13. Build a segmented communication plan
The common practice
- Segment customers based on
their upsell potential
- Create email nurture programs,
webinars and events that
exposes them to new products
and features
The game-changing practice
- Segment customers based on
their persona, upsell potential,
tenure, maturity etc.
- C-Levels don’t care about about
products & features details, they
need to trust you & want to see
results
- Users care about what’s new, tips &
tricks and how they can increase
the ROI from your product
15. Take your onboarding gifts “outside the box”
The common practice
- Every SaaS company sends an
onboarding GIFT BOX with
branded “things” in it:
The game-changing practice
- Create experiences that touch your
customer’s 💜 — a personalized
digital frame with a dynamic QR?
- Give them a reason to advocate for
you on social
- The future of “gifting” will be
outside the box — A basketball game
with your brand’s jerseys and water
bottles to kick-off your partnership?
Chocolate Candles
Mugs
Water bottles
Snuggies
17. Reinvent your traditional upsell flow
The common practice
- Meetings!
- Emails!
- Meetings!
- Emails!
- Meetings!
The game-changing practice
- Product Walks by the bay — or even
online
- Introduce a new product while your
customers are enjoying a walk
physically or tuning in online
- In this context, you can send
them branded t-shirts/hoodies,
water bottles and healthy snacks
before the walks to amplify the
community experience
- Don’t forget to take a selfie &
amplify this moment on social
with your customers
19. Drive PLG with active upsell campaigns
The common practice
- Freemium model
- Lack of automated personalized
feature offerings within the
product
The game-changing practice
- Practice active upsell
- Surround your platform with dynamic &
personalized content based on their
recent activity
- Make personalized feature/product
recommendations within the platform
based on their latest usage & results
where applicable
- Make a relevant feature available for
free to show real results for users to
create stronger internal buy-in with DMs.
21. Create “that loving feeling” in your community
The common practice
- Creating disconnected programs
without real community
engagement
- Poor management of Slack
communities can quickly lead to
an unengaged audience
- Running product webinars with a
tedious demo to drive upsells can
turn off customers
The game-changing practice
- Building an active community that triggers
a sense of belonging requires consistent &
connected programs
- Ongoing gamified webinar series
- Repeatable, scalable customer events &
customer advisory boards
- Championing customers with online &
offline award & certification programs
- Building meaningful & valuable
conversations in online communities &
within your platform (i.e. anniversary
video pop-up)
23. Add “meaning” to your incentivized loyalty program
The common practice
- There is a lack of established
customer loyalty program in most
SaaS organizations
- Most provide gift vouchers that
does not mean much for those
customers who have the potential
of becoming “real” advocates
The game-changing practice
- Gamified loyalty programs with
meaningful incentives help you
create stronger customer
advocates
- Creating a points system for loyalty
programs help you gamify
advocacy programs & give your
customers an option to turn them
into gifts or a donation for a cause
they care about
25. Gamify your customer referral program
The common practice
- Single fixed reward for referrals
- Monetary incentives
The game-changing practice
- Tiered incentives based on the number
& quality of referrals
- Go beyond monetary incentives and
provide VIP access to events, offering
additional features or benefits free of
charge, personalized workshops etc.
- Gamify the referral process with
leaderboards, badges, or points systems
to create a sense of competition to
improve referral frequency
- Run referral contests with cool prizes
to create excitement & drive urgency
27. Build enduring review programs that last
The common practice
- Blasting periodic and automated
review campaigns to the entire
customer base
- This might work against you as
unhappy customers can
provide lower scores
- Providing gift vouchers as an
incentive to submit reviews
The game-changing practice
- Target your high NPS customers
for reviews with a personalized
email from the Account Manager.
Make it human!
- Sending personalized thank you
emails with a donation gift after
they submit a review would drive
stronger relationships and
advocacy
29. Give, give, give — before you ask
The common practice
- Ask! Ask! Ask! before giving to
customers. Companies ask
customers to:
- Buy more products
- Fill in NPS & product surveys
- Be speakers at events
- Provide case studies
- Write product reviews
before giving.
The game-changing practice
- Give, give, give, give, give, give,
then ask.
31. Champion a culture of customer marketing
The common practice
- Customer Marketing teams
remain relatively small in
organizations
- They fail to get the level of
support they need from
Customer Success, Product and
Sales teams.
The game-changing practice
- Educating the teams around the
impact of customer marketing on
NRR and even assigning common
OKRs will drive more value
- Drive a culture of collaboration
within cross-functional teams to
support customer marketing
programs
33. In the end, #1 source of new customers should be WOM
Happy customers spread the word. They become your best sales reps.
Beyond 100M ARR — Aim to acquire 30-50% of your new customers through WOM.
77% of consumers are more
likely to purchase a product or
service when they hear about it
from someone they trust.
(Source: Nielsen)
Customers acquired through
WOM have a 16-25% higher LTV
than non-referred customers.
