Beating The Drum: Recent Episodes
Margot Leong
Beating The Drum is a podcast that delves into the art and science of customer marketing and advocacy. Every company dreams about having customers that will sing their praises—and on this show, we’ll explore what goes on behind the scenes to make that happen. Join host, Margot Leong, as she interviews customer marketing and advocacy leaders from around the globe to uncover how they create, nurture, and mobilize customer evangelists at scale.
On this final episode of Beating The Drum, I had a fantastic conversation with my friend and fellow customer marketer, Pida Pairawan, where I reflect on the past three years of doing this podcast, some of my favorite conversations and how they’ve influenced my professional and personal life, and some advice for customer marketers who...
Irwin Hipsman is the Customer Marketing Director at Forrester and Top 100 CMA Influencer. Irwin was recently at Forrester’s B2B Summit North America, and he came away excited about the themes he noticed from the keynote sessions that are directly relevant to customer marketing, especially in encouraging marketers as a whole to be much more...
Sepideh (Pida) Pairawan is the Customer Marketing Manager at People.ai. Prior to that, she was the Customer Marketing and Community Manager at Rubrik for several years. We talked about how she was able to increase annual engagement in their customer community to 65%, hitting the ground running in customer advocacy as a former SDR...
Nick Bennett is the Host of the Anonymous Marketer Podcast and a B2B SaaS Marketing Advisor. He is also a B2B marketing content creator with over 50,000 followers on LinkedIn and has a wide variety of marketing experience ranging from customer marketing and evangelism to partner marketing to field marketing. We spoke about one of...
Leslie Barrett is Senior Director, Customer Marketing & Evangelism at Sendoso. She is also a Top 25 CMA Influencer and runs the customer marketing-focused newsletter, CMA Soulmate. Leslie was on the podcast more than two years ago and she came back to share how her role has evolved since, her framework for career progression and...
Pascale Royal is the Director of Executive Customer Programs at Coupa Software and has been in customer marketing for over 15 years at previous companies like ServiceNow and Citrix. Pascale believes that customer marketers have a significant level of influence when it comes to brand storytelling due to the customers that we choose to showcase....
Emily Amos is the Founder of Uplift Content, a boutique B2B SaaS content creation studio. She came on the show to share her favorite insights from Uplift’s recent 2023 SaaS case study report, which surveyed over 100 marketers to learn how they’re utilizing case studies. We chat about how companies are measuring the success of...
On this episode, we were joined by Brittany Rolfe Hillard, whom many of you are familiar with since she’s been a repeat guest on the show. She was previously running customer engagement and advocacy at WalkMe, and has since transitioned into a role as Chief of Staff to their Chief Customer Officer and is enjoying...
Tiffany Keel is Head of Customer Advocacy at ClickUp. Prior to ClickUp, she ran customer marketing at companies like ON24 and Nextiva. When she started at ClickUp, they’d grown tremendously through product led growth, but were still early when it came to the types of programs you typically think of in B2B marketing. She shares...
Kevin Lau is the Senior Director of Customer Advocacy and Experiential Marketing at F5. He previously came on the show to share his tips for running awards programs based on his experience at Adobe. In light of the current economic situation, we talked about his tips for customer marketers who are on the job market...
Myriam Diarra is the Head of Customer Lifecycle Marketing at Drift. On this episode, she shared how she spent her first several months at the company observing and mapping out the customer journey, her top tips for getting cross-functional alignment and some of her favorite campaigns that her team has launched. You can find the...
Juliana Roxa is the GSI Workforce Strategy and Communications Lead at AWS. Prior to that, she was Global Customer Marketing Director & Executive Communications Lead at SAP, where she led the charge to unify the post-sales experience and build the customer marketing function from the ground up. Mapping out customer journeys can be a considerable undertaking...
On this episode, we were joined by Jeanne Talbot, a customer marketing and communications leader that has worked at companies like CloudBees, Lexmark International and Intel. She has a unique perspective due to her background in PR and customer marketing and came on the show to share some creative ways to build relationships that can...
