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Most B2B companies overlook their biggest growth opportunity: investing in the customers they already have. Yet, customer marketing leaders struggle to secure budget, prove ROI, and drive growth.
In a world obsessed with more (more leads, more deals, more revenue), how do you make customer advocacy a non-negotiable growth strategy?
This show is for marketers who want to turn customer advocacy into a strategic growth engine. Each episode features customer marketing pioneers, revenue leaders, and industry experts sharing actionable strategies to engage, retain, and expand your client base. And not just through content, but through meaningful connection.
Because customers become champions when you make them feel valued first.
Brittnee Dawson (00:00):
Where is the right moment for case studies? I think we're never going to get away from them. I think we're always going to produce 'em, but when do we create that high value video case study that has a lot of investment dollars internally and externally to when is just a great quote from an executive, an awesome logo. We'll also do it.
Jeff Reekers (00:19):
Welcome to customer champions, where we explore how the best marketers turn customers into their biggest growth engine. Alright, hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Customer Champions podcast. I'm super thrilled today to have Brittany Dawson join us. Brittany is the director of customer marketing at AlphaSense and was named one of the top a hundred influencers and strategists in the customer marketing space for 2025 with over a decade of experience across startups and high growth companies and enroll spanning from product management to customer marketing, now she's built programs that don't just scale. They really drive impact in lasting customer relationships. I'm especially excited also to have Brittany on today because we're both proud Minnesotans and we have to stick together here and as required by state law, we have to talk about the weather at least once per month. We did a little bit of it before the recording, but I think we need to for legal purposes, substantiate that. And just first, how is Summer going? How are you enjoying the weather so far, Brittany?
Brittnee Dawson (01:20):
It's pretty good. We've had heat, we've had cold, we've had lots of rain. Take your pick, take your day. I think we went from nineties to 60 yesterday, so it's been a wild summer.
Jeff Reekers (01:32):
I'm really thrilled to have you on today and maybe before we hop in, just first and foremost, love to always start with something outside of the customer marketing space and what's something about you that you've got a deep passion for that kind of gives you balance outside of all the demands and stressors of customer marketing and work as a whole?
Brittnee Dawson (01:51):
This is going to be cheesy and this is going to be classic millennial woman here, but I love plants. So in the summer you'll find me out on my berm tending to my landscaping or out in the garden. And then in the winter I probably have 30 plus indoor plants. And so sometimes on a cold winter Saturday or Sunday morning, I'll be playing acoustic music, having my cup of coffee, watering my plants, making sure they're all living well. There's also screaming child in the background of all of that, so don't want to ignore that. But it's just something about really nourishing and getting just to see earth. I don't know, that sounds so cheesy, but I found myself, the older I get, the more I enjoy just a classic weeding session after a stressful day.
Jeff Reekers (02:42):
As we dive in here, maybe there's parallels between the passion for that and customer marketing as well, but we won't cycle analyze that too much. We can use that as a little segue here and diving into all things customer marketing, it can mean many things and many different companies. So I love just kick off with tell me about how you define customer marketing as a whole.
Brittnee Dawson (03:04):
I think it's all about connection and amplifying customers to how can we amplify voices and create connections across the journey to create really high impactful business outcomes and find those moments that truly matter. Creating those stories. I think I started my career and I went to school to do film. I thought I was going to go to Hollywood, tell these stories, be a documentarian. And so I think that's also why I'm really drawn to this job is within this ecosystem we can connect with customers. We have promatic ways to do that with data and there's that creative element, but in the end, what fuels the strategy for customer marketing is being able to connect and amplify humans, which is really exciting and something I'm really passionate about.
Jeff Reekers (03:54):
You do that. Just the incredible stories behind your customers and all that you can kind of bring to life from there. Love that sort of storytelling background and mindset. You started at earlier in product management and you're at Thomson Reuters if I'm not mistaken there. What kind of drew you in the customer marketing and what was your path into this profession?
