Why Marketing Needs to Align With Customer Success in 2025 - An Interview with Seán Reid
Nicholas Page
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3 minute read
In this episode of Tech Marketing Trends, Jakob Löwenbrand speaks with Seán Reid about why it's more critical than ever for marketing and customer success teams to collaborate—and how this alignment can directly influence your growth strategy, content quality, and long-term revenue performance.
Customer success: not just support, but strategy
Customer success (CS) is often misunderstood as a support function. But as Reid explains, CS is actually the engine behind land-and-expand growth in SaaS.
“Customer success is about retaining and growing your customer base. That’s it. If you see it as just a support team, it’s not going to work.” – Seán Reid
From his early days at HubSpot to leadership roles in EMEA SaaS companies, Reid has seen firsthand how a strong CS function can create a sustainable growth loop—when it's properly integrated with marketing.
Why now? The post-growth era of SaaS
In today’s tougher SaaS climate, where cost-cutting and vendor consolidation are the norm, companies must defend their existing customer base more than ever.
“Layoffs are common. Budgets are tight. And yet so many companies cut the CS team—without realizing the knowledge and retention value they’re losing.”
This makes alignment between CS and marketing even more vital. Customer success teams hold key insights into retention, upsell triggers, and churn reasons—all of which are essential inputs for marketers shaping messaging, ICPs, and campaign strategy.
Marketing’s secret content engine: your CS team
Most marketers are looking for fresh content, but they often overlook one of the most powerful sources: their customer success team. Reid notes that companies like HubSpot do this exceptionally well by featuring long-standing customers—not just recent wins—in their case studies.
“Marketing teams need compelling narratives. CS can surface the customers who have grown with your product over years. That’s gold.”
Instead of relying only on sales-driven testimonials, companies can source deeper success stories from CS-managed accounts—stories that resonate more authentically with future buyers.
Brightvision helps B2B brands elevate their customer marketing strategies by turning real customer outcomes into powerful assets.
Smarter ICPs and fewer failed deals
Another area where CS and marketing should align is in defining the ideal customer profile (ICP). While marketing often builds the ICP based on win rates, CS offers crucial data on long-term retention and expansion potential.
“One client’s top-performing ICP for marketing was the second-worst segment for CS retention. That’s a broken loop.”
By integrating renewal data, usage patterns, and CS feedback, companies can refine ICPs to prioritize not just acquisition—but lifetime value and sustainable growth.
This is especially relevant for ABM campaigns, where Brightvision’s ABM services help align sales, marketing, and CS around the same high-value segments.
Why org structure matters—and where CS should sit
Should CS live under operations, product, or revenue? Reid makes a compelling case for CS being a core part of the revenue organization, right alongside sales and marketing.
“CS is about revenue. Retention, expansion, NRR—it’s all revenue. So why not sit it next to the teams that also own growth?”
By placing CS within the same org structure, alignment becomes not just encouraged—but required. Conversations around customer journey, ICP, content, and upsell strategy happen naturally when the teams share common leadership and goals.
How marketing can support customer success
While much of the conversation focuses on how CS supports marketing, Reid also highlights the reverse: marketing’s role in helping CS drive engagement, expansion, and renewals.
- Customer marketing: Dedicated marketers focused on content for existing customers can improve NRR and reduce churn.
- Launch campaigns: Marketers can create compelling, customer-facing material for new product features—empowering CS to communicate value.
- Recognition and inclusion: Featuring customers in blogs, podcasts, or webinars makes them feel seen—and boosts retention.
These aren’t one-time wins—they’re scalable motions that Brightvision's marketing teams help B2B brands implement across their customer base.
The shift in CS metrics: engagement is everything
Historically, CS teams were evaluated solely on net retention. But Reid sees a shift happening.
“Retention is the outcome. Engagement is the lever. If you’re not talking to your customers, you won’t keep them.”
In 2025, we can expect more CS leaders to be measured on:
- Number of proactive touchpoints
- Content-driven engagement (emails, webinars, feature updates)
- Customer activity and usage signals
This opens new collaboration opportunities where marketers can provide compelling content, email strategy, and messaging frameworks to help CS teams drive meaningful engagement.
Where to start: three steps to align CS and marketing
If you’re a marketing or CS leader wondering how to take action, Reid offers this playbook:
- Map the customer journey: Include marketing, sales, and CS. Make sure the journey doesn’t “end” at closed-won.
- Redefine your ICP together: Combine sales win data with CS retention and growth data for a full picture.
- Start collaborating on content: Let CS bring forward success stories, and let marketing turn them into scalable assets.
“The best companies have CS at the table from day one. It’s part of your flywheel. Don’t break it by keeping them in a silo.
Connect with Seán Reid
To learn more about aligning marketing and CS, or to reach out to Sean directly:
- Connect with Sean Reid on LinkedIn
- Learn about Customer Success Snacks—a European CS community where Sean leads the Dublin/Ireland chapter
- Or drop him a message if you'd like to be introduced to a local CS leader in your region
For more expert conversations like this, explore the Brightvision podcast library, or get in touch if you want to build a marketing strategy that drives value across the full customer lifecycle.
