Advocamp Field Day Recap thumbnail

On October 3, 2018, campers joined us from far and wide to celebrate customer love at Advocamp Field Day, the biggest customer engagement, experience, and advocacy event of the year. Aside from getting inspired by world class speakers and fellow customer advocacy professionals, campers also enjoyed some trail mix and had some run-ins with a bear!

Bear with BAMMIES winners

The Advocamp Bear with a couple of our BAMMIE winners, Juli Thomas and Mary Black from Calabrio

This year, we hosted the event in our home city of Toronto for the first time. (Yes, Influitive was founded and is headquartered in the Great White North!) Glenn Gould Studio was transformed into our campsite with plentiful trees, cabins for our campers, and a firepit to keep everyone warm in the Canadian cold.

Head Counselor Buck even hosted a cozy livestream viewing party with his cousin Royal Mountie Mitch and some authentic Canadian punch! But that’s not all. Buck made a new special friend named Becky who he also brought to the party. Take a peek at their viewing party below.


Advocacy lovers around the world joined Buck, Mitch, and Becky for this one-day extravaganza. With both an online and onsite conference experience, we had speakers live on stage and virtually on screen. Campers all over the world joined this virtual campgrounds.

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Unlocking advocacy with our opening keynotes

 

Mark Organ, Founder and CEO of Influitive

Mark OrganOur first keynote speaker of the day was Mark Organ, founder and CEO of Influitive. Mark unveiled his new Customer-Powered Enterprise (CPE) framework—a new approach to injecting the power of your advocates across all areas of your business. CPE is all about allowing customers to fuel your business strategy, and not just inform it. This means that customers are at the centre of your business strategy, helping grow your business. Mark believes that when you get customers to join your team at every level, from product development to sales, you will drive your organization well ahead of competitors. Since Advocamp Field Day was in Toronto, Mark talked about Drake’s support for the city as a prime example of advocacy. Drake single-handedly put Toronto on the map, gave it a new nickname (“the 6ix”), and brought in $440 million tourist dollars into the city. Some believe his advocacy for Toronto’s NBA team has helped the Raptors improve their record. Whether that’s true or not, what’s clear is that advocacy is a powerful force in many arenas. Mark Organ talking about Drake and advocacy. Mark Organ talking about Drake’s advocacy as an exemplar of what we should all strive for in customers

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Brian Solis, Principal Analyst at Altimeter Group

Brian Solis Our next keynote speaker, Brian Solis, focused on brand experience. When you think about your brand, you probably think of the imagery and messaging that your organization has crafted. But, in reality, your brand is in your customers’ hands and is based on their subjective reactions to it—what your brand causes them to feel, sense, and interpret. When experience is so subjective, it is vital to give consumers memorable and personalized experiences to create a positive overall brand experience (BX). This is especially important because of the role user experience (UX) plays in the BX. Today, over 40% of consumers use their phones to research and buy the services they need. As such, people expect speedy results, great service, and aesthetic web design. Brian recommends having your site optimized for mobile because “51% of consumers look poorly on brands with underperforming or difficult mobile sites.” Giving consumers the kind of UX they expect to have with your site and services will influence their brand experience, and their overall likelihood to become and remain advocates of your business.

AMPlify the advocacy

Next, campers got to experience a wide array of AMPtalks—our version of a Ted Talk—a short, punchy talk about an engaging topic. AMPtalks were featured in both our on site and our online tracks, and were about topics like leveraging advocacy throughout the customer journey, creating advocates with successful product experimentation, and leveraging employee advocacy inside and outside of your organization. Let’s dive in to a few of the highlights.

