Are customer reviews part of your marketing strategy?

If the answer is no, you ignore them at your peril.

Some big stats

To jolt you into reconsidering whether you should care about what people say about your company, consider the following:

· 92% of buyers state they are more likely to purchase a product or service after reading a trusted review [1]

· 65% of buyers rate B2B software and service reviews as ‘very important’ when evaluating a set list of solution providers

How about yourself – when did you last buy anything without first checking out reviews?

How many reviews are people reading before buying?

5? 20? 50? Not quite: try 112. Yes, 112!

In 2019, US online shoppers looked at an average of 112 online reviews before buying. [2]

What about fake reviews?

We all know sham reviews can throw a spanner in the works. But the good news is we’re becoming more sophisticated in spotting the fake ones.

In fact, a whopping 95% of us believe reviews are fake if the feedback is only positive. [3]

So loads of people read them - but do they drive revenue?

Yes: businesses with more than 80 reviews are earning annually 54% more in revenue. [3]

Here’s my theory on how reviews have changed marketing strategies.

A brief history of the funnel

Remember good old AIDA? All you needed to do was shout loudly and bring prospects in at the top, then keep nudging them along with various tactics until they buy, and ideally, become a loyal advocate.

But then the internet opened up and gave us the platforms to share our experiences, good or bad.

We can see this with McKinsey’s Loyalty Loop – where a new touch point was officially recognised: the influence of other people’s reviews.

Google followed this up when they coined ZMOT – the Zero Moment Of Truth, where someone else’s experience of what you’re about to purchase, becomes your own experience.

Brands recognised the new power of reviews and encouraged it.

When do you ask for reviews from customers?

Here’s what we think for B2B:

· When you’ve just won a new contract – the customer must be feeling positive about you

· Contract renewal - if customers have stayed with you, you must be doing something right

· First 60 day check in – a great feedback moment

· Annual review or quarterly business reviews – rather more formal, but ask all the same

And when not to ask for them:

· Service or product has just failed

· Holidays – summer and winter, everyone’s too busy

· Quarter ends – businesses are trying to hit their sales forecasts and close the books

However, in some instances, company policy is to just not give reviews.

What formats can a review take?

From most effort to easiest:

· Co-speaking at an event or webinar

· Video testimonial – we’re all used to zooming these days

· Client story in a formatted template (so you can keep them all consistent)

· Simple written quote

And remember to get them to sign a release/usage form. After all that effort, make sure you can share it with the world.

Know how to use those reviews

Going back to AIDA, the smart thing is to focus those reviews at the ‘Desire’ point in the funnel. Traditionally, customers have whittled down their comparison list to two items. But things have changed to your advantage.

A few years ago, we analysed these changing habits and found that due to customers reading reviews throughout the entire sales journey, an additional brand was being added into the ‘Desire’ phase, and that was often a brand the customer had not considered when they were at the top of the funnel. The short list of two, became three (and a half).

You should aim to be the third brand. Let others spend their budgets pushing people through the funnel. Focus your money in getting your customer reviews in front of prospects at this point. Some people call this Conquest Marketing.

[1] https://www.demandgenreport.com/features/industry-insights/b2b-marketers-embracing-review-sites-as-valuable-trust-building-tools-across-buyer-journey

[2] www.statista.com/topics/4381/online-reviews/

[3] https://review42.com/resources/online-reviews-statistics/