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Customer Champions

Customer Champions

Written by: Jeff Reekers
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About this listen

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.© 2026 Jeff Reekers Economics Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • Signals Beat Surveys When You Want Real Customer Truth
    Feb 18 2026

    Customer marketing can’t run on dashboards alone. It has to run on signals.


    Danielle Beeken, Customer marketing + Community Leader, formerly Global Director Customer Marketing and Advocacy at Culture Amp, breaks down how the best teams spot intent before it shows up in NPS or renewal risk. Instead of blasting the same advocacy asks to everyone, Danielle shares how to read behavior, relationship, and community signals to know who’s ready, what to ask, and when to act.


    From identifying expansion readiness to building multiple champions inside an account, this episode is a practical playbook for moving from campaign-based advocacy to customer moments that actually convert.

    What you’ll learn:

    • How to replace “big advocacy campaigns” with signal-based customer moments
    • How community creates peer proof (and why it’s the fastest path to trust)
    • Why relying on a single “superfan” champion is risky, and how to build a wider circle of advocates


    Episode Outline:

    (00:00) Meet Danielle Beeken

    (01:20) Danielle’s path from sales to customer-led growth

    (03:36) Storytelling that makes customers the hero

    (05:38) Turning community into advocacy (the right way)

    (09:11) Bringing community insights into the business

    (13:11) The “energy shift” that tells you it’s time

    (13:59) From usage to impact: sparking expansion and advocacy

    (14:22) Making customer success your advocacy multiplier

    (16:02) Winning over every stakeholder in the account

    (22:11) Danielle’s field-tested takeaways for customer marketers



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    25 mins
  • Driving NRR With Customer Marketing
    Jan 7 2026

    Net revenue retention doesn’t get fixed at renewal, it’s shaped long before the deal is signed.

    In this episode, Tyler Calder, Chief Marketing Officer at PartnerStack, breaks down why NRR starts with marketing and how poor pipeline quality quietly creates churn months later. Drawing from hard-earned lessons across B2B, partnerships, and customer marketing, Tyler explains why targeting the right customers matters more than hitting pipeline numbers, and how ICP discipline can radically change retention, expansion, and CS efficiency.

    Tyler zooms into the operational backbone behind strong customer marketing: segmentation, enablement, measurement, and saying no when needed. He shares how PartnerStack evolved customer marketing from a reactive support function into a revenue-driving engine, how marketing can influence expansion pipeline and product adoption, and why relationships only scale when paired with rigor.

    What you’ll learn:

    • Why NRR starts with marketing, not renewals
    • How pipeline quality directly impacts churn and expansion
    • Ways to segment customers to focus on real growth potential

    Episode Outline:

    (00:00) Why NRR starts with marketing, not renewals

    (00:35) Introducing Tyler Calder, CMO at PartnerStack

    (01:42) Tyler’s path from finance to revenue-driven marketing

    (04:05) Early lessons from Eloqua, agencies, and partnerships

    (06:20) Partnerships and customer marketing as operational functions

    (09:40) Segmentation, focus, and the 80/20 problem

    (11:01) How pipeline quality impacts churn and NRR

    (14:05) Defining ICP and fixing retention at the top of the funnel

    (18:59) Building customer marketing as a revenue engine

    (24:08) Measuring expansion, adoption, and NRR effectively

    (29:40) Owning the story: elevating customer marketing’s role

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    35 mins
  • Turning Advocacy into Acquisition with Rodrigo Souto
    Nov 26 2025

    Demand gen and customer marketing are often seen as separate. But what happens when they work as one?

    Rodrigo Souto, Senior Director of Demand Generation at Zappi and former customer marketing leader at HubSpot, shares lessons from a career leading global programs across advocacy, PLG, and demand. At HubSpot, he built a unique playbook for tying customer marketing to revenue by connecting proof, product, and performance.

    Now at Zappi, Rodrigo is leading both demand gen and customer marketing together, proving how aligned teams drive faster results. He breaks down why references and expansion are underrated growth levers, how to show impact with limited resources, and where AI helps scale without losing the human touch.

    What you’ll learn:

    • Why putting customer marketing under demand gen unlocks budget and attribution
    • How to prove the revenue impact of advocacy programs (even with small teams)
    • Why scaling starts with deep customer understanding, not just more content

    Episode Outline:

    (00:00) Introducing Rodrigo Souto

    (00:41) Rodrigo’s path from HubSpot to Zappi

    (05:29) Lessons from international markets and product-led growth

    (10:25) Leading demand gen with a customer-first mindset

    (12:36) Why customer marketing now reports into demand gen

    (14:54) Breaking down the budget and attribution challenge in customer marketing

    (19:00) References and referrals as clear revenue levers

    (23:52) How to use AI to scale output without losing human touch

    (27:52) Getting started with revenue-backed customer marketing

    (29:44) Practical advice for growing into a marketing leadership role

    (33:55) Closing thoughts on strategy, trust, and leadership in customer marketing

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    35 mins
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