Brittnee Dawson (04:13):
I think going back to that film element there and how I grew up, I'm just a creative individual. I like creating things. That might be why I like going to the landscaping and tending to my flowers. So I like that creative outlet. So in the product management life cycle, there's research and development, there's the go-to market strategy and I found myself really connecting to that part of the products lifecycle. And so that's where I kind of pivoted with amazing opportunities at Thomson Reuters to go more into the marketing side after creating products that were to help law firms market their services. And I think that that's what drove me to marketing and that passion for telling stories and connecting with people kind even brought me to where I am today in customer marketing.
Jeff Reekers (05:03):
Amazing. And maybe kind of diving into where your role today with AlphaSense and how you're thinking of and building out customer marketing programs there, there's that storytelling element, but when we were chatting a little bit on this prior to the podcast starting and the recording starting here, but then there's also tying that in with the business metrics and the impact side of things. So kind of just want to high level, how do you think about tying those two things in together and how do you think about the metrics and kind of the reporting behind the impact of customer marketing?
Brittnee Dawson (05:33):
So various roles I've had in my career have always been like go start customer marketing. And so there's different metrics for different stages along the way. So when you're first building those programs, it's kind of like the versus metric, like those who engaged in the program versus those who did not. And as the weeks and the months continue to progress, then you can start really seeing those pipeline influence the retention dollars. Sometimes the renewals are two years out, three years out, so you have to let those programs sit. So it's a combination of metrics of program engagement level, those clicks, those acts of advocacy, really diving into those individual moments. And then it's also how did we really impact the growth of the organization and aligning to those metrics that those executives really want to hear and those metrics that have those dollar signs.
Jeff Reekers (06:27):
Yeah, amazing. Now you mentioned the programs and maybe the engagement metrics and then the ROI metrics. We'd love to get more specific and tactical here on any campaigns or programs that you've run recently, anything that's really surpassed your expectations that you see working in customer marketing that the others could learn from here. And how did you cultivate that? What learnings did you have from it?
Brittnee Dawson (06:51):
So throughout my career I've done a wide variety of customer marketing programs from those growth upsell renewal strategies as well as those adoption programs. How do you get them to engage with your business and engage with your product? But the ones that have always surprised me the most and the ones that are like, gee, that's really awesome are the advocacy programs. And those are really cool because going back to the human aspect, you can have programs that tell the dollar signs and that tell, okay, they will renew with us, they will do that product. But when you get someone to raise their hand to do more and create a connection, do that case study, give you that quote that is really, really cool. And so last year at AlphaSense we launched our first advocacy program. We used champion to use data to tell us when is the right time to connect with people.
(07:39):
Again, finding those right moments to connect with those individuals we to x our goal of the number of advocates we were expecting in the financial services space because we knew that our customers wanted to connect with us. So we had this perception that our customers just want to use our services, use our products, but when they raise their hand to do something with you, you're like, Hey, that's really cool. And so the learning there is use the data to find the right moments to connect. What's going to be awesome is showing who wants to do what with you. And so there are dollar signs to that. You can say X amount of our revenue is in our advocacy program or the retention rate for those who are in our program versus those who are not. But in the end, you're really connecting with people. And so getting them to be a speaker, provide a quote, do a case study with us is really, really cool.
Jeff Reekers (08:34):
Yeah. Well, one thing I'd love to dive a little further into there, because a lot of folks we speak with and work with, there's many different personas behind the customer and who that is. You mentioned financial services and finance companies. I imagine maybe you're a little more reluctant at times to do these types of activities or actions. Any advice for folks that maybe are in a certain vertical or space where there's an argument of, well, I don't think our customers really want to be interacting in this capacity or a way, I think that's a common challenge that folks face in different verticals. Is that something you've come up against and how have you tackle that?
Brittnee Dawson (09:11):
I don't have a secret answer for this. I think it's still challenging no matter what. And I think when I talk to some other customer marketers, I think we're all kind of experiencing the access to information on the internet, especially with AI is making our jobs even harder because the minute you publish something, those LLMs are going to find that and find a way to use it and frame it. So it's getting harder. But I think a way to make it more successful is find ways to make those true connections. The value of we are all so technology forward, so how can we actually remove us from the technology and actually create human connections? And I think that's what the basis and the value of customer marketing is. How do you create those moments for an organization to trust you and build relationships versus just depending on the data and just the clicking around knowing that we have their best interest.
