their customers to help to amplify Bomgar s voice by sharing authentic experiences with the company s product, participating in online conversations, and passing along their news and content. They wanted to do this all in a way that was beneficial not only for the company, but also for their customers. Bomgar didn t want to simply ask customers for favors. They wanted to build long-lasting relationships. They knew they needed to go further.

3 It s often hard for B2B companies to get their customers interacting with them on the same level as B2C customers. With this in mind, Bomgar s marketing team launched a new advocate marketing program, the Bomgar Insider. The initial goals they outlined for the program were to: Amplify social media conversations and reach Develop customer references Generate referral leads Build stronger relationships with customers and capture their feedback Through advocate marketing software powered by Influitive, Bomgar offers a wide array of challenges to their advocates, the Bomgar Insiders: Joining social channels Sharing Bomgar content Interacting with educational product information Providing feedback Volunteering as speakers Participating in case studies And more! Customers automatically earn badges and points for each completed challenge that they can exchange for rewards. Through the Bomgar Insider, the company is now able to apply customer interaction, feedback and groundswell to an almost unlimited number of areas. Liz Richardson, Social & Advocate Marketing Manager, Bomgar

4 THE ADVOCATE EXPERIENCE When customer advocates first join the Insider, they choose which Bomgar-related activities interest them. Now, instead of someone at Bomgar asking a client to participate in a webinar, waiting two days, sending a follow-up and then pondering if they should ask someone else, they are able to ask as many or as few advocates as they would like individually or by group and allow the customer to raise their hand and show their interest. Instead of bombarding a short list of regular references, they now have a way to identify untapped fans and build a much larger and continually growing list of Bomgar advocates. By offering badges and points, advocates are motivated and enthusiastic about participation in the program. The tech-savvy Bomgar audience makes gamification a great way to interact with their customers, who already spend most of their day in front of a computer. Points can be exchanged for such rewards as entrance to industry tradeshows, product certification courses, team lunches, Bomgar swag, or a donation to their favorite charity.

5 ADMINS Liz Richardson, Social & Advocate Marketing Manager A key ingredient in the Bomgar Insider program is attentive administrators who respond to feedback, congratulate Insiders when they reach goals, and personally thank customers for their participation. With dialogue back and forth, the program is a social and relational one instead of a one-sided request from a faceless brand. Liz Shulof, Senior Director of Marketing Communications After they hand-picked some of Bomgar s tried and true customer advocates and identified a handful of others through social channels, the Bomgar Insider beta went live in November 2013 with an official launch to Bomgar s entire customer base at the beginning of December. In the first few months, more than 600 customer advocates opted into the program and completed more than 10,000 challenges. IN A FEW MONTHS CUSTOMER ADVOCATES Sophie Brown, Customer Success & Marketing Manager ACTIVITIES COMPLETED

6 GOAL 1 AMPLIFYING SOCIAL MEDIA & SOCIAL CONVERSATIONS Social Followers - By inviting the Bomgar Insiders to join the Bomgar Community, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ pages, the company was able to gain a solid increase in their social followers. In the first four months of the program, Bomgar experienced a 12% increase in followers across these platforms. In addition, by simply asking, they have had 55 customers add Bomgar to their skill-set on LinkedIn. Social Sharing Bomgar s marketing team is now able to harness their customers networks to build brand awareness by asking them to share Bomgar content on their platform of choice. Since launching the Bomgar Insider, they ve increased mentions of Bomgar on Twitter by 66% and the number of individuals tweeting Bomgar content by 45%. BEFORE AND AFTER THE BOMGAR INSIDER ESTIMATED IMPRESSIONS BEFORE THE BOMGAR INSIDER AFTER THE BOMGAR INSIDER 1.5M +40% 2.1M TWITTER MENTIONS BEFORE THE BOMGAR INSIDER AFTER THE BOMGAR INSIDER 1, % 1,951 USERS TWEETING ABOUT BOMGAR BEFORE THE BOMGAR INSIDER AFTER THE BOMGAR INSIDER % 495

7 In one instance, they wanted to get the word out about an excellent presentation Bomgar co-founder Nathan McNeill gave at a recent conference. They simply created a challenge asking the Bomgar Insiders to watch and share the video, and almost immediately 211 advocates shared it within their own social networks. Social Participation Social contests can be hit or miss, but Bomgar has a highly anticipated 5 Days of Bomgar contest each December, which requires their social media followers to heavily interact with the company five days in a row. By allowing Bomgar Insiders to receive points for participating each day of the 5 Days of Bomgar, they were able to boost contest participation by 45% and had 157 entries submitted through the Bomgar Insider platform. 5 DAYS OF BOMGAR CONTEST 211 VIDEO SHARES BY ADVOCATES 45% BOOST IN CONTEST PARTICIPATION 157 CONTEST SUBMISSIONS

