#referenceprogram

I've just come back from our Corporate HQ in the US, where I had the luxury of spending time with colleagues from the Global Reference Team as well as the wider marketing organisation. It was a good time to reflect on progress made over the past year, and also plan for future success.

A year passes by quickly, so looking at the deliverables we've brought to market is satisfying but only a part of the story. When I joined Juniper, I took time to listen and find out more about the company and its reference needs. From this I was able to:

build a picture of the goals we needed to attain

pin down the overall objectives

demonstrate the strategy and tactics we needed to deploy to accomplish these objectives

The reference numbers at the end of the year will go a long way to show the success we've had in designing a program that adds tangible value to our customers, and leads us to create reference assets that not only support our sales teams, but supports our thought-leadership and marketing standpoint.

Next for me is to look to measure impact of the reference program on the sales teams:

are the references we're delivering making a difference to our sales bottom line?

how are the assets we're creating being used/consumed?

Are we as effective for our external customers as well as our internal customers?

Thinking beyond asset creation, and taking an active interest in the above, takes your program from a ‘nice-to-have’ to commercial imperative. Think about how you report success, and learn to speak the language the business connects with.