Jeff Reekers (10:10):
Totally. And kind of bridging off of that, another comments would challenge, I think that's fairly common in the customer marketing world as a whole is ultimately everything has to tie back to impact and revenue and growth, but there's also the really critical element of being an advocate for your advocates and championing your customers. How do you balance those two things and bring those two together, balancing impact and also being the, for lack of a better term, advocate for your advocates? In a sense,
Brittnee Dawson (10:37):
I think a core value that we have as we're executing programs is you have to build trust. And so the metrics are important and those matter, but across all of those, what is the underlining factor is trust. So finding those right time to connect with individuals is absolutely important. You're not just going there for a logo, you're going there to understand that there was a shift, they changed a job, they got a promotion. What can you do to help that individual gain trust and find those moments in the journey where you can amplify that? And I think that's how we saw success in our advocacy growth program recently is with data we are able to build on that trust and go deeper and use it as a tool but not solely focus on it.
Jeff Reekers (11:29):
The trust part is so critical, and I know Gianna scone quite well. Also, something you said that just really resonates is it's not a logo, something we talk about a lot as well. The customer is a human and there are humans behind that logo. And so it can be so easy to just think of an account, and I see this happen a lot, like business gets closed and a logo gets handed over and you just think of it as a logo and there's no trust behind that. So love how you're kind of bridging that human element and keeping that at the forefront of everything. And maybe bridging again off of that, the human versus ai, this is the topic of the hour, the topic of the decade right now. But kind of looking into that, how do you sort of balance keeping that human element, that trust and AI together, and maybe more broadly, how are you thinking about and leveraging AI to help make that human element and that trust factor more at the forefront?
Brittnee Dawson (12:26):
AI is changing everything, right? And it's really revolutionizing some of the fundamentals of how we built these best practices in the playbooks that we've gotten today. But I think how we're using AI is to make those advocacy moments feel more human rather than less. And so personalization has always been a topic in marketing in general. Everyone wants to make sure that they're connecting with the right person at the right time with the right message. And so we're trying to use AI to enhance all of our personalizations and the way that we connect and when we connect, but it's not going to replace what the core value of what we need to do. And that is human connection.
Jeff Reekers (13:09):
There's a continuous thread here on just human connection and the sort of empathy end and making sure that the trust is built. It's probably yes with customers. I think a unique thing also with customer marketing and I think in our work together as well, and I've seen you had the opportunity to see you operate as well. The other critical part is how you build trust internally across different stakeholders across an organization. And customer marketing is this unique thing that sits across so many different roles. It requires that to kind of stitch together the customer journey. This maybe taking through how you approach internal alignment, internal communications and just marketing your work internally to build that cohesion internally.
Brittnee Dawson (13:51):
For internal communication, it might just be my own professional and personal personality, but I always lead with empathy knowing what does that individual, what is that team? What are their goals? What are their day to day, what's keeping them up at night and how can I help them? And making sure that from an account management CS perspective, my goal is also to help you retain that customer, improve adoption, making sure that customer is having a positive experience. And so how can I connect my programs to what their goals are and how can we not only make the external experience better, but how can I help make the internal experience better? And timing is important. Knowing it is end of the quarter, it is not a good time to go ask for, Hey, will you review this list for this type of program? No one likes that task by the way, so try to get away from that, but how can you time it as well as making sure that that message is very concise and to the point.
(14:54):
Everyone is busy all the time. So making sure that you're very clear on what does it mean for them, what's in it for them? Making sure you build trust that way that you are empathetic to their current workload, their current mission, their current goals. And the last thing I'll add to this is as much as we want advocates to sell our service or our software, use that internally. Making sure that you have internal advocates and internal participation. So you can use that as like I partnered with someone like you and this is what their experience was, this is what their feedback was. So for example, we're doing a pilot right now and so it's getting the engagement from the revenue organization, having their experience, taking their feedback and then improving with their feedback and then using that for the full launch of that program as well. I think it's absolutely critical. It's
Jeff Reekers (15:44):
Amazing. You have ongoing syncs, weekly syncs with success teams or whatever it is. I'm just throwing a random example out there, but tactically, how do you continue to make that happen on an ongoing basis? Is it just relationship building? Do you get things in the calendar? Is there a goal setting? And then you're like every quarter you're sitting down with the other teams and figuring out what their goals are. How do you stitch all that together in the end?
