Customer Advocacy at GitLab

Overview:

The Customer Advocacy team fosters evergreen co-marketing relationships with customer accounts and advocates that fuel an integrated strategy aligned to pipeline-driving initiatives, threading the customer voice into GTM motions.

• We create programs, content, and opportunities that put enterprise logos and advocates in the spotlight.
• We partner with Sales and Customer Success to identify, capture, and tell the right stories that help us sell and reinforce our enterprise-trusted brand promise.
• We support the bottom line by fueling our integrated campaign motion with powerful customer evidence.

Meet the team:

• Nicole Smith — Director, Product Marketing, Customer Advocacy
• Jocelyn Hernández Vázquez — Product Marketing Manager, Customer Advocacy
• Rachel Lurie — Product Marketing Manager, Customer Advocacy

How to work with us:

• Questions - Reach us in the #customer-advocacy-and-references Slack channel.
• Information & Resources - Review the Customer Advocacy Overview deck and the Customer Stories Hub in Highspot.
• Requests - To create a general request for the Customer Advocacy team, open an issue here.

Programs we drive and support

Customer Stories

The Customer Advocacy team partners with Content, Brand, and Design to run a continual, evergreen pipeline of customer stories in various formats including case studies, blogs, and marquee videos. We spotlight customer achievements and the DevSecOps teams that drive their success. The stories we publish are aligned to strategic pillars that support sales needs and integrated initiatives.

We strive to produce three customer stories per quarter and two marquee videos per year. A selection and prioritization process helps us tell the right stories in the right format. Selection criteria is based on GTM goals determined through cross-functional collaboration and strategic alignment, with additional prioritization based on account size, license type and number of users, and use cases.

Have a customer with a compelling story? Help us spotlight your customer by completing the Customer Success Story Idea Submission Form.

Where to find customer stories:

• Customer Stories Hub in Highspot - filter by industry, region, ROI, and more; create a “pitch” and share out your content of choice directly from Highspot.
• Customer Advocacy & Case Study Slides - position the value of participating in advocacy activities to your customers, and use the case study slides in presentations/pitches.
• Customer Case Studies (website)
• Customer Blogs (website)
• Customer Videos (YouTube playlist)

Earnings Customer References

The Customer Advocacy team partners with Investor Relations, Sales, and PMM to identify and showcase customer stories and name drops on our earnings calls each quarter.

We focus on two categories of earnings references:

• First Order: net new ENT/MM customers typically appear in earnings as name and/or logo drops.
• Growth: existing ENT/MM customers that have seen measurable success or expansion are typically featured with a story or quote in earnings.

Help us secure earnings customer references. For more details on this process, please review the Customer References Sales Guide.

Customer Logo & Name Usage — Referenceable Customers

In addition to earnings calls, the Customer Advocacy team manages all approved customer references.

Customer reference types vary, and include all approved customer names, logos and pieces of customer evidence that can be leveraged in varied formats publicly in market. These may appear as long-form stories like case studies, blogs, and videos, short proof points like earnings mentions, quotes, and ROI metrics, or simple name and logo placements on GTM materials.

The team continuously updates the Customer Advocacy SSOT and the Customer ROI Evidence House. Leverage these trackers to find a name/logo you’re interested in using, and work with the Customer Advocacy team for final review and approval.

Have a customer that could be a reference? References should be secured in writing - ideally in the contract/order form, in the standalone customer license agreement, or via email. For more information, see the Customer References Sales Guide.

Speaking Opportunities

The Customer Advocacy team provides support for select GitLab hosted and sponsored events by sourcing customer speakers to share about their journeys, successes, and learnings in partnership with GitLab.

To request a customer to speak at and/or otherwise support an event, please open the Customer Speaker Request issue template a minimum of 60 days before the event and assign it to Jocelyn Hernández Vázquez.

Press Opportunities

Customer Advocacy partners with the Corporate Communications team to amplify the voice of customers through various media opportunities such as customer quotes in press releases and media interviews. We strive to pitch press opportunities that will provide the most value to the customer and allow for a continued warm relationship.

To secure a customer quote or an advocate for a media interview, please tag Nicole Smith in the issue at least 30 days prior to the deadline.

Peer Reviews & Analyst Interviews

GitLab maintains its leadership with Gartner Magic Quadrant, Forrester Wave, and IDC Forecasts by securing customers to participate in analyst interviews and market research surveys each quarter.

The Analyst Relations team aligns with the Customer Advocacy team on new survey or interview needs as early as possible to ensure ample time to source the required customer participants.

Executive Advisory Board (EAB) Program

The EAB is an invitation-only cohort of 12-15 VP+ level executives from select GitLab enterprise customer accounts who are driving business and technology transformation with a visionary DevSecOps strategy. Throughout the annual program, the board meets both in person and virtually to engage with GitLab leaders, learn innovative best practices, and share insights to help shape the future of GitLab. For more details on the EAB program, review the Internal Brief.

Other advisory and executive customer programs managed by other teams at GitLab include:

• Product Customer Advisory Board - Select manager+ level champions from strategic accounts, focused on technical discussions (DRI: Michaela Seferian-Jenkins, Product)
• Federal Customer Advisory Board - Invitation-only cohort of executives from PubSec customer accounts (Interim DRI: Liz Burrows, PMM PubSec)
• Federal Advisory Board - Forum of 5-7 paid consultants across the government (Interim DRI: Liz Burrows, PMM PubSec)
• Executive Sponsorship Program - Pairs strategic customer executives with GitLab senior leadership for regular 1x1 engagement (Interim DRI: Aileen Lu, Sales)

Customer Reference Sales Contests

On an adhoc basis, the Customer Advocacy team runs contests to incentivize the Sales team to identify and secure customer references. The goal is to uncover new, high quality customer references whose names, logos, and stories can help strengthen our standing in the market.

Contests typically run throughout a designated quarter and offer a reward structure where account owners can qualify for monetary incentives by securing customer reference agreements.