May 9, 2014

Social Proof Marketing: user-generated-content vs. company-generated-content – which social proof works ?

How do you ensure that the social proof you are collecting will help you in your inbound marketing ? Company Generated Content or User Generated Content (UGC) – which proof works better – in terms of getting you better results – in the form of more traffic, more conversions, and more leads ! (see my recent article on 25 Ways to Boost your marketing with customer testimonials and social proof )

Keep in mind social proof can be any/all of these – customer names, logos, testimonials, photos, social share/follow counts, success stories, case studies, videos, user reviews, ROI studies, snapshots, spotlights, business benefits, metrics achieved, stats about customer base, product/service usage, tweets, social mentions, media mentions, celebrity endorsement, etc etc (see my recent post to see all the 21 types of social proofs that you can use in your marketing)

In general, we can classify Social Proof into 3 Categories based on how it is created.

A. User Generated Content (UGC)

This is created by the end users on their own, typically on 3rd party platforms. Less or no control by the company.

Examples could be the following

1. Social mentions and posts in platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc

2. User Reviews in platforms like TripAdvisor, Yelp, BazaarVoice, TrustRadius, G2 Crowd, TrustPilot, etc

3. User Videos in platforms like youtube, vimeo, vine, etc

(also see here for the various different kinds of UGC )

B. Company Generated Content (with endorsement from Users/Customers/3rd Party)

This is produced by the company, but with close collaboration with the end users and customers, or even 3rd parties of repute. More control by the company, but still endorsed by the users.

Examples could be the following –

1. Testimonials, Case Studies, Stories, Videos, etc

2. Social Sharing, Followers, Subscribers, etc

3. Celebrity and Influencer Endorsements, media mentions, etc

C. Company Generated Proof (unverified or not easy to verify)

These are “facts” claimed by the company, with less scope for verification. Fully controlled by the company.

Examples could be the following –

1. Customer Base Statistics eg. 10,000+ customers.

2. Product and Service usage statistics eg. 40 Million Emails sent out.

Now which of these categories makes sense ?

Though the question seems simple enough, the answer is not very straightforward. To answer this question lets look at it more pragmatically – not from the seller point of view, but from the buyer point of view. Putting myself in the shoes – If i am a buyer in the market, what are the questions i would ask when evaluating any vendor ?

6 Questions that i would ask any vendor

1. Social Proof – Do you have it ?

Could you demonstrate to me that there are other people who have used your product and services before ?

Lets look at the results of a survey that Dianna Huff and KoMarketing Associates did asking what B2B Buyers today want from vendor websites.

It is very clear that social proof is no longer a nice-to-have, but a must-have in order to establish credibility in the eyes of the buyer. This is very significant given the fact that 60-80% of the buying decision is taken even before a prospect tries to contact your sales teams.

2. Credibility – How much can i trust this ?

There is no question about faking social proof what-so-ever. That would be a stupid suicide. (see more in my recent post on Best Practices : How to keep testimonials real, and reasons why not to fake them)

The question is how convinced the buyer would be on seeing your proof points ? How credible does your proof look ?

We can classify the 3 categories based on the level of inherent credibility of the type of social proof. This has nothing to do with the proof point in itself, and it is a relative ranking.

I. User Generated Content – HIGH

User Generated Content does stand high in the credibility ladder. The reason being obvious – it is the end user making the point. He/She has no reason to say something good (or bad for that matter), unless there is a strong first hand reason. It also gives a fair representation of both good and bad sides. In real-life nothing is 100% good, so it always make it more credible to see the not-good side as well.

Example – Yelp Reviews – Lazy Bear

II. Company Generated Content (with endorsement from Users/Customers/3rd Party) – MEDIUM

Company Generated Content like testimonials, case studies, and videos will always be lower in credibility compared to the earlier User Generated Content types. But you can always make it get closer (if not equal) by taking measures to keep it as real as possible. for the same reasons – it is a good idea to cover areas that might not be your week points, by answering questions that might be a concern by your typical customer. Of-course it has to be delivered and acknowledged by the end user in your content.

Example – Campaign Monitor’s Testimonials

III. Company Generated Content (unverified) – LOW

Pure company claimed “facts” that have no easy way to verify would naturally be received with an element of skepticism. Therefore it always helps to link it to publicly available facts where possible.

Example – MailChimp’s 5 Million Users

3. Consistency – is everyone saying the same thing ?

Am i hearing these from just 1 channel from 1 particular audience ? or is it across the board irrespective of channels, across the audiences ?

