In 2025, expect increased emphasis on data-backed metrics to justify program value, the blending of advocacy and marketing roles, and the rise of personalized outreach powered by AI. Community-building initiatives, enhanced employee advocacy, and innovative formats like video storytelling will redefine how businesses engage advocates. These trends highlight advocacy as a business-critical strategy that fosters deeper connections, drives growth, and extends customer lifespans.

Catch more advocates with a proactive 'assumptive invite' strategy. Referential’s personalized approach respects a would-be participants’ time while highlighting the value of joining an advocacy program. Opt-out options and flexibility ensure a positive experience. Learn how to boost your recruitment rates today!

Program justification has taken a vocal seat at the table, education across departmental silos and stakeholders has never been more important. Proving the value of what you do is now, perhaps more than ever before, a business imperative. The “so what?” for customer advocacy is a question ringing loudly in everyone’s ears. Luckily, across the industry both the tools in use, and the practitioners using them, can loudly answer this query.

The hardest part of getting buy-in from sales and customer success teams? These are busy people and often advocacy feels like just one more headache when their plate is already full. Read on for quick tips on how to encourage sales and customer success teams to engage with your cohort of customer champions!

With all the recent interest in advocacy programs and the growing availability of training and education resources for the profession, there’s never been a better time to be a customer advocacy manager.

Are you looking to build a database of active customer references but don’t know where to start? Are you having trouble determining the ‘what, which and how’ of metrics you should track? Are there more questions than answers? …Or are you looking for a real, in-depth refresher course to help polish your resume and knowledge base?

Have you ever dived into fulfilling an urgent reference request only to spend the next precious minutes hopping back and forth between your CRM and reference management systems, verifying that you’re using the most up-to-date customer data to identify the best-matching reference? Having easy, seamless access to current, real-time data – like account ownership, product usage, customer location and contact titles – can make a world of difference in how efficiently you can hone in on an ideal match for a reference request.

Though each of our consultants dedicate their time and focus to the programs of specific clients, our team regularly exchanges tips and best practices with one another. As a result, we’re constantly building on our collective knowledge and enhancing our ability to serve the needs of different clients.

As the US slowly starts to get back on its feet from the Covid-19 quarantine, businesses just like ours are starting to look at how we can adapt and overcome new social etiquettes. As the head of our video production team, it has been a challenge for me to develop new ways in which we are able to continue to create customer testimonial videos, but I have developed some strategies for navigating our new normal.

Although most advocacy professionals wouldn’t mind an extra pair of hands to help with the countless responsibilities in a day, not everyone is lucky enough to have personal assistance with general daily tasks. If you are in a position where you are constantly scheduling meetings with customers, you may find that the task is very time-consuming. Going back and forth in email to find a time to meet can be tedious and reduce productivity. In addition, it can be a hassle to determine the correct time zone and the appropriate meeting time when contacts are located in different regions.

Customer advocacy – the process of identifying and sharing the stories of success and delight from satisfied customers to educate prospective buyers about the value a company offers – has enormous potential to meet B2B buyer demand for peer references, and positively impact company revenue. To realize this potential, however, customer advocacy programs must be strategically designed to ensure advocacy efforts support the needs and interests of customers and align to broader business goals.