Jessica Walker McFarland is Head of Global Customer Advocacy and Executive Programs at Rubrik. We actually did something out of the ordinary for this episode in that we didn’t talk about advocacy or customer marketing—we focused the conversation on her unique career trajectory and what she’s learned as a result. Jessica has mostly stayed at...
Jill Liles is the Marketing Director at Nutanix University, which is Nutanix’s training and certification program. She breaks down the exact steps it took to bring this vision to life and what she focused on in the first six months, how to ensure programs like these also support your corporate direction and the metrics they...
Theo Hopkinson is the Head of Customer Advocacy at Fivetran. Theo was previously VP of Digital at Archetype, a brand agency, and has spent his career working on the agency side. He’s a super creative guy and very passionate about brand building. So for this conversation, we decided to do something a little bit different...
Janet Dulsky is the Director of Retention Marketing at Adobe. Customer marketing teams have historically been on the smaller side, but as the role is gaining popularity, team sizes have been growing to match. I’m interested in how customer marketing leaders are structuring their teams and the thought processes behind that, which is why I...
David Sroka is the President and CEO of Point of Reference. Now more than ever, it’s important to think of ways to stand out within your organization and demonstrate how customer marketing is providing value. David shares his thoughts on why it’s important to think like a CxO, how to secure their support, the difference...
David Sroka is the President and CEO of Point of Reference. Now more than ever, it’s important to think of ways to stand out within your organization and demonstrate how customer marketing is providing value. David shares his thoughts on why it’s important to think like a CxO, how to secure their support, the difference...
Sara Steffen is the Senior Director of Customer Marketing at Nutanix. She shares her philosophy on building an open, honest, and supportive team culture, why content amplification is near and dear to her heart, the amplification checklist her team put together and why the Nutanix Select program is one of the most enjoyable projects she’s...
Sara Steffen is the Senior Director of Customer Marketing at Nutanix. She shares her philosophy on building an open, honest, and supportive team culture, why content amplification is near and dear to her heart, the amplification checklist her team put together and why the Nutanix Select program is one of the most enjoyable projects she’s...
Amy Pang is the Director of Customer Marketing at Fortinet. She’s helped launch customer advisory boards at several companies and has also been on the other side as a CAB member herself. We talk about why you have to have a strong point of view during the planning process, why it’s best to start CABs...
Amy Pang is the Director of Customer Marketing at Fortinet. She’s helped launch customer advisory boards at several companies and has also been on the other side as a CAB member herself. We talk about why you have to have a strong point of view during the planning process, why it’s best to start CABs...
Kate Mahon is the Director of Global Customer Advocacy at Splunk. She shared how her time in consulting helped prepare her for this role, how to think about where customer marketing fits at all parts of the customer lifecycle and the characteristics of a compelling customer story from a PR standpoint. You can find the full...
Kate Mahon is the Director of Global Customer Advocacy at Splunk. She shared how her time in consulting helped prepare her for this role, how to think about where customer marketing fits at all parts of the customer lifecycle and the characteristics of a compelling customer story from a PR standpoint. You can find the full...
Alison Bukowski is the Senior Director, Customer & Product Marketing at PeerSpot. I’ve been getting a lot more questions lately on topics that are more about long-term career paths and managing and structuring your customer marketing team. Alison is one of the customer marketing leaders I’ll be bringing on to focus on these areas and...
Kendra Walsh is Director, Community and Customer Advocacy at Juniper Networks. Kendra started her career in customer programs back in the early 2000s and has really seen the role evolve over time. We talk about the value of hiring an operations person early for your team, how she connects her community and advocacy programs, all...
Kendra Walsh is Director, Community and Customer Advocacy at Juniper Networks. Kendra started her career in customer programs back in the early 2000s and has really seen the role evolve over time. We talk about the value of hiring an operations person early for your team, how she connects her community and advocacy programs, all...
Christina Garnett is the Senior Marketing Manager, Offline Community and Advocacy at HubSpot. She was instrumental in launching their HubFans advocacy program, which now has over 27,000 members, as well as their Revenue Council for executive advocacy and HubFans council for top advocates. If you’re planning to launch an advocacy community, this interview is a...