Brittnee Dawson (16:10):
It's a combination of all of that. I think pending the project and the mission. I think stepping back to a start of a program or a start of building a team, it's a lot of engagement early and often as well. So you might set the stage, I remember multiple companies I've started at working with leadership, it might be a biweekly, it might be weekly, sometimes depending on I need to understand the landscape, I need to understand how we partner, what's the strategy? And then over time it of morphs into those monthly or like, Hey, for this project, let's create this lane slack channel. This is where the updates go here. But I think it's also having a lot of context on the entire marketing organization and how they're connecting. So I've ran into situations where it's okay, you are a key stakeholder in customer marketing, but there's also other aspects of marketing that are connecting with these leaders. So it's not only external marketing alignment, but making sure there's internal marketing alignment. So there is a meeting cadence that we have right now that is all CS leaders and all leaders that own customer programs connect with all of us on a monthly basis. And so making sure that we're also showing a cohesive strategy externally for marketing.
Jeff Reekers (17:27):
Does that change at all when you start thinking of demonstrating impact or communicating with the C-level, C-M-O-C-R-O, whoever it might be? Is there any particular nuances to how you're communicating on that front? And there might be particular metrics you're zoning in on retention, expansion, et cetera, but any learnings there? And I think one thing that we've aligned on many are continuing to see in customer marketing is just the strategic importance of this as a critical growth engine. So just kind of curious in your vantage and how you bring that back into the C-level conversation that demonstrate the impact that customer marketing is having on the org.
Brittnee Dawson (18:06):
Yeah, so kind of going back to the foundational building of customer ranking programs, we are really quick to go to those easy stats of there was this open, there were these clicks, there were these total advocates and the total engagements, reviews, references, what have you. But really in the end you need to pull that up to those key metrics that the organization is focusing on. And those are the ones with the dollar signs or the retention rate, the growth rate. And one thing that we're doing that I'm really excited about is with Champion, we're tracking all these engagements and so we're able to say all the low hanging easier metrics I would say, but we have started implementing champion engagement data over to Salesforce so we could get it into our biz attribution model. So having that advocacy attribution is going to be a game changer and being able to put dollar signs to that attribution model, which is going to be really, really cool, haven't seen, we still have to let the engagement happen and let it build, but I'm excited to see those numbers and being able to communicate that.
Jeff Reekers (19:09):
I love that. And it's actually the first time I've heard somebody bringing that advocacy engagement impact into a centralized tool like visible on the reporting end that was a long time customer visible as well in past roles. And a theme behind that then is centralizing that in the places where your executives are looking. So that there is one central source of truth oftentimes. And I used to get frustrated by this, which is one team's giving me numbers and then I've got another team giving me numbers and then another team giving me numbers. They kind of contradict somehow the end revenue numbers is this and then it's like 180% or a thousand percent impact if I bring everyone's together. And it's almost impossible to stitch it all when you get these sort of siloed data sources. So really amazing anyways that you're centralizing all that in one consolidated view and bringing the advocacy engagement data into that. I haven't really seen that as often as I think as necessary. So I think that's a major takeaway for anybody else is just to bring all that data together in the end.
Brittnee Dawson (20:14):
And I think important factor of this is having that relationship with operations on what are the challenges that you are trying to solve for knowing, okay, here's all the programs that I have, these are the stats that I can measure, but I'm missing these X, Y, Z. So then we created an early relationship with our operations team saying, we want to put advocacy in our attribution model and this is what that means and this is what that looks like. And so the minute we were able to create that champion Salesforce connection, I shout out to Alex, she was able to build it within a week of just getting that information together and divisible. So having that relationship with operations is also very critical.
