HOWSHORTENED THEIR SALES CYCLEBY PUTTING CUSTOMERS IN THE

DRIVER’S SEAT

When you’re a privately-funded, bootstrapped company, it’s tough to stand out.

This is especially true when you’re competing against hugeinternational brands on one end (Citrix, Cisco and Adobe) and startupswith big cash influxes from venture capital funds on the other end(join.me and Fuze Box). That’s the situation for ReadyTalk in the webconferencing market.

Since the company’s founding in 2001, ReadyTalk has differentiateditself as a customer-centric company that takes pride in customersatisfaction. They always go the extra mile for their customers and it haspaid off for them: they have a huge base of happy, loyal customers.

Unfortunately, ReadyTalk didn’t always know what to do with thosecustomers, their feedback, or their love for the company. As a result,ReadyTalk’s sales team found itself in a battle for every deal. Theywondered: How could they go about asking their customers to advocate for ReadyTalk?

goalsReadyTalk knew customer referrals could go a long way towardhelping deals close – and close faster – so they decided to get seriousabout the race and kick things into high gear. They took steps toimplement a formal customer-driven marketing program to engagewith 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 softwarevendor Influitive to build an advocate marketing program. Influitive’sAdvocateHub allows ReadyTalk to recognize and reward customersfor what they were already doing – using and talking about ReadyTalk.It serves as the central point for managing and building advocateactivities.

REaDYTalK CREWBO BandyReadyTalk 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 JOneSBrittany 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.

SUMMIT

ClUBPROGRAM

To kick off the advocate marketing program, which they decidedto call the ReadyTalk Summit Club, Bo initially targeted customerswho had given ReadyTalk a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 8 or higheron the company’s annual customer survey. They also includedcustomers who had previously participated in advocacy activities,such as case studies.

READYTALK IMPLEMENTED A COMPREHENSIVECAMPAIGN 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

Challenge notifications for key activities (references and feedback)

a special “perk” for advocates that were engaged at the 90-day mark (the perk was a Summit Club coffee mug)

reminder emails from account managers to customers who didn’t join after the initial invite

a series of custom “welcome” challenges

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.

INsIDE REaDYTalK sUMMIT ClUB

Once ReadyTalk’s customers accepted the invitation to joinSummit Club, they could tackle “challenges” in the program, earnpoints and redeem them for cool rewards.

IncreasIng lead generatIon WITh CUsToMER REfERRals

BUILDING A COMMUNITY Of ENGAGED CUSTOMERS

READYTALK SUMMIT CLUB

BO & COLLEAGUES RECRUITED

CUSTOMERS TO JOINSUMMITCLUB470

1843CHALLENGES COMPLETED BY READYTALK’S ADVOCATES, RESULTING IN...

190

70

42

REFERRALS

ADVOCATES OPTING TO BE SALES REFERENCES

BLOG COMMENTS

OF CUSTOMERS REFERRED THROUGH SUMMIT CLUB CLOSED WITHIN 60 DAYS(TYPICAL SALES CYCLE IS 120 DAYS)

THE FIRST 4 MONTHS

AND MUCH MORE, INCLUDING...

CASE STUDIES • PRODUCT USABILITY FEEDBACK • GUEST BLOG POSTS • WHITEPAPERS • SOCIAL MEDIA SHARES AND NEW FOLLOWERS • SALESFORCE.COM APPEXCHANGE REVIEWS

15 LINKEDIN RECOMMENDATIONS

33%

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.

HOW ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS HELPING YOU fUEL YOUR COMPANY’S GROWTH?