Christina Garnett is the Senior Marketing Manager, Offline Community and Advocacy at HubSpot. She was instrumental in launching their HubFans advocacy program, which now has over 27,000 members, as well as their Revenue Council for executive advocacy and HubFans council for top advocates. If you’re planning to launch an advocacy community, this interview is a...
Evan Huck is the CEO of UserEvidence, a SaaS platform that helps automate content creation from happy customers. Evan previously helped run enterprise sales at SurveyMonkey and thinks the best reps are masterful customer storytellers. We talk about how customer stories can help with the toughest parts of the sales cycle and the different types...
Helen Feber is the Managing Partner at Referential, Inc., a consultancy that has been delivering innovative, high-quality advocacy-related services globally for over 26 years. She is also on the oversight committee at ICCAP, the Institute of Certified Customer Advocacy Professionals. She’s retiring at the end of the year and as one of the pioneers of the industry,...
Amy Bills is VP and Principal Analyst, Customer Engagement Strategies at Forrester. Previously, she was the Director of Customer Marketing at Blackbaud. We talked about all the attention that customer marketing has been getting recently, trends and patterns that she’s seeing, what it means to intentionally invest in customer obsession and choosing metrics that tie...
Luis González is the Manager, Global Customer Advocacy at Alteryx. He currently leads the global vision and execution of their portfolio of advocacy programs and was recently named a Top 25 CMA Influencer. He previously worked in client success and engagement at Forrester, where he was first exposed to advocacy research and frameworks. We talked...
Cristina Seckinger is the Senior Customer Marketing Manager for the Americas at Qlik. Prior to that, she was the first customer marketer at OnShape, a SaaS product development platform. Cristina shared her experience launching their user conference, OnShape Live, why they decided to go 100% live instead of simulive and how adopting a customer idea...
Bree Bunzel is the Head of Global Customer Marketing at Dropbox. Bree moved into customer marketing from another role at Dropbox leading APAC product marketing and learned on the job how to build customer-centric programs from scratch. We talk about what she focused on in her first year as a team of one, maturing and...
Ari Hoffman is the Global Director of Customer Advocacy at Crowdvocate. He’s had a fascinating journey to customer advocacy, including a career in architecture and small business entrepreneurship, where he first realized the power of harnessing customer voice and building raving fans. We talk about how to avoid the trap of being seen merely as...
I’m really excited to say that this is the 50th episode (!) of the podcast. I might be a little biased, but after talking to all these brilliant marketers, I think customer marketing is truly one of the most valuable departments a business can have. And you’re definitely seeing a groundswell of interest. It was...
Kevin Lau is the Global Head of Customer Advocacy at Adobe. He and his team have a wide breadth of responsibilities, ranging from customer storytelling, managing their user group community and champions program, as well as their customer awards program, the Adobe Experience Makers Awards. We cover what it’s like to put together an awards...
Jane Menyo is the Head of Customer Marketing at Gong, a company that I think has done an excellent job in terms of modern B2B brand-building. Prior to Gong, she ran solutions and customer marketing for several years at ON24. We talk about the importance of creating programs that can address different objectives at once,...
Deena Zenyk is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at The Captivate Collective and the co-author of The Messenger is The Message, a book devoted to the power of advocate marketing. She shares how she explains the value of customer advocacy to skeptics, how the practice has evolved from when her book first came out in...
Trish Borrmann is the Director, Customer Advocacy at ServiceNow. Trish really enjoys working with the C-suite and recently helped launch an executive reference initiative to bring in more C-suite customers to participate in thought leadership opportunities. We talked about the channels she utilizes to reach the C-suite, what to keep in mind when working with...
Daryl Stickley is the Founder of Rich Interactive, a corporate storytelling and customer advocacy agency that has worked with global brands like Microsoft, Adobe and Accenture. Something he said early in our conversation really resonated with me, which is that it’s easy for organizations to get tunnel vision around their value proposition, when it’s really...
Imaan Virani is the Global Customer Marketing Manager at Adthena. She started off in the consumer marketing world at General Mills, then moved into product marketing and customer marketing in the tech world. We talk about how to lay the groundwork for the first several months in a new role, the resources she leaned on...