As a buyer. As a prospect – If there is just 1 kind of social proof, then i am skeptical about it. Whereas if there are different kinds of social proof, it gives me an opportunity to see if the experience is consistent across the board.

Are your case studies, videos, reviews and tweets saying the same things ?

Lets look at an example – Social Proofs by Hubspot

A. Hubspot Case Studies

In this example Geoff Tucker from Alere Wellbeing says how good his experience has been with Hubspot’s customer service.

B. Hubspot Twitter Posts

This Tweet by Stephen says how good his experience with Hubspot has been w.r.t customer service.

C. Hubspot TrustRadius Reviews

This review in TrustRadius by Kevin says the same thing about Hubspot’s customer service.

All 3 different types of social proof are saying the same thing about Hubspot’s customer service, which is awesome. Therefore more varieties of proof points are very welcome from a buyer perspective because it provides the buyer an opportunity to verify if the claims are consistent across the board. Which leads to a stronger assurance to believe the vendor.

4. Natural – does it look too scripted ?

Scripted content is less convincing compared to natural sounding ones. This is where user generated content scores over company generated ones. If they sound non-scripted and spontaneous, it makes them more believable.

Example – Manpacks Testimonials

Therefore it also makes sense to keep the company generated content less scripted. The imperfections actually make them sound more genuine. Don’t edit anything just for the sake of it, unless it makes a significant difference to the messaging.

5. Clear Benefits – are the features-benefits convincing ?

Is it clear that using the features provided would lead to the benefits claimed ? Features in itself does not mean anything, unless the customer can see the benefits associated.

Example – Optimizely’s Case Studies

This is especially important if your product or service has a lot of features. As a buyer, i would like to hear from users how using a particular feature has led to a claimed benefit.

This is where the company produced assets like case studies, stories, ROI studies, videos, etc are better placed compared to user generated ones where there is less control on the structure and flow of the content. (see more in my recent article Case Study Tips: 5 Examples of how not-to-waste your customer success stories (w/ best practices)

As a buyer i am more compelled to believe your social proof when you have the depth and clarity.

6. Buyer Persona – does it look like “me” ?

The crux of the social proof argument is that it is “what people LIKE ME are doing”. Therefore for it to be effective as a marketing tool, it will have to match the desired profile of the buyer – what we call as the buyer persona. It sounds easier said than done because your current customer base need not be the same as your ideal or desired customer base. This is because your target customer profile is always a moving target.

User generated content has less control on the profile of the people who create and contribute to the content. Whereas company generated ones have more control on the people you want to collaborate with. Also it is easier to fill the gaps.

Conclusion – the good news is that you need everything !

As you can see there is no 1 kind of social proof that can satisfy all the needs of the buyers. Therefore it is good to have as many types as possible because showcasing them together helps cover all the needs of the buyer. It is way more smarter than betting on 1 type of social proof. Therefore, Company Generated Content is as important as the User Generated ones, or vice-versa.

If you feel this is valuable, please LIKE and SHARE it with your friends. Appreciate it.

thanks & regards, anupam

Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

April 18, 2014

How to Convert your (Ordinary) Case Studies & Customer Success Stories into a Selling Machine (w/ 5 Examples)

I want to take this topic beyond the scope of creating a good case-study/success-story, over to the discussion of what do you do with your good customer stories. It is not about having amazing customer case studies and success stories, but it is all about how well are you using them. If they are gathering dust in some hidden corner of your website, then it is a big opportunity lost !

In this article we will discuss about – How to design your case study/success story to become a selling machine ! I believe that lead generation and conversion should be the #1 desired outcome of any case study or success story because that is the end objective of content marketing or any marketing initiative for that matter, and you should be looking at the customer stories the same way.

I love customer case studies and success stories because in my opinion they are the most effective category of content within your content marketing mix.

I can think of just 1 reason as to why they make to the top of the content strategy pyramid – and that single reason is that a well written case study or success story can be a nice hybrid of the following 3 things –

1. Informative – as a piece of content – they can help educate the customer with respect to typical pain points, best practices and use cases. It is always nice to read what problems other customers have faced and how they are trying to overcome it – gives a lot of fresh ideas.

2. Credible – as a social proof point – It is the end customer who is telling the story. Social proof point which makes it much more credible than coming from the vendor since it is someone else who is willing to put his/her credibility at stake.

3. Selling – as a marketing copy – At the end of the day, you as the vendor have the opportunity to weave the discussion to be in-tune with your marketing copy. In-fact a well written story is a marketing copy in disguise.

