Part 2: How to Activate Your Customers and Accelerate Growth
In Part 1, we made the case for a significant opportunity in marketing strategy: shifting from a focus solely on acquisition to one that fully embraces the value of existing customers, helping the business deepen trust, drive expansion, and scale advocacy.
We believe that CMOs who embrace a formal customer marketing strategy won’t just earn more pipeline—they’ll earn more influence across the business as strategic thinkers, rather than order-takers.
So, where do you begin?
Let’s talk about what customer marketing actually looks like when it’s done with intention—and how to make it real inside your organization.
Start Small. Think Big.
You don’t need a massive team or budget to launch customer marketing programs that matter.
What you do need is clarity: Who are your highest-value customer segments? What moments matter most in their journey? What does success look like for them?
From there, everything you build should serve one of three goals:
- Drive product adoption and value
- Enable increased contract value and renewal conversations
- Activate happy customers to become advocates
Here are four ways to start building that momentum.
1. Create Educational Content That Serves, Not Sells
Once the deal is done, your customers don’t need more persuasion—they need more progress.
Instead of focusing your best content on prospects, shift some of that storytelling power to the people who’ve already said yes.
What to build:
- Monthly “pro tips” or use case spotlights tailored to roles or industries
- Quick-start checklists for new users and workflows
- Peer benchmarks that help customers understand if they’re ahead or behind the curve
Why it matters: According to TSIA, customers who receive onboarding and educational support are 63% more likely to renew after one year1. When customers feel confident and competent, they tend to stay and grow.
2. Nurture Customers the Way You Nurture Leads
Most companies have beautifully segmented email flows for prospects… and radio silence for customers. When you build a nurture for customers, you can provide your account team with insights into customer behavior, enabling them to easily identify both engaged and disengaged customers.
Some examples of moments to build in your CRM that support the journey after the contract:
- Engagement points for attending webinars and downloading content
- Behavioral triggers for under-utilized features
- Automated nudges around renewal milestones
- Cross-sell guides based on product usage or vertical
3. Turn NPS Into an Advocacy Engine
The Net Promoter Score survey is an effective way to capture a snapshot of your customer base and gauge your customers’ perceptions of you. The survey is on a scale of 1-10, and your customers who mark you a 9 or 10 are your natural brand advocates. These are the customers who raise their hands and are promoting you, without you asking them to do so.
However, these brand advocates often aren’t guided or appreciated, and with some effort, marketing teams can create powerful programs that amplify their impact.
There are some meaningful ways to activate your brand advocates:
- Invite them to join a customer champions program
- Co-create a case study, podcast episode, or LinkedIn post
- Offer early access to new features and roadmaps
As Rob Fuggetta puts it:
“The best marketing you can do is to have happy customers.”2
And happy customers naturally want to share.
4. Facilitate Community, Not Just Communication
Your most engaged customers want to connect—not just with your brand, but with each other. Some of the most powerful communities that we’ve been a part of are technology communities. When you provide the space and facilitate the connection, an incredible community can emerge where customers help one another. This is where your brand comes alive, and it becomes bigger than your product.
Some opportunities for facilitating community:
- Host virtual roundtables or executive forums
- Launch a Slack or LinkedIn group for power users
- Invite a small circle of strategic customers into a product advisory council
According to an Influitive survey, companies that foster customer communities experience a 10–20% lift in upsell and retention rates3. But more importantly? They build belonging. And belonging drives loyalty more than any marketing message ever could.
A New Kind of Influence
Customer marketing isn’t just a program. It’s a mindset shift.
It’s a recognition that growth doesn’t have to come from running faster. It can come from digging deeper.
As a CMO, this is your opportunity to lead from the center of the business, not just by generating demand, but by orchestrating relationships throughout the organization.
You don’t have to wait for a new fiscal year, or a new hire, or a new dashboard. You can start right now, with one segment, one program, one conversation that invites your customers into the story you’re telling.
And if you’re ready to build a strategy that drives long-term loyalty, expansion, and advocacy, we’d love to help.
