In an industry often bogged down by generic messaging and missed opportunities, one individual found a way to break free from the norm and create a truly personalized customer experience. By focusing on every touchpoint, experience, and stage of the customer lifecycle, Leslie Barrett,
Director, Customer Marketing at Tipalti & Creator at CMA Soulmate transformed how companies engage with users. Drawing inspiration from her own experiences with software, Leslie noticed the gaps where many companies failed to delight their customers and saw an opportunity to innovate.
With a data-driven approach, Leslie ensured that every piece of communication was thoughtful, well-timed, and aligned with customer needs, helping to preserve the trust that customer success teams work so hard to build. Through this shift, she not only created freedom for customers but also freed businesses from the constraints of outdated, one-size-fits-all strategies.
Let us learn more about her journey:
Crafting Customer-Centric Strategies
Leslie’s journey in marketing has been both dynamic and rewarding, beginning over a decade ago at Marketo, a leader in marketing automation. During her time there, she witnessed firsthand the challenges and complexities that come with implementing new software. This experience ignited her passion for understanding the customer’s journey and ensuring their success.
As Leslie advanced through roles at top MarTech companies, she saw the transformative power of putting the customer at the heart of every marketing effort. She became deeply committed to developing strategies that not only drive engagement and retention but also create memorable “wow” moments that leave a lasting impression.
These experiences inspired Leslie to craft methodologies that extend beyond traditional marketing. By focusing on advocacy, building genuine connections, and creating exceptional experiences, she realized that truly customer-centric strategies do more than just support business growth; they foster lasting partnerships and elevate the customer’s voice, positioning it as a key driver of the brand’s success.
Championing Customer Marketing to Drive Growth
Leslie found her true calling in customer marketing while working at a software company in Silicon Valley. In this role, her focus was clear: connect with delighted customers who loved the product, help them share their success stories, and surprise them with thoughtful gifts and recognition. For Leslie, it was an easy decision; customer marketing felt like a natural fit.
She soon realized that traditional marketing tactics often miss the mark because buyers aren’t interested in flashy campaigns; they want proof. They want evidence that your solution works, delivers results, and solves real-world problems. This is where customer marketing shines. By amplifying the voice of satisfied customers, Leslie helps provide the proof and credibility that potential buyers need to make informed decisions.
Leslie understands that customers are not just the heart of a business; they are the driving force behind growth. Whether it’s through upsells, renewals, or influencing new sales, customers are key to unlocking new revenue streams. Her passion for customer marketing runs so deep that one of her career aspirations is to teach a college course on the subject, sharing her knowledge and enthusiasm with the next generation of marketers.
Key to Sustainable Customer Advocacy
Leslie believes the foundation of a successful customer advocacy program lies in identifying passionate advocates early in their journey and empowering them with opportunities to share their stories in ways that align with their goals and audience. She emphasizes the importance of tailoring resources, providing exclusive platforms, and offering valuable opportunities, whether through speaking engagements, case studies, or peer-to-peer interactions, to make advocates feel valued and connected.
For Leslie, the key to long-term success is maintaining a dynamic program through continuous feedback, personalized recognition, and evolving engagement strategies that keep pace with advocates’ changing needs. She stresses that the most effective advocacy programs prioritize relationships over transactions. It’s easy to fall into the trap of transactional thinking—asking for a case study or review without cultivating a deeper connection that drives sustainability.
Instead, Leslie advocates for building relationships by understanding what motivates advocates, aligning opportunities with their personal and professional goals, and showing genuine appreciation for their contributions. It’s about creating a two-way exchange where advocates feel heard, valued, and supported, not just asked.
By taking this approach, Leslie has found that advocacy programs not only drive better outcomes but also strengthen the connection between advocates and the brand. After all, people don’t just advocate for products; they advocate for relationships that matter.
Creating Meaningful Connections
Leslie believes that personalization is all about creating meaningful, tailored experiences that truly resonate with customers at every touchpoint. At Sendoso, she leverages the power of personalized gifting to make each customer feel uniquely valued and recognized. This approach goes beyond generic outreach, fostering deeper connections and strengthening loyalty and advocacy.
Leslie emphasizes that while the level of personalization may vary depending on available resources, the key factor is relevance. She advocates for advanced strategies like website personalization, chatbots, and dynamic ads to create truly individualized experiences. At a minimum, she advises using segmentation—grouping customers by product line, engagement level, and stage in their journey—to ensure that messaging and content are aligned with their specific needs and timing.
For Leslie, personalization is not just about technology; it’s about gaining a deep understanding of your customers and using those insights to deliver value in a way that feels authentic and timely.
Mastering Account-Based Customer Marketing
Leslie dives deep into the concept of Account-Based Customer Marketing (ABCM) in her book Unlock Growth with Account-Based Customer Marketing. ABCM content is all about precision and personalization, designed to meet the unique needs, challenges, and goals of specific customer accounts. Unlike traditional marketing, which aims for a broad audience, ABCM uses the detailed insights you already have about your customers to deliver messaging that truly resonates.
Leslie emphasizes that as businesses, you already have a wealth of knowledge about your customers, from how they’re using your platform, the issues they’ve raised in support tickets, to their stage in the customer journey and buying cycles for expansion. With this data at your fingertips, she stresses there’s no excuse for generic messaging or missteps like pushing an upsell too early, which could risk damaging the trust built by your Customer Success team.
ABCM content ensures that every touchpoint is intentional, relevant, and adds value, strengthening relationships and positioning your brand as a trusted partner in the customer’s success. For Leslie, it’s about leveraging customer knowledge to elevate the experience, deepen engagement, and build lasting relationships, one account at a time.
