One of the biggest challenges facing Customer Marketing Advocates (CMAs) is ensuring their work is recognized internally, especially by senior management. When you’re so busy driving customer-led growth, managing advocacy programs, and ensuring customer success stories shine, it’s easy for the impact of your efforts to go unnoticed, especially if you are a team of one. However, it’s crucial to make your contributions visible and position yourself as the driver of customer-led growth within your organization. Here’s how you can do it:

Translate Metrics into Business Outcomes
It’s not enough to talk about how many advocates you’ve recruited or the number of success stories published. Senior management cares about outcomes that directly impact the business. Show how your programs:

• Increased retention rates.
• Influenced new sales through customer referrals.
• Accelerated deal cycles by providing impactful customer stories.
• Enhanced customer lifetime value (CLV).

Use dashboards, reports, or case studies to demonstrate the tangible ROI of your efforts.

Align with Strategic Goals
Understand the organization’s top priorities—whether it’s market expansion, customer retention, or revenue growth—and position your initiatives as pivotal to achieving these objectives. Speak the language of senior management by framing your contributions within the context of these goals.

For example:

• If the goal is revenue growth, highlight how customer advocacy directly influenced new business deals.
• If retention is a priority, demonstrate how your advocacy programs foster customer loyalty and reduce churn.
  
  

Make Your Work Visible
Don’t wait for recognition—create opportunities to showcase your achievements:

• Present quarterly updates to leadership, emphasizing the strategic impact of your work.
• Share highlights of advocacy success stories in internal newsletters or company-wide meetings.
• Host internal webinars to educate teams on how to leverage customer advocates in their work.

Position Yourself as the Expert
Establish yourself as the go-to person for all things related to customer marketing and advocacy. Offer insights on customer behavior, market trends, and program strategies that no one else has.

• Participate in cross-functional meetings to provide the “customer voice.”
• Collaborate with sales, product, and marketing teams to ensure customer insights are integrated into broader strategies.
• Provide training on leveraging advocates to enhance sales and marketing efforts.

Build Internal Relationships
Internal buy-in starts with building strong relationships. Make it a point to connect with senior leaders, department heads, and cross-functional teams:

• Share the value of your work in informal settings.
• Solicit feedback and incorporate it into your programs.
• Actively listen to their goals and demonstrate how customer advocacy can help achieve them.

Promote a Customer-Centric Culture
Show how your role contributes to building a customer-centric organization. Highlight:

• How you gather and amplify customer feedback to inform product and service improvements.
• How customer advocacy aligns with the company’s mission and values.

By doing so, you’ll elevate the perception of customer marketing from a tactical function to a strategic imperative.

Join the Conversation on Personal Branding
Want to learn more about how to elevate your role and ensure your work stands out? Join the Base ‘Raising Your Personal Brand: How to Stand Out in Customer Marketing’ Webinar on January 29th. This session will cover practical strategies to build your personal brand, communicate your value, and position yourself as a leader in your field.

Reserve your spot today! 

Let’s make 2025 the year your work doesn’t just shine—it transforms how your organization sees and values customer marketing advocacy.

Elevate Your Status with a TOP100 Award
Winning a TOP100 award can be a game-changer for your career. It not only elevates your status within your organization but also showcases the incredible contributions you’re making to both your company and the industry community. Recognition through a TOP100 award reinforces your position as a leader in customer marketing advocacy and inspires others to strive for excellence.

Nominate yourself or a peer today! 

Celebrate your achievements and let the world see the value you bring to the table!