114: Customer Marketing with Heart: Advocacy, Education, and Internal Champions - with Shannon Howard, Director of Customer & Content Marketing at Intellum

In this episode of Women in B2B Marketing, Jane Serra sits down with Shannon Howard, Director of Customer and Content Marketing at Intellum, to talk about the real work behind building lasting customer relationships that drive retention, advocacy, and long-term brand love. From her early days in B2C to leading customer marketing in SaaS, Shannon shares how she has learned to scale connection without losing the human touch. The conversation covers what customer marketing really owns (hint: it is not just case studies), how to enable internal teams to advocate alongside your customers, and the power of being relentlessly curious about the people you serve. Jane and Shannon get into:Why customer marketing is about more than just advocacy and what else belongs under its umbrellaHow to stay close to your customers even without a big team or budgetThe overlooked art of marketing internal programs like customer educationWhy reverse multithreading and relationship redundancy matter more than everApproaching customers for feedback in ways that feel natural, not transactionalTurning negative experiences into opportunities to create new advocatesThe value of surprising and delighting customers, including supporting causes they care aboutHow customer marketing can also play a big role in Customer Success enablementExpanding the definition of “customer” to include past, future, and even non-paying advocatesBuilding trust with customers by treating them like people, not just personas Key Links: Guest: Shannon Howard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonlagassehoward/ Host: Jane Serra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janeserra/ –– Like WIB2BM? Show us some love with a rating or review. It helps us reach more women marketers ready to take the mic.