Today, i would be focusing exclusively on the #3 point above

How to design your case study/success story to sell.

I will be analyzing examples of case studies for best practices based on 5 key factors. These factors have nothing to do with the content style per say, and it is everything to do with conversion and lead generation.

5 Key Factors to help make a case study or success story to sell

Organized – Is it being organized in an intuitive way so that your prospects are inclined to read on ?
Engaging – Is the case study engaging with less text and lots of visuals, and organized in a story telling format ?
Clear Benefits – Are you highlighting the key benefits of using your product or service in the form of call outs or shout outs with metrics and compelling reasons ?
Clear CTA (Calls-To-Action) – are there clear calls-to-actions and do they stand out ?
Promoted – last, but the most important – how are you promoting your case studies ? or are you assuming your prospects will come searching for them ?

Now lets see how to apply this to analyze some popular case study pages.

(author’s disclaimer – I am in no way associated with any of these companies. I basically allowed Google to tell me the top 5 🙂

Example 1 – Hubspot

1. Organized – 4/5

It is definitely well organized. The individual case studies are in a sequence and it is not in A-Z. I believe Hubspot has a reason for showing the ShoreTel one on the top. (Maybe it aligns the most with their latest marketing message of inbound marketing versus marketing automation – ideally migration stories from market leaders Eloqua and Marketo ?).

I like how it does not try to confuse you with too many case studies shown at your face at one go. The navigation is very intuitive with the appropriate tags and groupings that focus on the way customers would like to search for customer proof – By Company Size, By Business type, By Solution, By Industry, By Country. All makes sense except for the Reviews vs. Testimonials Vs. Case Studies. Not sure if customers care what is your format ?

2. Engaging – 4/5

It is engaging. I am looking at the same ShoreTel example – There is a video that is not too long, and is not just a talking head but in a nice story format talking about why ShorTel choose Hubspot over Marketo, and migrated from Eloqua (bulls eye from a marketing messaging perspective ). In addition to the video, there is a face photo of Freeman, and a nice big logo. The Text is not too long and it is in a story telling format, so makes it not boring.

3. Clear Benefits – 5/5

The benefits are highlighted in a shout out format, and they are clearly compelling. The metrics clearly outline the end benefits of using Hubspot. eg. 36% year-on-year increase in leads.

4. CTA (Calls-To-Action) – 3/5

Though it does have a primary Call-To-Action button, it gets a little distracting with too many other options all in 1 place. The screen i was looking had 6 options !! I agree it is better than not having any CTA at all, but 6 is a lot of distraction for a normal person. Looks like Hubspot guys stopped paying attention to their A/B tests ?

5. Promotion – 4/5

In addition to the Case Studies primary tab in the navigation, they are using snippets of the case studies in the home page very prominently, providing link back to the main case study page.

Overall, I would rate Hubspot’s Case Studies a 4/5

Bonus Tip #1 :

One of the very effective ways to make a case study engaging is to use a story telling style. See this short article by Hugh Taylor on how to write technology case studies that tell a story

Example 2 – VMWare

1. Organized – 2/5

It starts well with a main spotlight video, and another 3 spotlight customers. So far so good, but then once you start searching, it lists everything as A-Z ! which means that i am always looking at the A’s. You might have the best story in a D, but then i will never be able to reach it, no matter how hard i try (and keep in mind your customers will not be trying even half as hard).

It does have the typical By-Product, By-Solution, By-Country, By-Industry, By-Language selectors, but everything finally lists it in A-Z, even the Chinese case studies. Shame that B-Z customer stories will never be seen by anyone 😦

2. Engaging – 4/5

The story is in an engaging format with videos, less text and highlighting of the important sections with call outs and shout outs. Here i am looking only at the newer stories that are showcased in the customers page. the ones that come up in the case studies page seem to all be in the older PDF format, which is not that engaging. and remember you don’t really get to see the newer ones unless the name starts with an A. Now you know why i hate the A-Z lists 🙂

3. Clear Benefits – 4/5

The benefits are highlighted and there are metrics that tie to the usage of VMWare, thus making it compelling.

4. CTA (Calls-To-Action) – 1/5

There are no calls-to-action anywhere in the case study page or the customers page. Except for the social sharing buttons which is more of a call-to-action for the employees than to visitors and prospects.

5. Promotion – 2/5

There is no customers or case studies tab in the main navigation. There is a small section on the home page talking about customers, but that does not stand out. So unless someone is looking for case studies and success stories, you will not find them.

