How to Use Customer Reviews in Your B2B Marketing Strategy

Our friends at TrustRadius are guest blogging this week about something they know a lot about: the power of online reviews. They’re a trusted review site for business technology, serving both buyers and vendors – helping buyers make better product decisions based on unbiased and insightful reviews. 

It almost goes without saying that customer reviews are a big part of company success, but did you know that you can use customer reviews in your B2B marketing strategy?

Customer reviews are no longer just a part of the customer relations or sales department. They can also play a major role in marketing strategy if you take the right approach. Let’s jump into the why and the how of using reviews for conversion optimization and your marketing strategy as a whole.

“B2B buyers are definitely getting smarter — they want that unvarnished truth, and that’s what reviews do for us. It’s one thing for us to serve up a reference or a case study, but buyers intuitively know that those are all coming from specific satisfied customers, versus the wisdom of their collective peers.” ~ Julie Perino, Senior Director of Customer Marketing at Marketo

With B2B buyers looking for the ‘unvarnished truth’, how can marketing departments adjust their strategy to focus in on this new demand?

Why Use Customer Reviews in Your B2B Marketing Strategy?

Customer reviews and testimonials have long since become a critical part of successful online marketing. When was the last time you booked a hotel without first looking at the reviews? Here’s just how important customer reviews are to B2B marketing strategy, according to these stats:

85% of customers make a purchase only after reading online reviews.

10% of customers actually share online reviews about a business, and 40% share their opinion about businesses ‘frequently’ through social media.

63% of customers prefer to give their business to sites that feature ratings and reviews.

Customer Reviews Can Lead to Better Conversion Rates

It’s clear in recent years that customer reviews not only help with building trust and SEO rankings, but can actually help your conversion rates. Adding reviews to landing pages doesn’t just increase trust – it can actually boost conversion. Utilizing case studies and testimonials on various site pages can go a long way as well.

“The review content we get on TrustRadius is re-purposable in a million different ways. It is a valuable source of feedback that can make the product better. On the marketing side, we are able to highlight things that we know are our key benefits. We’ve seen a lift in conversion by adding customer voices content on landing pages with TrustQuotes for Web.” ~ Michael Beahm, Senior Marketing Manager at Blackbaud

Breaking Down Customer Reviews and Your B2B Marketing Strategy: Next Steps

So how can you integrate customer reviews into your B2B marketing strategy in order to boost conversion? Consider these first three steps:

#1 – Utilize Software

Marketing software doesn’t have to just be about social media and lead generation. With customer reviews in mind, software tools can help you get organized in your marketing efforts. This is not something that can be approached haphazardly; like anything marketing-related, it takes strategy.

#2 – Focus on Authentic Reviews

No potential buyer likes fake reviews – and they can often tell the difference between purchased reviews and the real thing. Spend the time it takes to gather authentic reviews from your customers – it will pay off in the long run.

#3 – Feature Reviews

If we’re talking about customer reviews helping with conversion rates, then we’re talking about featuring testimonials whenever and wherever possible. Landing pages, social media posts, videos – these are all fair game for boosting your image with authentic feedback.

About the Author: Brooklin Nash writes about the latest tools and small business trends for TrustRadius. When he’s not writing, you can find him reading YA dystopian fiction (with guilty pleasure) and cooking.