Janet Dulsky is the Director, Global Retention Marketing, Adobe. Janet describes her team as the “marketing arm” for customer success and has a cutting-edge approach to engagement. She shares why their framework starts and ends with talking to customers, how email and in-product guidance have become some of their strongest channels, and why behavior change...
Maria Sturgeon is the Program Director, Peer Advantage, Customer Advocacy at Teradata. She manages their Peer Advantage Program, which has been in existence for over 20 years and is considered to be one of the top marketing programs at the company for the sheer amount of value that it generates. On this episode, we cover:...
Dana Alvarenga is the VP of Customer Experience at Slapfive, a customer marketing platform. She’s passionate about making the most of customer interactions by utilizing customer voice – not just in the product feedback, advisory board kind of way, but the literal voice of the customer in soundbite form. On this episode, we discuss: Making...
Jeff Epstein is the Founder and CEO at Onboard.io, which enables companies to manage, analyze, and optimize the perfect onboarding process for every customer. Previously, he was the Founder and CEO at Ambassador, a referral marketing platform. On this episode, we discuss: How to work with the rest of your marketing team to understand if...
Brittany Rolfe Hillard is VP of Customer Engagement and Advocacy at WalkMe, the digital adoption platform. If her name sounds familiar, we also recorded a previous episode together with some of our key takeaways from Product Marketing Alliance’s Customer Marketing Summit. She joined the show to discuss her passion for category design (i.e. defining and owning a...
Lauren Locke-Paddon is VP of Customer Success at Vocal Video. She’s previously worked at companies like TechValidate and SurveyMonkey and came on the show to talk about the shift she’s seen towards increased authenticity in customer marketing. On this episode, we cover: What “authentic” content really means The importance of letting the genuine story really...
Kalina Bryant is Head of Global Customer Advocacy, Customer Experience, and Executive Programs at Asana, as well as the Founder of Unapologetech and KMB Consulting. She is a seasoned customer marketing and advocacy leader with extensive experience at technology companies like Signifyd, Talkdesk, and Anaplan. On this episode, we cover: The nuts and bolts of...
Crystal Anderson is Director, Customer Marketing at SheerID. She’s passionate about helping companies humanize their brands by connecting with their customers and also brings a demand gen and growth background to her customer marketing efforts. On this episode, we cover: How her demand gen experience influenced her approach to customer marketing The value of creating...
Angela Burk is Senior Director, Customer Marketing at Confluent. Angela has previously worked in customer marketing roles at companies like ServiceNow, NetApp and Jive Software. On this episode, we cover: Her three pillars of customer marketing and how they all connect How to be strategic about extracting customer insights for internal and external use The...
Syed Hussain is the VP of Customer Success at Indio Technologies. As you know, from time to time, I like bringing people on the show who don’t work in customer marketing, but can share valuable perspectives and help us better understand different departments that we work with closely. Syed is a good friend of mine...
Leslie Paterson is the VP of Global Customer Advocacy and Engagement at Genesys. She has previously worked at companies like Oracle and Ingram Micro. When we first connected, Leslie told me that she felt strongly about customer engagement being the “secret sauce” to advocacy, and of course, I had to have her on to speak...
Ray Lau is Director of Growth Marketing at PowerDMS. Prior to that, Ray led customer marketing at the company, and I was really interested in how his experience in customer advocacy influenced his approach to growth. On this episode, we cover: What he believes is the ultimate goal of marketing How his experience in customer marketing...
Fiona Partlow is the Senior Manager, Global Customer Reference Program at Nutanix. She kicked off her career in customer references at Oracle, then built out the EMEA customer marketing programs at VMware and Nutanix. On this episode, we cover: Starting customer marketing programs from scratch at VMware and Nutanix Why flexibility and adaptability are key...
On this episode, I had a blast chatting with Brittany Rolfe Hillard, VP, Customer Engagement and Advocacy at WalkMe about some of our thoughts and key takeaways from Product Marketing Alliance’s recent Customer Marketing Summit. Brittany was kind enough to watch (and in many cases, rewatch!) all of the sessions and her highlights kicked off some...
