ReadyTalk created a customer advocacy program called the Summit Club to increase customer referrals and engagement. They partnered with Influitive to build the program on their AdvocateHub platform. Customers who scored highly on satisfaction surveys or had previously advocated were invited to join. The program involved challenges that earned points for rewards. In the first 4 months, 470 customers joined and completed 1843 challenges, resulting in increased referrals, references, blog comments, and social media engagement that helped deals close 50% faster.

1. HOW
SHORTENED THEIR SALES CYCLE
BY PUTTING CUSTOMERS IN THE
DRIVER’S SEAT

2. When you’re a privately-funded,
bootstrapped company,
it’s tough to stand out.
This is especially true when you’re competing against huge
international brands on one end (Citrix, Cisco and Adobe) and startups
with big cash influxes from venture capital funds on the other end
(join.me and Fuze Box). That’s the situation for ReadyTalk in the web
conferencing market.
Since the company’s founding in 2001, ReadyTalk has differentiated
itself as a customer-centric company that takes pride in customer
satisfaction. They always go the extra mile for their customers and it has
paid off for them: they have a huge base of happy, loyal customers.
Unfortunately, ReadyTalk didn’t always know what to do with those
customers, their feedback, or their love for the company. As a result,
ReadyTalk’s sales team found itself in a battle for every deal. They
wondered: How could they go about asking their customers to
advocate for ReadyTalk?

3. goals
ReadyTalk knew customer referrals could go a long way toward
helping deals close – and close faster – so they decided to get serious
about the race and kick things into high gear. They took steps to
implement a formal customer-driven marketing program to engage
with and mobilize ReadyTalk’s biggest advocates.
BOOST lead generation
with customer referrals
Build a community of
engaged customers
Solicit product feedback &
participants FOR usability
testing
Speed up the sales process
with customer references
Increase customer-involved
marketing tactics (e.g., guest
blogging, case studies, product
reviews, etc.)
With these goals in mind, ReadyTalk partnered with software
vendor Influitive to build an advocate marketing program. Influitive’s
AdvocateHub allows ReadyTalk to recognize and reward customers
for what they were already doing – using and talking about ReadyTalk.
It serves as the central point for managing and building advocate
activities.

4. READYTALK CREW
BO BANDY
ReadyTalk Marketing Communications Manager
Bo Bandy is a triple-threat who manages brand
communications, content marketing and customer
advocacy here at ReadyTalk.
It’s Bo’s vision, strategy and execution that has
taken ReadyTalk’s advocate marketing program
from 0 to 60 in just a few months. In her next
life, Bo wants to drive a Formula 1 car. In this life,
she likes driving results. Learn more about those
below.
BRITTANY JONES
Brittany Jones is ReadyTalk’s Marketing Intern and
Bo’s go-to girl for advocate engagement. Brittany
regularly finds useful, fun and well-thought-out
ways to make the program a key destination for
all ReadyTalk customers. She recently built a very
timely campaign called The Summit Club Olympics,
which generated a ton of advocate activity.
ReadyTalk’s account management team is also
instrumental to the success of the program. They
continuously work with Bo to rev up customer
advocacy engine so they can bring more customers
along for the ride.

5. SUMMIT
CLUBPROGRAM
To kick off the advocate marketing program, which they decided
to call the ReadyTalk Summit Club, Bo initially targeted customers
who had given ReadyTalk a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 8 or higher
on the company’s annual customer survey. They also included
customers who had previously participated in advocacy activities,
such as case studies.
READYTALK IMPLEMENTED A COMPREHENSIVE
CAMPAIGN TO ENSURE
the success of the Summit Club:
Personalized invitations from
the account manager to the
customer
Inclusion in the ReadyTalk
customer newsletter to provide
awareness and recognition
Challenge notifications for
key activities (references and
feedback)
A special “perk” for advocates
that were engaged at the
90-day mark (the perk was a
Summit Club coffee mug)
Reminder emails from account
managers to customers who
didn’t join after the initial invite
A series of custom “welcome”
challenges
Bi-weekly activity digests to
build ongoing engagement
All of the tactics were branded with the
Summit Club logo and, where applicable,
personalized for the advocates.

6. INSIDE READYTALK SUMMIT CLUB
Once ReadyTalk’s customers accepted the invitation to join
Summit Club, they could tackle “challenges” in the program, earn
points and redeem them for cool rewards.

7. Increasing lead generation
with customer referrals

8. Building
a community of
engaged customers

9. READYTALK SUMMIT CLUB
BO & COLLEAGUES
RECRUITED
CUSTOMERS
TO JOIN
SUMMIT
CLUB470
1843
CHALLENGES COMPLETED BY
READYTALK’S ADVOCATES,
RESULTING IN...
190
70
42
REFERRALS
ADVOCATES OPTING TO BE
SALES REFERENCES
BLOG COMMENTS
OF CUSTOMERS REFERRED THROUGH
SUMMIT CLUB CLOSED WITHIN 60 DAYS
(TYPICAL SALES CYCLE IS 120 DAYS)
THE FIRST 4 MONTHS
AND MUCH MORE, INCLUDING...
CASE STUDIES • PRODUCT USABILITY FEEDBACK • GUEST BLOG POSTS • WHITEPAPERS •
SOCIAL MEDIA SHARES AND NEW FOLLOWERS • SALESFORCE.COM APPEXCHANGE REVIEWS
15 LINKEDIN RECOMMENDATIONS
33%

10. The ReadyTalk Summit Club is powered by Influitive’s
AdvocateHub, a complete advocate management platform
that helps B2B marketers capture customer enthusiasm,
and use it to turbocharge marketing and sales efforts.
With AdvocateHub, B2B marketers build advocate
communities where customers, fans and evangelists can
complete high-impact activities, such as referrals, reference
calls, product reviews or social sharing.
Visit influitive.com to learn more.
How are your customers helping
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