This document outlines 10 game-changing customer marketing tactics for increasing net retention rates to 140%. It discusses tactics like segmenting communications based on customer personas, creating experiential onboarding gifts, reinventing traditional upsell flows, gamifying loyalty and referral programs, and building an engaged customer community. The key takeaways are to focus on segmentation, experiential gifts, active upselling, community engagement, meaningful incentives, and championing a culture of customer marketing across departments. The ultimate goal is to generate word-of-mouth referrals, which can account for 30-50% of new customers with over $100M in annual recurring revenue.

2. PATH TO 140% NRR:
10 GAME-CHANGING
CUSTOMER MARKETING TACTICS
CMO & Partner, Insider

3. Retention is the new acquisition.

4. Customer Marketing
is taking the lead on the marathon to
140% NRR

5. Source: State of Customer Marketing Report, Influitive

6. Source: State of Customer Marketing Report, Influitive

7. Increasing customer retention rates
by only 5% increases a company’s profits
by 25-95%.
Source: Harvard Business School Research

8. Despite the revenue impact, customer
marketing teams remain relatively small in
B2B organizations.

9. But they cover a wide array of customer-focused activities…
Source: State of Customer Marketing Report, Influitive

10. Who thinks their customer marketing program
will have greater importance over the next year
compared to the previous year?

11. Source: State of Customer Marketing Report, Influitive

12. Tactic 1

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

14. Tactic 2

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

16. Tactic 3

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

18. Tactic 4

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.

20. Tactic 5

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)

22. Tactic 6

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

24. Tactic 7

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

26. Tactic 8

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

28. Tactic 9

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.

30. Tactic 10

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

32. Bonus

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)

34. Key Takeaways

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

36. Thank You