Jeff Reekers (20:53):
Make operations your best friend internally. I think that's a wonderful takeaway for anybody listening regardless of your role as because marketing or elsewhere, if you're trying to drive impact and you don't have a close relationship or buy-in from the ops team, it's going to be a very much an uphill
Brittnee Dawson (21:09):
Battle. I'm a very creative visual person, so sometimes those operation conversations are not the fun ones, but they're also the most critical ones and those are the ones that will also create the foundation so you can communicate all these stats up to leadership.
Jeff Reekers (21:23):
Yeah, amazing. Kind of zooming out a little bit more high level reflection, just trends in customer marketing as a whole, anything that's happening in the space and there's a lot of change happening in the space holistically, anything that you see happening by other practitioners or other professionals you just think is just an overrated sort of practice right now?
Brittnee Dawson (21:43):
There's lots of things in the digital marketing space with where AI is going today, understanding how to use that data to create very effective growth adoption advocacy programs. But at the core, there's also something that we've always had to produce. We've always had to create customer content. And I think I don't have the answer to this, but I guess the hot take is what do we do with case studies? What do we do with quotes? What do we do with logos? What do customers really care about? And I'm engaging in my own purchase decisions on how do I ask TBT what to do and where is the right moment for case studies? I think we're never going to get away from them. I think we're always going to produce them, but when do we create that high value video case study that has a lot of investment dollars internally and externally to when is just a great quote from an executive, an awesome logo, we'll also do it. And then how do you get those out in the world if it's on your website, if it's social media, paid ads, how do you use that content and which type of that content do you use based on the journey? That is a crazy, crazy puzzle that I don't have the answer for. And so in the end I think it's like how do we make sure that we focus on authentic, diverse voices and making sure that we're flexible and effective at the same time the static case study is being challenged right now. It'll be interesting.
Jeff Reekers (23:17):
It's funny, I don't think there's been ever been an organization or a sales organization or go to market org as a whole that said, oh yeah, we have plenty of case studies. We never need another one. But at the same time, it never feels like on the production end or producing 'em that there're ever being leveraged to the degree that you thought they were going to be leveraged. I dunno, that's my personal feeling and take from producing many in the past. How do you stay agile with what really matters, which is building trust and having nuanced stories behind the case study and kind of bringing that together in a more modern way to create that sort of connection and trust. But I definitely hear you there. That sort of static case study I think is something that's a must have to some degree, but kind has to be leveled off at some point or it can just get out of control.
Brittnee Dawson (24:05):
And I referenced earlier it's going to be harder to get those big case studies and people are busy. And so it's also like how do you use ai? Shout out to Gong. How do you use Gong to pull and extract a story so that you don't ask, Hey Jeff, can you dedicate another hour to do this virtual interview or even a full day to do a in-person interview? How can we create those stories with the information that we already have and expedite the production of that? And then the second thing I'll make is with how fast AI is going, how fast a product and a service is changing. Right now the messaging is changing, but with the investment you put in the video or in the long form content, you're going to have to go back and make sure that it's relevant. So where are those quick snippets to make you as relevant as possible? And then if user generate content, how do we just have the customers do it for us? Which also changes the conversation of how you produce that content of like, Hey Jess, you love our service, you love our product, can you create a selfie for LinkedIn? That also is a totally different commitment and conversation with the customer.
Jeff Reekers (25:17):
I think there's been a lot of positive direction towards that as well. I know Evan user evidence talks about this a lot as well, also on sort of the death of the case study and more that user generated content side. So I think that'll definitely be the direction that things continue to go in for all the purposes you mentioned, just like the agility that's necessary, the time it takes to produce this, and also the technology that's now available to us so we can actually produce things that our user generated.
Brittnee Dawson (25:43):
Totally agree. Flexibility, agility is the big strategy there.
Jeff Reekers (25:47):
Based on all these changes, what do you see coming on the horizon, like customer marketing 1, 3, 5 years from now as the role evolves over time? Where do you see the profession going holistically? And for anybody that's getting into the space right now, what would you advise to them to really zone in on or start thinking about in the role?