Anya Pratskevich is a Product Marketing Manager (and former Content Marketing Manager) at Mixpanel. Prior to that, she worked in product marketing and content marketing at companies like Liftoff Mobile and Adstage. From time to time, I like bringing people on the show who don’t work in customer marketing, but can share valuable perspectives and help...
Sam Shepler is the CEO of Testimonial Hero, a global B2B video testimonial creation service. He’s worked with companies like Google, Medallia and Hopin to create testimonials that reduce friction in the sales cycle and close deals more quickly. On this episode, we cover: Leveraging different types of customer video content throughout the whole buyer...
Helen Feber is the Managing Partner at Referential, Inc., a consultancy that has been delivering innovative, high-quality advocacy-related services globally for over 26 years. She is also on the oversight committee at ICCAP, the Institute of Certified Customer Advocacy Professionals. On this episode, we cover: Her four critical metrics for persuading the C-suite of the...
Umesh Patel is Head of Global Reference Programs at Fujitsu Global, where he’s been leading customer marketing for the past eight years. Umesh believes that customer stories provide tangible evidence for how companies help customers realize their visions, and you can tell that he gets so much joy out of connecting with people. On this...
“There’s a lot more clarity we can bring to our B2B programs to make sure that people understand, like, yes, when I do this, I will be able to have these opportunities. And when I put a value proposition out there that the customers are going to get chances to do X, Y, and Z,...
“We need all those people talking to each other, talking to us, so we get a really good sense of: what the right story is, and then how to get to that goal.” – Cynthia Hester Cynthia Hester is the Director, Global Customer Programs at Google Cloud. She has over twenty years of experience in...
Happy Holidays, BTD-ers! (I’ll have to find a better name for this at some point.) Margot here. Hope you’re all staying safe and healthy right now. I wanted to let you know that the show will be going on a short hiatus during the holidays, with new episodes coming in 2021. I’ll be spending much of...
“Have you raised your hand for stretch opportunities to try something outside of the box or outside of your comfort zone? It’s that type of relevance that brings attention to you as a potential person who can be promoted within the organization.” – Zoe Meyer Zoe Meyer is the Customer Engagement & Operations Lead for...
“It’s about really having that open line of communication between yourself and the CX team, so that you’re always on the same page.” – Christina Prudent Christina Prudent is the Senior Customer Marketing Manager at FullStory. Previously, she worked in customer marketing at companies like Talkdesk and NICE inContact, but also spent some time in...
“No matter what your title is, you have a voice at the table.” – Lisa Bregante Lisa Bregante is the Group Manager, Customer Marketing at PagerDuty. We covered a wide range of topics, including how her experience facilitating executive briefings helped prepare her for her current role, as well as what she’s learned moving from...
“To build a loyal customer, it actually starts from the very beginning when the customer interacts with your brand.” – Kelvin Cornaz-Tranphuoc Kelvin Cornaz-Tranphuoc is the Senior Director and General Manager of Retention at Rocket Lawyer. I’m really interested in how customer advocacy can play a larger role within the post-purchase journey and how there...
“Especially in this day and age, every company is striving to be more customer-centric, but few can really walk that talk. And I think customer marketers are the future of creating customer-centric companies.” – Charlotte Lilley Charlotte Lilley is the Head of Global Customer Marketing at Coupa. Charlotte kicked off her career in sales, founded...
“I think marketing is, more and more, taking a bigger role, a more forward role. It’s really co-ownership of that responsibility to drive customer experience, customer success, and adoption of the solutions.” – Julie Perino Julie Perino is the Head of Global Customer Marketing at Adobe. I am a huge believer that customer advocacy can...
“The goal should be having that customer for life as a great reference, which also means making sure that they’re getting value out of participating in the different reference activities, not burning them out on too many, and also figuring out what makes sense over time.” – Amy Shever Amy Shever is the Senior Customer...
