The Role

This is a newly created role with a clear commercial mandate: own the professor advocate community and turn it into a source of pipeline, proof, and brand credibility. You'll build the program from the ground up - identifying our best advocates, giving them identity and belonging, and activating them across referrals, case studies, thought leadership, and social content.

You'll sit at the intersection of Marketing and Customer Success, reporting to the Sr. Director of Marketing, and will collaborate closely with Sales to build scalable programs that deepen customer engagement, elevate customer voices, and support long-term customer growth and retention.

This role comes with real autonomy to build advocacy from scratch, and because you're joining a lean team, you'll also have visibility into and occasional hands-on involvement in broader marketing execution like webinars and launches.

What You'll Own

Customer Advocacy + Community

• Design and launch a named professor advocate program to identify, engage, and activate customer champions
• Build segmented advocate pools reflecting how professors engage with Packback - as individual adopters or as part of a broader institutional relationship - with tailored engagement for each
• Maintain an advocate database with engagement history, content consent, and referral status
• Manage ongoing communication with the advocate community (newsletters, spotlights, exclusive previews, appreciation initiatives)
• Assist in planning and management of Customer Advisory Board programs and other customer-focused events, including recruitment, communications, meetings, and follow-up activities.

Case Studies & Customer Evidence

• Oversee creation of customer case studies, testimonials, video interviews, customer-generated content, and pull quotes for decks and proposals
• Own the end-to-end case study pipeline - identification, outreach, interview, production, approval, and distribution planning
• Drive review generation and online reputation initiatives to enhance brand credibility, and monitor and respond to reviews, using feedback to improve advocate experience

Referrals & Sales Enablement

• Develop a structured referral program that converts professor goodwill into warm introductions for the sales team
• Build a library of approved references, peer testimonials, and name-drop lists for sales cycles
• Ensure Sales has the right professor reference, case study, or peer testimonial ready at the specific stage of the deal where it removes friction
• Package customer outcomes into assets that speed up sales cycles and support retention

Thought Leadership & Social Activation

• Identify professors willing to speak at ed-tech conferences, contribute to webinars, or write guest content
• Activate advocates on LinkedIn and other channels - co-creating content, sharing wins, and amplifying Packback's brand
• Build a speaker roster for events and panel opportunities

Customer Engagement

• Partner with cross-functional stakeholders to drive customer engagement, product awareness, and adoption programs
• Lead customer communications that reinforce product value including webinars, newsletters, and educational content
• Gather and communicate customer insights to inform marketing, product, and customer experience strategies
• Identify opportunities to improve customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention

How Success Is Measured

• Advocate count and tier distribution
• Referral volume and conversion rate
• Case study pipeline and production velocity
• Influenced closed-won revenue
• Review volume and score
• Social share metrics
• Reported monthly to leadership as commercial outcomes attributed to advocacy

Requirements

Required

• 4+ years of experience in customer marketing, customer advocacy, or community programs in a B2B SaaS environment
• Demonstrated track record of building advocacy programs that produced measurable commercial outcomes (pipeline, referrals, case studies)
• Exceptional relationship-building skills - professors are busy, skeptical of "marketing," and respond to genuine connection over transactional asks
• Strong storytelling instincts to turn a customer outcome into a compelling narrative, guide its development, and ensure it lands with the right audience
• High ownership and comfortable with sales-adjacent metrics to work successfully hand-in-hand with a revenue team
• Analytical mindset with ability to track performance and derive actionable insights.
• Highly organized with the ability to manage a large portfolio of relationships and concurrent projects

Nice to Have

• Experience in edtech or selling to academic institutions
• Familiarity with advocacy platforms (e.g., Orca, Influitive, ReferenceEdge)
• Experience with LinkedIn content strategy and thought leadership programs
• Background in community management or event production
• Experience leveraging AI tools as a force multiplier

Additional Information:

Sponsorship: Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S without the need for sponsorship. Packback does not offer visa sponsorship for this role.

Location: Currently we are only able to hire from these states: AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, HI, IA, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, MI, NJ, NC, NY, OH, PA, RI, SC, TX, VA, WA, WI

Salary: Base salary range of $85,000-$100,000 with an annual bonus target of 10%

Benefits