With the proliferation of online communities and pro-company bloggers, corporate evangelism has emerged as a practical marketing discipline. For a good primer on the subject, check out James Pethokoukis’ well-written corporate evangelism feature in US News & World Report.

Any company could benefit from an official corporate evangelist such as Betsy Weber who is profiled in the article, especially companies that sell their products and services to other businesses. I’d love to have 10 Betsy Webers as clients, because I’m guessing that she could rattle off 8–10 customer references in a heartbeat if I needed them for a press or analyst opportunity. And I wouldn’t need to qualify them; if Betsy says they’re golden, I’m sure they’re golden. Ask any marketing director to rate the quality of his or her customer references and you’ll likely get a rosy answer. Reality, however, is quite different. Peel back the band-aid on most tech marketing departments, and you’ll discover the sucking chest wound that is customer references. Really, it’s that bad; just ask any journalist or industry analyst. Throwing technology, low-level marketing staffers, or customer incentives at the problem will not help. To maintain a trusted cache of customer references, you need better customer relationships, and that is what a good corporate evangelism program can offer. I’m glad to see mainstream media grasping the concept and discussing how formalizing such a program is a wise marketing move.

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