The Overlooked Opportunity to Influence from the Inside
When it comes to asset creation for your audiences, there’s an important group that’s often overlooked: the evangelist. These are the super fans, the internal folks within the customer organization who have bought into your value hook-line-sinker. They typically represent your technical audience and don’t own the buying decision—but they’re ready to fight the good fight on your behalf and it’s in your best interest to arm them.
At Exact Market, we’ve seen evangelist struggles up close. Rarely do they have the tools they need for compelling conversations with stakeholders. We even met a super fan so deprived of asset options to use with his boss, he fed the solution vendor’s whitepaper into an AI tool and prompted, “Explain it to me like I’m a five year old.” While technology evangelists are often accustomed to generating awareness and support for a solution they favor, they need to elevate their message and speak to a business case the decision maker cares about.
And for that, they need your help.
Step one is, well, personas. You should already be familiar with the target stakeholders, but you’re taking a second look from your evangelist’s point of view. It’s important to consider the messenger as well as the recipient. Some questions to ask yourself, or even your evangelist, include:
| About Your Evangelist | Stakeholder Being Pitched To |
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Step two is assess your existing collateral by mapping it to the personas in play and the level of engagement they’ve had so far (if any). Evangelists will benefit from collateral and messaging that’s tuned for the stakeholders they are approaching. You also need to confine the messaging to what your messenger will be comfortable presenting. Step them too far out of their comfort zone and they’ll avoid the conversation. If your evangelist and the target persona are far apart on the org chart, you may recommend they approach a potential champion or stakeholder in between to bridge the distance.
Step three is close the gaps. Once you’ve evaluated your current assets against your evangelist’s needs, it’s time to augment with new or updated tools and collateral. You want to make it frictionless for your evangelist to not just cheerlead on your behalf but to influence stakeholder thinking and budget allocation. They don’t need to make a sale. The goal is to get the stakeholder hooked and open to having a conversation with you.
Here are some tips for developing effective collateral:
- Keep collateral short, simple, and visual
- Make business outcomes for the stakeholder the centerpiece of each asset
- Anticipate objections and handle proactively in the messaging so your stakeholder doesn’t have to create a defense
- Add speaker notes to slides using language your evangelist is comfortable with
- Provide one or two page “leave behinds” for stakeholders that reinforce the message, help them learn more, and encourage next steps.
Package everything in a helpful email, or even a pdf guide, that outlines the approach and why, how, and when to use each asset. Supply a ghost-written email for your evangelist to personalize and send to the stakeholder to facilitate initial outreach. Then be available for questions and support and learn how things went so you can adjust messaging and assets.
Energy and time invested with your evangelist lays a foundation to evolve the relationship into a purposeful partnership that can encompass:
- Speaking engagements at webinars or live events
- Being a reference for other customers
- Providing quotes and interviews for success stories
- Participating in customer advisory boards or beta and early access programs
After empowering an evangelist or two, you can standardize your assets and create reusable enablement kits that sales can easily leverage and share with prospects they are cultivating into super fans, increasing your reach and activating grassroot support within accounts.
