Getting your target audience to tell their story is marketing gold, your customer is literally selling your solution for you. And of course, the reader relates to them straight away! Their stories are compelling and they provide authentic firsthand evidence of your solution at work.
You can build the action of generating customer content into your processes to increase conversion rates. Customers read reviews before buying, you do it yourself. Reviews and the like have a significant impact on purchasing decisions. 92% of B2B buyers are more likely to purchase after reading a trusted review. What’s more, you will appear higher in SE rankings and gain more weight in searches.
Gathering this content is a lot easier than you may think, some of it may already exist.
Just ask!
It’s really important to have your salespeople on board when you’re trying to generate customer content. It can become part of the sales funnel. As the relationship grows you can create an opportunity for customers to have their say. This simple asking might be in a sales conversation or email or you could automate via your email nurturing. Don’t be afraid to ask again, sometimes they are thinking about it and need a reminder.
Invite some of your key customers to be a guest blogger, get them to discuss a hot topic and open up the conversation with other customers. It’s engaging. Make it easy for readers to contribute and share awesome success stories.
Get mining
Talk to salespeople about their success stories, even if it’s just an email from a customer saying thanks or a verbal thank you. This is the cue to ask about a success story or case study. Support tickets could even offer potential for kicking off a conversation about creating content. When you’re interacting with your customer be attune to opportunities.
Build trust
Selling on social media can be a big turn off, but not if your customer is praising your solution! It’s social proof that it does what it says on the tin. It feels more like a recommendation from a friend, it’s more natural, more relatable and less salesy. You can read about highly effective B2B platform LinkedIn’s ROI of the organic experience here.
Customer created material is powerful, it establishes trust through transparency. And once you have it you can use it in multiple ways to reinforce your messages. Sprinkle reviews and case studies throughout your website. Use tantalizing extracts and key quotes on your landing pages. Use customer quotes in SM posts to entice people to read the full review or case study. And gathering will help you speak your customers language, hone how you talk and improve the customer experience.