Overall, I would rate VMWare’s Case Studies a 2.6/5

Bonus Tip #2:

There are many many ways to promote your stories. For some ideas see my recent article 25-Ways to Promote your customer Success

Example 3 –Tibco

1. Organized – 4/5

Like the way Tibco has arranged its featured stories – By the various industry segments. Very inviting to click and see the story.

Bonus Tip #3:

It is always a good idea to give a little more detail about the customer in addition to the photos because it might get confused for stock images. example – logo of the customer, or a call out benefit, or even just the name of the customer.

2. Engaging – 4/5

It has all the components that are very engaging – good video, not too much text, visual elements, call outs, etc.

Bonus Tip #4:

Splitting a story page into tabs as overview, details, & testimonials does takes away the flow. Would it have been much more engaging if they were all woven into the story. what do you think ?

3. Clear Benefits – 2/5

There are metrics, but they are focused on the customer’s business than Tibco’s. Example – RNLI having a 70Million budget does not say anything about the benefits of using Tibco.

4. CTA (Calls-To-Action) – 1/5

There are no calls-to-action anywhere.

5. Promotion – 4/5

The stories are being well promoted. – On the main Tab, in the Carousal and in the product/industry pages. The real photos add to the wow factor.

Overall, I would rate Tibco’s Case Studies a 3/5

Bonus Tip #5:

I am not a big fan of the carousel because in my opinion most people don’t get to see the subsequent slides unless it is dynamic and making movements in some way.

Example 4 – AWS (Amazon Web Services)

1. Organized – 4/5

Amazon has organized the success stories very well. The featured stories are on the top. There is enough information to entice the user to click to see the story. The big brands add to the oomph factor. Even the search is not bad. Though it lists in an A-Z order, there are not that many stories, hence it fits into 1 page and they have enough details with the customer logo and the benefits summary, thus helping users to be able to select the ones they want to read.

2. Engaging – 3/5

The Stories are not very consistent. Example – some have detailed stories, while some are just videos, which is not bad in itself because most times in real life you have less choice as to what your customer is willing to provide. you have to make do with whatever is available. The videos are good, but the problem with just videos and no text is that it is everything or nothing.

Bonus tip #6:

In case of just videos – It might be a good idea to pull out snippets from the transcript and highlight it in the story page. That would entice users to see the video. In the above case the videos are in-fact very good, but you don’t get to know that without spending a few minutes. Not designed for people in a hurry, which is 99% of the audience !

3. Clear Benefits – 2/5

There are no consistent call outs for benefits. They are all there hidden in the videos and even in the story text in cases where there is text, but it does not catch the attention.

Bonus tip #7:

It is always a good idea to highlight end outcomes in some form of shout-outs. It draws attention to the most important part of the story – which is “So What ?”. and it is easy to do it if you already have metrics in the story or the video. It is a very low hanging fruit with Max returns.

4. CTA (Calls-To-Action) – 3/5

There is a CTA button to get a free account that shows up only after you start scrolling. that’s neat. But there is also a Next Steps section at the bottom that links to a different page. So there is some kind of confusion.

5. Promotion – 3/5

There is no primary tab for Customers or Case Studies (Success Stories). Also there is no mention in the home page. But it is very prominent when you go to the products page. There are many customer videos per features, which is cool !

Overall, I would rate AWS’s Case Studies a 3/5

Example 5 – Box

1. Organized – 2/5

The featured customers are cool. There is a video for each of the 4 featured customers. But there seems to be some confusion in the way things are organized. Examples – Our Customers Page and Case Studies page are 2 separate pages that are not connected to each other. The Customer logos in the customers page are not clickable though they are presented as if they had more to just logos. maybe there is a case study/success story somewhere, but it is not linked.

There is a link in the bottom footer navigation that says Case Studies. Gotcha !

I actually like the way they have organized their case studies. It is by Industry and it is easy for users to see the ones that might be interesting to them.

Bonus Tip #8:

There are some awesome examples of organizing your Our-Customers Pages. See this recent article by me – The Best of Our-Customers (Our-clients) Pages. How to make Customer-Success-Marketing work for you ?

2. Engaging – 3/5

The stories are short and to the point, but no visual elements.

Bonus Tip #9:

I am not a big fan of stories being presented inside a reader (with scroll bars) since it takes away the coolness. That might be just my personal opinion 🙂

3. Clear Benefits – 2/5

The benefit metrics do not stand out

4. CTA (Calls-To-Action) – 1/5

There is no CTA button.

