How to be a Company Chief Evangelist

Presenter: Betsy Weber, Chief Evangelist at Techsmith
Recorded: April 8, 2009
Length: 60 minutes, including Q&A
Cost: $49

What's the best way to connect with your evangelists, those customers who love your products/company so much they spread the word and advance your mission? Software maker TechSmith has created a successful recipe. In 2003, Betsy Weber became TechSmith's chief evangelist to closely connect customer evangelists with the company. Six years later, she's traveled around the world, met about 7,000 customers, attended 200 conferences and helped grow a business whose revenues have grown 265% in her time as chief evangelist. In this exclusive SWOM webinar, Betsy will explain how the TechSmith chief evangelist program works with lessons on how to create and operate one for your company.

What you’ll learn:

• How a company chief evangelist improves customer loyalty
• How to convince your company to create a chief evangelist role
• 3 techniques for using social media to connect with loyal customers
• 3 ways a chief evangelist is measured
• How an evangelism department creates competitive advantage
• How to hire for an evangelism department
• Best practices to bridge the gulf between company and customer

Ideal for:
People who are looking to move into this role for their company, executives looking to create an evangelism department, or anyone who wants to learn from an existing company evangelism program.

About our presenter:
Betsy Weber is chief evangelist of software maker TechSmith. She leads the company’s acclaimed evangelism program that collaborates with customers, industry experts and technologists, allowing them to speak directly with the company about capabilities they’d like to see in its products. This helps the company pinpoint customers’ needs to improve existing products and develop new ones. Betsy holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing and logistics Management from Michigan State University and resides in Lansing, Michigan with her husband.

What attendees said:

• "This is a great example on how a smaller company can take huge company tactics like evangelism and make them work for them."
• "A great introduction to what evangelism is all about from somebody executing on the front lines."
• "Having an evangelist on staff, someone dedicated to being the eyes and ears of the company and translating the customer feedback into useable action items, is critical. Though the company in focus was a product-oriented company with a high rate of early adapters as consumers, many of the ideas were applicable across industries."
• "You can tell she is passionate about her job."
• "I gained a number of insights into the "how-to" of being a customer evangelist to share with my clients. I can now recommend a number of ways for them to incorporate a position like this, or at least some of the WOM-generating activity."
• "Betsy's history shows that she is passionate about being an internal evangelist."