As a SaaS company, your success depends on not just acquiring customers, but keeping them happy and engaged over the long term. The goal to keep a customer happy and engaged is that of a Customer Success Manager, but how do you achieve this with scale without adding too many people in the CS team.
You need a segmented customer engagement model where you have dedicated CSMs for strategic customers but have a "tech touch" or "mid touch" for the rest. This is where a customer marketer comes in.
The customer marketer role focuses specifically on building relationships with all customers and ensuring they get the most out of your product.
I was jamming with one of India’s best Customer Success leaders, Arundhati Balachandran and she emphasized on the need for this role at every modern SaaS company. We've captured the discussion into this blog for everyone’s benefit.
In this post, we explain why hiring a customer marketer is essential for every SaaS company by sharing the important work streams that this person owns and drives. We have also covered tangible systems and foundations a customer marketer builds to succeed.
Our hope is that this post serves as a guide for you if you are a customer marketer, but more importantly if you are a founder or a CS leader or a marketing leader who is thinking about creating this role, we hope you post that JD now!
Since we all love measurement, as a bonus, we have also added real metrics to track success. Founders and CMOs can use these as KPIs for your customer marketer to set them up for magic.
A customer marketer role has five broad pillars
1. Product Adoption: Ensuring Customers Use Your Product to Its Full Potential
The first pillar of a customer marketer's role is to drive product adoption through customer education.
Here are three key jobs-to-be-done for this pillar:
Understand the customer's needs and goals
Communicate the product's value proposition and features effectively
Provide onboarding and ongoing education to ensure customers are using the product to its full potential
A great customer marketer can achieve the above by doing the following things and creating systems around them:
Creating onboarding videos or tutorials that guide customers through key features and functionality
Developing knowledge base articles or help center content for providing customers with quick answers and resources
Designing email campaigns promoting key product features or use cases
Hosting webinars or live training sessions
Using in-app messages or pop-ups promoting new or underutilized features
Writing case studies or success stories highlighting how other customers have used the product effectively
Metrics to measure product adoption
Activation rate: The percentage of customers who have completed your product's activation process
Feature adoption rate: The percentage of customers who have used a particular feature at least once
User adoption rate: The percentage of users on the customer side that use your product (especially critical if you have a license-based pricing model)
Time to first value: The time it takes for a customer to see the value of your product
2. Evangelism and Referrals: Turning Customers into Brand Advocates
A happy customer is the best marketing tool you can have. The second pillar of a customer marketer's role is to foster customer evangelism and referrals.
Here are the key jobs-to-be-done for this pillar:
Map out the customer journey from pre-sales to onboarding to renewal and create moments of customer delight during appropriate milestones
Identify happy and engaged customers who are most likely to refer new business
Provide incentives and tools that make it easy for customers to refer new business
Foster a sense of community and collaboration among your customers
Achieving this will involve:
Creating referral program landing pages or sign-up forms
Designing email campaigns encouraging customers to refer friends or colleagues
Creating social media campaigns promoting customer success stories or testimonials
Offering incentives such as discounts, free trial extensions, co-marketing opportunities for customers who refer new business
Publishing customer spotlights or interviews on the company blog or social media channels
Hosting networking or community events that bring customers together to share their experiences
Metrics to measure product adoption
Net Promoter Score (NPS): A measure of customer loyalty and satisfaction, calculated by asking customers how likely they are to recommend your product to a friend or colleague
Referral rate: The percentage of new business that comes from customer referrals
Social media mentions: The number of times your brand is mentioned on social media, indicating customer engagement and advocacy
3. Upsell Campaigns: Increasing Revenue Per Customer
Your existing customers are often the best source of new revenue for your business. The third pillar of a customer marketer's role is to drive upsell campaigns.
Here are three key jobs-to-be-done for this pillar:
Set up internal and external signals to identify the most relevant upsell opportunities for each customer
Create targeted messaging and offers that appeal to each customer's unique needs and goals
Provide a seamless upgrade process that makes it easy for customers to take advantage of new features and products
Achieving this will involve:
Creating upsell landing pages or upgrade offers within the product
Developing email campaigns promoting new or upgraded features and functionality
Offering personalized upsell offers or discounts based on a customer's usage or behavior
Writing case studies or success stories highlighting the benefits of upgrading
Using in-app messaging or pop-ups promoting upsell opportunities
Providing dedicated account managers or customer success reps who can discuss upgrade options with customers
Metrics to measure product adoption
Upsell conversion rate: The percentage of customers who upgrade or purchase additional products or features
Average revenue per user (ARPU): The total revenue divided by the number of users, indicating the average value of each customer
Dollar and Logo renewal rate: Percentage of customers that renew based on both $$ and logos
Churn rate: The percentage of customers who cancel their subscription or do not renew, indicating the effectiveness of upsell campaigns in retaining customers
4. Entire Engagement Model: Ensuring All Customers Feel Valued
Not every customer can have a dedicated customer success manager (CSM), but that doesn't mean they should feel neglected. The fourth pillar of a customer marketer's role is to create an inclusive engagement model for all customers.
The three key jobs-to-be-done for this pillar:
Provide proactive support and education to all customers, regardless of size or spend
Create a self-service knowledge base that enables customers to find answers and troubleshoot issues on their own
Develop personalized messaging and communication channels that meet each customer's preferences and needs
Creating an engagement model that ensures all customers feel supported involves:
Hosting Q&A sessions, community forums or social media groups where customers can ask questions and share best practices
Creating self-serve knowledge base articles or help center content covering a wide range of topics
Developing email campaigns highlighting new or updated content or features
Providing feedback surveys or other opportunities for customers to provide input or suggestions
Offering personalized support or troubleshooting from a dedicated support team
Using in-app messaging or notifications about product updates or maintenance windows
Metrics to measure product adoption
Customer satisfaction (CSAT): A measure of how satisfied customers are with your product and service
Support ticket resolution time: The time it takes for support tickets to be resolved, indicating the effectiveness of support channels and processes
Customer lifetime value (CLTV): The total revenue a customer generates over the course of their relationship with your business, indicating the overall effectiveness of the engagement model in retaining and growing customers
5. Community: Building a Strong Customer Community
Creating a more loyal customer base can ultimately drive more revenue for your business. The fifth and final pillar of a customer marketer's role is to build a strong customer community.
Here are three key job-to-be-done for this pillar:
Foster a sense of community and collaboration among your customers
Create forums or social media groups where customers can share tips and best practices
Host user conferences or meetups that provide networking and education opportunities
This can be be achieved by:
Creating social media content promoting community events or discussions
Encouraging user-generated content such as blog posts, case studies, or videos
Hosting events such as user conferences or meetups
Sending regular newsletters or email updates for community members
Offering Q&A sessions or AMAs (Ask Me Anything) with product experts or thought leaders
Providing exclusive access to beta tests or early product releases for community members.
Metrics to measure product adoption
Community engagement rate: The percentage of customers who participate in community activities such as forums or meetups
User-generated content (UGC): The amount of content created by customers, such as blog posts, videos, or social
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