Amy Bills, Research Director at SiriusDecisions

Amy BillsAmy Bills talked about how you can transform customers into advocates at key touchpoints of their journeys. Since there are many points in the customer lifecycle when customers become advocates, you need to be proactive to take advantage of those pivotal moments. For example, keep an eye out for a champion during the buying process, or note the quick adopters of your product upon onboarding. These people can develop into advocates if you nurture them effectively. To encourage your customers to become advocates and remain as such, Amy discussed these four types of motivators:

 

        1. Validation – Let your advocates be seen as experts (e.g., share their content online)

       

    1. Access – Make advocates feel special (e.g., give a sneak peeks of your roadmap)
    2. Development – Help your advocates learn and grow (e.g., invites to networking events)
    3. Rewards – Give your advocates special perks (e.g., discounts to events, or non-business related gifts)

 

It’s important to know which types of motivators are influencing your customers to be advocates because “different people have different reasons for being an advocate,” says Amy.

Gibson Biddle, Former VP Product at Netflix

Gibson BiddleGibson Biddle, an online speaker, shared experiences from his tenure at Netflix—specifically, how they used their customer-focused culture to build their business. Gibson’s method to creating successful products is what he calls, “the DHM model,” meaning “Delight customers in Hard-to-copy, Margin-enhancing ways.” With this in mind, Gibson and his team conducted experiments using A/B testing to learn how features affect customer retention. What Gibson learned was that one of the hardest things for competitors to copy is trust because this is a personal bond between your customer and your brand. Trust in your product reflects positively on your brand and allows your company to delight customers. And when customers are happy with you, they’re more likely to spread the word and refer more customers at no cost, enhancing your margins. By turning experimenting into customer science, Gibson gained valuable insights about customers and gained more customers!

Ashley Benisatto, Communications Manager, People Engagement at Marketo

Ashley Benisatto When organizations make advocacy a part of their business strategy, an important segment that often goes untouched is their own employees. Ashley Benisatto, another online speaker, talked to us about how Marketo leveraged their employee advocacy program, called MarketoLife, to help break down organizational silos. This increased communication throughout the organization and made everyone feel more involved in the company culture. Employees could also use the platform to recognize colleagues and give each other perks (e.g., 500 points, $25 gift cards) when they notice someone’s been working extra hard. Ashley especially likes the social media sharing aspect of their platform because it allows employees to spread the word about Marketo with their networks because they want to. The results of Marketo’s employee advocacy program speaks for itself: 99% of employees were signed up, their eNPS of 52 was more than double the industry benchmark definition of “good” (which is 20), and about 28% of new hires were from referrals made in the platform.

Closing Keynote Speaker

 

Don Peppers, Best-Selling Author and Founding Partner at Peppers & Rogers Group

Don PeppersWe finished off Advocamp Field Day with a keynote from Don Peppers, best-selling author and Founding Partner of Peppers & Rogers Group. He talked about the 3 ingredients of a customer-powered business: trust, empathy, and connection. But why are these so important? In a world of increasingly technology-dependent people, we have a new definition of normal. “In 1997, normal was: Don’t get involved with people on the internet, and never ever get into a stranger’s car,” says Don. “In 2018 the new normal is: Go ahead and summon strangers on the internet and then get into their cars.” This new normal resulted in a heavy weight on advocacy when deciding which new technology to use. So, when people become your advocates, they want to know that what they say you do is actually what you’re doing—this is trust. And part of what you’re doing is putting yourself in the customer’s shoes—this is empathy. With trust and empathy, you build a relationship—a connection—with your advocates who now power your business because they want to, not because you asked them to.

BAMMIE Awards Ceremony

To close off a successful day, attendees joined us for the Best Advocate Marketing Awards (BAMMIES) ceremony. The BAMMIES are a way to honor the most innovative and engaging companies, teams, and individuals who are putting advocacy at the forefront of their business strategies. The 2018 BAMMIES winners are: Most Engaged Advocate Community: Cvent Best Advocate Generated Content Campaign: Cisco Best Use of Advocacy for Events: VMware Best Advocacy Impact on Product Development: ADP Best Use of Advocacy to Support Customer Success: Wiley Biggest Sales Impact by Advocates: Calabrio Best Program ROI: Ceridian Advocate Marketer of the Year: Sarah Schreiner from ADP Advocate Marketing Program of the Year: Staples Read more about the BAMMIES ceremony and Advocamp Field Day here.

Congratulations to all the amazing winners and nominees!

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