Long understood in B2C marketing, reviews are sometimes your best friend and other times your worst enemy. Today, online reviews are becoming more and more popular for B2B businesses--and so they should.
What's powerful about these reviews is their inherent credibility. Anyone can post a comment or submit a review and there are numerous cross-referenced online business listings including Citysearch and MerchantCircle.
Each review provides prospects a peak behind the vial of your own marketing positioning. What's counter-intuitive is that it's true what your PR firm has been saying all along, "There's no such thing as bad publicity." Good or bad, these reviews provide uncensored visibility into your business and give your prospects a chance to see for themselves.
Here's a couple tips for rolling out this marketing activity:
Solicit reviews from happy customers
Rarely is there much you can do about a bad review. You can, however, stack the deck in your favor by asking for reviews from satisfied customers. Their reviews are worth more than all the hand-picked customer testimonials in the world.
4.5 Stars beats 5 out of 5
If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. The same goes for reviews. The reviews don't have to be over-the-top. No one would take them seriously. During solicitation, ask for honesty.
Look at locals
When prospects are looking for businesses of your description in a given area, most online local listings come with reviews. There's no better time to show off your rating than when the prospect has already found your business in their desired area.
Some of JDM's favorite locals and listing sites:
Look into putting online reviews into your marketing mix. They're not just for B2C anymore.
What's powerful about these reviews is their inherent credibility. Anyone can post a comment or submit a review and there are numerous cross-referenced online business listings including Citysearch and MerchantCircle.
Each review provides prospects a peak behind the vial of your own marketing positioning. What's counter-intuitive is that it's true what your PR firm has been saying all along, "There's no such thing as bad publicity." Good or bad, these reviews provide uncensored visibility into your business and give your prospects a chance to see for themselves.
Here's a couple tips for rolling out this marketing activity:
Solicit reviews from happy customers
Rarely is there much you can do about a bad review. You can, however, stack the deck in your favor by asking for reviews from satisfied customers. Their reviews are worth more than all the hand-picked customer testimonials in the world.
4.5 Stars beats 5 out of 5
If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. The same goes for reviews. The reviews don't have to be over-the-top. No one would take them seriously. During solicitation, ask for honesty.
Look at locals
When prospects are looking for businesses of your description in a given area, most online local listings come with reviews. There's no better time to show off your rating than when the prospect has already found your business in their desired area.
Some of JDM's favorite locals and listing sites:
Look into putting online reviews into your marketing mix. They're not just for B2C anymore.
2 comments:
I think too many B2B businesses are missing the ball when it comes to customer testimonials and reviews.
People want to know more than what you have to say about your product, they want to know what everyone else is saying. Customers will believe other customers before they'll believe a marketer.
Sad, but true.
Marketing is professional communication. With professional communication comes skepticism.
You can learn more about the psychology of skepticism in marketing in our white paper: "The Psychology of Marketing."
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