“It makes you feel good because you get recognized as a leader externally, versus just focusing on being in your day to day job, where you’re not thinking about your next move, or your next promotion, or your next job at another company.” – Jeff McKittrick Jeff McKittrick is the Managing Director of Digital Sales...
“At the end of the day, the biggest, [most] important thing in this role is that customer relationship. You don’t want to lose that customer relationship just to get another customer.” – Liv Schichtel Liv Schichtel is the Customer Marketing Manager at AvidXchange. A popularly requested topic for this show is around setting up sales reference...
“It’s incumbent upon us to take that voice of the customer and share it broadly across the business to really try to impact change.” – Andrew Sevillia Andrew Sevillia is the Director of Customer Marketing at Sage Intacct. Andrew has seen the customer advocacy space evolve tremendously over the past decade and he’s really excited...
“There’s no more authentic way to explain to someone what a product does and how it might change their work, then through hearing a similar person using that product. It’s much more powerful than the company itself running an ad that says, This is going to change your life.” – Hollie Wegman Hollie Wegman is...
“It’s our job as marketers to make the company look good, to make the people working there look good, to make customers look good, but especially with customer marketing, because you’re taking your most valuable resource and really making them a star.” – Audrey Zigmond Audrey Zigmond is the Customer Marketing Manager, EMEA, at Contentful....
“To me, there’s nothing more magical than an account going dark, then you send them something and then … a la kazaam! All of a sudden, they respond to you. It’s magic.” – Leslie Barrett Leslie Barrett is the Senior Customer Marketing Manager at Sendoso, a sending platform that gives companies new ways to engage...
Rhett Livengood is the Worldwide Director of Digital Business Enabling at Intel. Prior to that, he was Intel’s Worldwide B2B Customer Engagement Director and has a ton of experience in the space. You can connect with Rhett on LinkedIn. On this episode, we cover: Why SaaS means that companies are valuing customer marketing and engagement...
“To me, customer centricity is the foundation. And you really need it.” – Lauren Harris Lauren Harris is the Director of Global Customer Programs at Oracle. One of the areas where she’s driven a ton of value is in leading their customer review team, covering 6+ lines of business, 3 vendors, and over 15 functional...
“Despite the fact that sometimes we’re living in such a digital world, human relationships still truly matter.” – Allyson Stinchfield Allyson Stinchfield is the Chief Customer Officer at Needle Space Labs, a marketing agency in Berkeley, California. Prior to that, she was the Customer Marketing Director at Splunk, an enterprise software company. We spoke about...
“For me, it’s what is the ‘why’ behind what people are doing and how can I bring that to light.” – Ben Bradley Ben Bradley is the Founder and Director of Right Hand Films. We previously worked together on several customer testimonial videos during my time at Rubrik. (Fun fact: the quality and artistry of...
“It starts and finishes with: what was it that your business is trying to achieve?” – Claire Grove Claire Grove is the Customer Advocacy and Storytelling Strategy Director at ServiceNow. Previously, she ran UK customer advocacy at Microsoft, as well as the EMEA customer reference program at Salesforce. Claire has this incredibly calming energy and...
“You want to make your customers referenceable? Then you’ve got to go out of the way to keep your customers happy.” – Dan Raynes Dan Raynes is a State and Local Senior Account Executive at Rubrik. He is one of the highest performing sales reps I know and has consistently achieved over 100% of his...
“It’s really important that the leadership team think of this as a program, that they have a dedicated owner, ongoing budget — like budget for a year, not budget for a meeting, or budget for a month, or budget for a quarter.” – Sarah Moody Sarah Moody is the CEO at Customers Always First, a consulting...
As a customer marketer, you are an extension of the account team, so we always want to be incredibly mindful of what we’re asking them to do. – Lindsay Molina Lindsay Molina is the Senior Group Manager, Customer Marketing at Slack. Prior to that, she also ran customer marketing at MuleSoft and Poly. You can...
“It’s about taking a moment to think about what you can do to support that customer. It just changes the conversation massively.” – Julie Ilott Julie Ilott is the Senior EMEA Customer Marketing Manager at Talkdesk and has previously worked at enterprise technology brands like Oracle and Dell EMC. She has nearly 20 years of experience...