A Strategic Framework for Impact and Stability
Leslie highlights the often-underappreciated role of Customer Marketing in B2B SaaS teams. In many organizations, Customer Marketing is overshadowed by Demand Generation and is considered a “nice-to-have” function, frequently the first to be cut during layoffs. To ensure that Customer Marketing remains valued, Leslie advises aligning efforts with leadership priorities. This means understanding which KPIs matter most to key stakeholders, whether it’s the CMO, Marketing Director, VP of Customer Success, or a direct manager, and tailoring metrics to resonate with them.
Leslie emphasizes the importance of adjusting your metrics based on who you’re reporting to. For instance, if you’re reporting to the Customer Success (CS) team, they care about how your initiatives impact retention, drive upsells and enhance the customer experience—not net-new leads from an awards program. This alignment ensures your work is understood and valued by those who matter most.
To track and showcase the value of Customer Marketing, Leslie offers a framework with four key metric categories:
- Program Output – Tracking raw numbers like new advocates, reviews generated, and awards submitted, which showcase tangible outcomes.
- Program Engagement – Measuring how customers are interacting with your advocacy programs, including active advocates, event attendance, and retention rates.
- Revenue Growth – Highlighting the financial impact, such as upsell revenue driven by advocacy campaigns, renewals influenced by customer engagement, and pipeline acceleration from events.
- Advocates vs. Non-Advocates – Comparing the behavior of program participants to non-participants, showing how advocacy programs drive better results like higher retention or increased product adoption.
By aligning these metrics with company goals, Leslie explains, Customer Marketing becomes an essential part of the business, directly linked to key outcomes. This not only showcases the strategic value of Customer Marketing but also protects the role from being sidelined.
For those eager to deepen their understanding, Leslie offers a course titled The ROI of Customer Marketing and Advocacy, where she teaches how to calculate the revenue impact of Customer Marketing, track year-over-year growth, and measure revenue attribution, tools that secure job stability and elevate strategic impact.
Mastering the Customer Journey
Leslie emphasizes the importance of mapping out the customer journey, recognizing it as both critical and challenging. It requires a deep dive into every touchpoint, experience, and stage of the customer lifecycle. To effectively map the journey, you must think like your customer, gather insights from various sources, and identify gaps while also ensuring alignment across teams like sales, marketing, customer success, and product. This collaborative effort can be complex, especially considering that customers don’t follow a perfectly linear path, and numerous factors, personas, industries, and goals can impact their journey.
The real challenge is the level of detail and nuance needed. The customer journey involves much more than just onboarding. You must consider adoption milestones, renewal conversations, advocacy opportunities, and the risk of disengagement. Each step requires careful attention, making the process both frustrating and time-consuming. But Leslie underscores that mapping the journey is non-negotiable. Without it, businesses are left guessing at customer needs rather than delivering value at the right time.
When done right, mapping the customer’s journey transforms marketing into a personalized, impactful strategy. It enables businesses to move beyond one-size-fits-all approaches and instead create tailored interactions that nurture relationships, build loyalty, and empower customers to achieve their goals. From onboarding to creating “wow moments” to turning customers into advocates, Leslie focuses on delivering value at each stage, addressing challenges, and celebrating milestones along the way.
The Power of Collaboration and Continuous Improvement
Leslie emphasizes the importance of collaboration when executing an Account-Based Customer Marketing (ABCM) strategy. Working closely with customer success teams and account managers who have direct relationships with customers provides invaluable context that goes beyond what’s found in spreadsheets. She stresses that ABCM is not a solo effort—it’s a team sport where everyone needs to be in sync.
However, Leslie also acknowledges the complexity of ABCM. It’s not a one-size-fits-all or plug-and-play strategy. It requires careful orchestration, from aligning messaging to coordinating across different teams. While ABCM is more challenging than other marketing tactics, it’s incredibly rewarding. There’s a deep satisfaction in delivering personalized campaigns that make a real impact on both the customer and the company.
She advises embracing experimentation and learning through trial and error. ABCM isn’t about perfection; it’s about continuous progress. Start small, iterate, and let customer insights guide your efforts. When done correctly, ABCM becomes a game-changer—not just for marketing, but for enhancing the entire customer experience.
Revolutionizing Customer Experience with Ethical Personalization
Leslie envisions a future where AI and machine learning revolutionize the personalization of customer experiences. As technology continues to evolve, the ability to predict customer needs and deliver highly tailored interactions will become a key differentiator for successful brands. However, she also highlights the growing importance of ethical considerations regarding data usage.
In her current role, Leslie shares that they utilize an AI-powered virtual assistant, but with an emphasis on privacy. Conversations remain secure and accessible only to the users involved, ensuring sensitive information is protected. She concludes with excitement, noting that this technology is a “game changer,” underscoring the profound impact it has on enhancing the customer experience.
A Gifting Strategy
Leslie recounts her experience at her previous company, where she orchestrated the creation of a “National Customer Appreciation Day.” The goal of this campaign was to foster deeper connections and enhance brand loyalty by recognizing and rewarding customer contributions.
As part of the campaign, Leslie developed a thoughtful gifting strategy. She created a dedicated landing page where customers could select from three different gift options, each within a $30 budget. The options included Whole Bean coffee, Truffles, and a Cocktail Kit, offering a personalized and memorable gesture of appreciation for their support.
For those looking to implement similar strategies, Leslie provides straightforward steps to help you kickstart your ABCM (Account-Based Customer Marketing) approach and gifting strategies. These are outlined in her comprehensive 50+ Playbook inside the ABCM Book, a must-have resource for creating meaningful customer connections.