Brittnee Dawson (26:08):
There's an evolution that we're definitely going through right now and it's very exciting. I think a couple of things that excite me from the traditional one person customer marketing teams that are across the organization today is how do we position customer marketing in the community led growth space and the peer influence? I think there's a lot of promatic strategies that are there of how do we use the data to drive adoption and to drive growth. But I think using that digital forward mindset, but how do we create customer connection and enhance those relationships and what does that look like? Because I think maybe post pandemic, I think people are over pivoting to creating human connection, but also in the race of AI and the race of data. So it's how do we create those connections with where we're at with technology today? And that connects to my second thing that kind of excite me is using the quantitative data that we have today, but also connecting that qualitative people are still saying amazing things and having great experiences. So how do we align those engagements at the right moment? What are their onboarding struggles? What are their job changes? Knowing when to ask for a referral versus not. And so how do we use more data to know when to act with empathy and create that moment with some emotional intelligence to align to those strategic business goals that we're all trying to strive for. So it's basically like how do we use the data and the technology that we have to create those optimal connections and being those experts to help businesses grow,
Jeff Reekers (27:45):
Right person, right moment, right message and ask behind it. Maybe this is kind of bring it all together and using the data to really stitch that together. I think there's an element also in there, which is like B2C operates in that a lot of the time in that B2C world, you really think about that customer journey from beginning to end and there's all this personalization to leverage the data that you have, whether it's through a CDP or something like this. And I think that's just starting to get into the B2B world. So totally agree. That's a direction that I hope things continue to progress towards.
Brittnee Dawson (28:19):
Yeah, it'll be interesting and it's all changing so fast, so my answer could be totally different six months from now.
Jeff Reekers (28:25):
Totally. Well, I'm getting near the end, Kier, I'm going to wrap up in just a moment, but who are some customer marketers that you love learning from? Who do you think would be a great guest on the podcast? Who would you love to listen to over 30 minutes, whether it's talking to me or somebody else, but on the other side of me, who would you love to see on a podcast like this?
Brittnee Dawson (28:43):
I'm going to drop Heather Faye. I think she is an amazing human being who I have had great opportunity to connect with her recently. And I think we talked a lot about connection, internal, external, and messaging at the right moment. And I think she is literally the expert there. She has challenged me recently to really think about why are you telling them this? Really? What's the value in that? And it's sometimes really good to have those reminders and some of the communication and messaging that we put together on some programs that we're partnering with on right now. It's almost like she's a communication minimalist. I don't know if she's going to like me putting this label on about her, but it's almost like sometimes less is more. And I think that is a really good reminder. And she's worked for some amazing organizations driving community programs and customer marketing programs. So I think she has great experience to understand how to create a great customer experience as well, how to really create a good internal strategy as well. So Heather's pretty amazing and she's pretty cool. So everyone should connect with Heather.
Jeff Reekers (29:50):
Yeah. Alright, Heather, you might get a message from me fairly soon
Brittnee Dawson (29:55):
And there's many more, but I'll put Heather on the trophy for now.
Jeff Reekers (29:58):
Yeah. Fantastic. Well, Brittany, thanks so much for joining us today and thanks everybody for joining in and tuning in. I think there's so much that other customer marketing leaders can learn from you, from everything from an execution standpoint and customer marketing to that collaboration in which I know we talked about and dove into a lot in this conversation and just how to grow an incredible impact and career through customer marketing. So Brittany, thanks so much for joining us today and I look forward to our next monthly sync on the weather and hopefully we'll have a good recap of whatever month we're in June, July as we progress in the summer here. So thanks so much again for joining us today.
Brittnee Dawson (30:39):
Hey Jeff, and I wanted to quickly just say thank you for what you're doing for the customer marketing community and creating this podcast. So thanks for the opportunity. I think we're lucky to have your expertise in leadership here.
Jeff Reekers (30:49):
Oh, thanks so much, Brittany. I really appreciate that. If you're ready to turn customer advocacy into your biggest growth engine, make sure to subscribe to customer champions wherever you listen to podcasts. And for even more insights, go to champion hq.com because the best way to grow isn't just by winning customers, it's by championing them.