(Source: University of Pennsylvania)
35. Bonus: #1 source of new
customers should be WOM
Key Takeaways
1. Build a segmented communication plan
2. Take your onboarding gifts “outside the box”
3. Reinvent your traditional upsell flow
4. Drive PLG with active upsell campaigns
5. Create “that loving feeling” in your
community
6. Add “meaning” to your incentivized loyalty
program
7. Gamify your customer referral program
8. Build enduring review programs that last
9. Give, give, give — before you ask
10.Champion a culture of customer marketing
file:///C:/Users/merve.nazlioglu/Downloads/2022-State-of-Customer-Marketing-Report-Influitive-1%20(1).pdf
According to research from Harvard Business School, increasing customer retention rates by only 5% increases a company’s profits by 25-95%.
file:///C:/Users/merve.nazlioglu/Downloads/2022-State-of-Customer-Marketing-Report-Influitive-1%20(1).pdf
According to research from Harvard Business School, increasing customer retention rates by only 5% increases a company’s profits by 25-95%.
In 2020, more than 60% of organizations surveyed have
fewer than 6 team members responsible for customer marketing.
In 2020, more than 60% of organizations surveyed have
fewer than 6 team members responsible for customer marketing.
Tactic 1 - Build a segmented communication plan
Having a segmented communication plan for various personas with identified SMARTS
CEO/CMO - they are not users of your product, they will not be interested in reading emails or content with an upsell, cross-sell focus that is product heavy
Ask yourself? What are your biggest churn reasons - Most SaaS companies say it is “stakeholder management”
What are they (you guys in the room :) are interested most about?
DO: Send them top trends, metrics/reports, maybe whether the SaaS solution you chose actually is a market leader on leading analyst reports like G2, Gartner, Forrester or whether they are incorporating latest tech to keep you ahead of your game like AI-led tech or Chat GPT
Serves retention
Practitioners - they are the direct users of your product
These are people using your tool everyday to achieve better results. You tool is facilitating their lives so content around heping them discover their problems beyond the ones they have already discovered can help you upsell and cross sell products helping you drive expansion revenue
Serves expansion revenue
Timing is everything!
Welcome customers with a stellar onboarding comms plan and build relationships first!
What perceptions do you want to change about your product?
Tactic 2 - Take your gifts “outside the box”
Differentiating your gifting program - Don’t focus on “things”, focus on “experiences”
Touching hearts is key
Give them a reason to share on social for advocacy
How we reinvented this at insider
Hande’s personalized AI video example for every customer & personalized digital frames we sent
The future of gifting will be “outside the box”
I.e. Onboarding basketball game with Insider jerseys, beers with logos, towels with logos
Tactic 3 - Rethink your upsell flow
Product walks by the bay - why not invite your heroes to a morning walk by the bay, bring them snacks and water bottles with your branding on them - while your product team member introduces a new product and you exercise together.
It builds bonds and informs clients in an engaging/relaxing environment - also you integrate into their daily routine without taking more time out of their days…
They’ll definitely advocate on social!
Tactic 6 - Drive PLG with Active Upsell Campaigns
How can marketing/product marketing support PLG
Most marketers forget that their platform is the main channel for marketing
List a few ideas - celebration/anniv videos in platform
Upsell within the platform
Your latest peak campaign using X product achieved 143% CR uplift
5X your growth by trying our new WhatsApp Growth channel
Active upsell concept (we named this)
Make a new product automatically available to a customer and alert them when they sign into the panel about this limited time offer (free usage of product)
Run a complimentary product lab using a new product and running a few campaigns for them to show value
So instead of asking if they are are interested, make a product/feature available, alert within platform as a limited time offer and run a product lab (framing it as an exclusive service for select customers)
Self-education without leaving your platform
In-product informations is key, to let them know about the features they are not already using or not using enough
It’s about raising product awareness within your customer porfolio, letting them explore themselves within the platform, within your customer resource center (academy)
Gamify the experience as much as possible
Let them be proud of their achievement, certifications
Customers should feel that if they are an expert of your product they will be successful in their career. Once you start seeing your certification appearing as a requirement in job descriptions this is a good sign
Tactic 4 - Building “that loving feeling” (community) with gamified experiences
Building a community is not about running a Slack community - gamifying and having fun together is important in building
Events
Reshape on tour like events for larger community
Product specific practitioner events
Product Battles (a CS practice) - webinars where your customers come and get in front of a larger customer audience to battle on who uses the product better and then the larger audience chooses a winner.
Quarterly Champions
Celebrating the community is very imp with awards programs
Following partner activity on Hootsuite and acting when a partner wins an industry award,
Tactic 5 - Loyalty Programs to drive advocacy further
Where you win points for every advocacy action and can turn that into a charity donation - a cause that they care about
G2 review - 50 points
Event speaker - 60 points
Mention Insider’s track record of success here with G2 - 6 years in a row.
Provide examples of when customer marketing teams fail to get support - speaker for events, driving reviews, personalizing gifts, PLG
Provide examples of when customer marketing teams fail to get support - speaker for events, driving reviews, personalizing gifts, PLG
If you are able to create strong advocates they will sell your product and fuel your growth.