8 The Bomgar Insider was also nominated for Best Advocate Marketing Program in the Best Advocate Marketing awards hosted by Influitive. By harnessing their advocates to create social participation, Bomgar was able to generate 3,471 votes to beat out a list of much bigger companies and bring home the gold. Social Responses Another pain point was asking customers to join relevant online conversations on Bomgar s behalf. In today s social world, end-users are turning to their peers for guidance. A brand representative joining those conversations is perceived as inauthentic. Instead, Bomgar s marketing team is now able to ask the Bomgar Insiders to check out conversations in networks they are already part of to share their opinion as a more trustworthy voice. As an example, when a competitor recently made a product change that much of their customer base was unhappy about, rather than insert ourselves into the conversation, Bomgar asked their advocates if they would like to post comments on various forums and blogs to recommend the Bomgar solution as an alternative. More than 25 advocates posted in anywhere from one to 10 different online conversations. They went above and beyond explaining why they recommend Bomgar, creating 74 recommendations in relevant, real-time conversations in a few days VOTES POSTS TOPICS RECOMMEND- ATIONS

9 GOAL 2 CREATING CUSTOMER REFERENCES Customer Testimonials Bomgar Insiders have submitted a total of 231 testimonials to be used in Bomgar content such as web pages, s and even targeted image ads. Customer Case Studies Last year, Bomgar produced 11 high-quality case studies. Four of those were found solely through the Bomgar Insider program the last two months of the year. Six more have been completed in the Insider since then. Bomgar has boosted case study output by about 50% since launching the program. Media References and Speaking Opportunities Bomgar has been able to identify and engage with several customers through the program that they previously were not using for media references and speaking opportunities. Since the Bomgar Insider, a handful of advocates have conducted interviews with several prominent online tech publications, such as CIO Online, Baseline and University Business. Prospect References 167 customers have asked to join the company s reference group. Now when they have a specific reference request from their sales team, they are able to approach this group of advocates first knowing that they are willing to recommend Bomgar s solution to others. Customer Content Previously they only published Bomgar-generated content on the Bomgar Blog. Through the Bomgar Insider, they have had over 30 customers ask to write on anything from related tech know-how to tips and tricks for Bomgar s product, to their success story. They already have about 20 customer blog posts either published or in the works.

10 GOAL 3 LEAD GENERATION Bomgar Insiders also have the ability to submit prospect referrals, giving a true lead generation aspect to the program. Bomgar has been overwhelmed by the response of advocates willing to share contact information for tech peers. Thus far, the company s advocates have submitted over 400 new prospect contacts that meet all of Bomgar s criteria for a marketing lead. GOAL 4 GIVING CUSTOMERS A VOICE & BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS Product Feedback Through the Bomgar Insider, they ve been able to ask their customers what they think about all aspects of Bomgar s product. They have already sent out many surveys to tap into their thoughts about Bomgar s solution, including activities around their latest product release encouraging them to upgrade, providing their impression of new features and testimonials on how they are using them. 1 to 1 Relationships The Bomgar Insider has given the company a way to connect with their biggest fans in a mutually beneficial way. Not only does Bomgar benefit from their activity, but users looking to build their own personal brands and expertise benefit from reference and educational opportunities. As Bomgar Insider admins interact with their top advocates, they create meaningful relationships that go beyond brand and customer to mutual respect and appreciation between humans. This creates yet another layer of loyalty and positive customer experience.

11 HEAR FROM THE BOMGAR INSIDERS THEMSELVES All of these things are extremely beneficial and valuable to Bomgar as a company, but if the program wasn t also valuable to their customers, it wouldn t be a sustainable success. So in conclusion, these Bomgar customers will tell you themselves why they love the Bomgar Insider so much. WATCH THIS VIDEO FOR MORE I love it, just like the Bomgar software. It s an awesome tool to share my experiences with other IT professionals. I love the badges, I love the tracking of my points, and getting rewarded of course! So why is the Bomgar Insider really cool? It s allowed me to do some challenges, learn some things and get a free lunch for the team. We really enjoy the Bomgar Insider because we re all extremely competitive and we really enjoy the swag! What I like about the Bomgar Insider is all the cool challenges and that I m in the Top 20!

12 How are your customers helping you fuel your company s growth? The Bomgar Insider advocate marketing program 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. advocate marketing experts