5. Promotion – 2/5

Not a primary tab for Customers or Case studies/Success Stories, but there is a customer logo banner that is liked back to the customers page. And it says case-studies though it is a separate page. Not really sure what they are trying to accomplish.

Overall, I would rate Box’s Case Studies a 2.0/5

These were the 5 examples we analyzed.

Some more examples here –

1. Example of a success story page designed for conversion

2. Case Study Tips – Good & Bad of LinkedIn’s Customer Case Studies

Summarizing, You saw 5 different case study pages and the good and bad in each. They were just examples, but this applies to pretty much every case study or success story.

Overall, you need to pay attention to the following areas which are usually ignored.

1. CTA Buttons

It is a big lost opportunity if you are not using your case studies and success stories for conversion, especially when they are meant for selling (lead generation or conversion) as their primary objective.

2. Promotion

You need to be promoting your customer stories everywhere. Assuming that your prospects will come searching for them is again a lost opportunity. Keep in mind that 60-80% of the buying decision is already taken before your sales teams get to talk to your prospects. And this is the exact phase where your customer success stories can tilt the scales in your favor. It would be really smart to bring the success stories in-front of your audience.

If you have other good examples either from your own companies or from others that you admire, please share via commenting.

If you feel this is useful, please share it with your friends. appreciate it. thanks. anupam

Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

See Other Related Posts

April 1, 2014

Social Proof Marketing: 21 kick-ass social proof examples to boost your content marketing

Social proof is a terminology used to represent the herd mentality of human beings in a good way. There has been lots of research on the subject, but in simple terms – We all like to follow and do things that other people-like-us do. Much more if they have now become more successful by doing so.

Social proof when applied in a marketing sense is very powerful. It provides a compelling reason for visitors to click on the call-to-action links and buttons, because they see it as getting on the path that other people like them have taken in the past in order to find success.

I have compiled a list of 21 different types of social proof that you can use in your marketing. Please see below with some awesome examples.

21 Types of Social Proof to Boost your Marketing

1. Customer Testimonials.

Let me start with the most powerful social prof – Testimonials from customers. For customer testimonials to be very effective you need to make sure that they look and feel as real as possible by including proof points like – photos, full name and job title at the least. The more details it has the better it is.

(Example: LinkedIn )

You can use testimonials in various places across your website and content marketing. see some awesome examples here.

1. Examples on the Home Page

2. Examples on the ‘Our Customers’ Page

3. Examples on the Features page

4. Examples on your Blog Posts

5. Examples in your Emails and Drip Campaigns

6. Examples in your Newsletter

Bonus Tip:

Ensure that you are including enough information so that your visitors can verify the credibility of the customer by a simple Google search. see this post to know more why and how to keep testimonials real – Best Practices : How to keep testimonials real, and reasons why not to fake them

2. Customer Logos

Customer logos bunched together as a banner or a page is very effective in showcasing social proof, especially if you have some recognizable brand names. Customer Branding always helps make a big first impact.

(Example: Oracle Eloqua)

Bonus Tip:

Link back to a detailed story or testimonial if you have one. Otherwise resist from providing a generic link to the customer website (unless of course the customer insisted you provide back link). In fact it is less valuable if you are expecting your prospects to read up about the customers whose logo you are showcasing (if that was your intent on generic linking)

3. Review from Users

Reviews from users rank high on credibility provided they done on platforms that allow both positive and negative reviews. And this is exactly what i mean when i say reviews.

(Example: Amazon)

Bonus Tip:

Negative reviews are definitely not bad since it makes it more real life as no real business will have 100% happy customers. And in-fact negative reviews gives the opportunity to see how the company handles feedback about bad experiences. I see it as a golden opportunity to showcase competency in customer service.

4. Kudos Mention in Social Media (Eg. Tweets, FB posts)

Encouraging customers to post kudos in Social Media, and pulling them in into your marketing is one of the easiest ways to show credibility. It is super convenient from the customer point of view, and easily verifiable, hence making it one of the most popular social proofs.

(Example: ASmallOrange)

Bonus Tip:

Twitter and Facebook have made available widgets that helps you showcase your kudos tweets and posts in your website. check them out. See How to embed Facebook Posts, How to embed Twitter tweets

5. Customer Success Stories and Case Studies

Customer Success Case Studies and Stories if done well is a very effective social proof from a selling perspective because it combines credibility and marketing message in a very non-salesy way. It gives an opportunity to go to the details of your product or service features and map them to the business benefits that your prospects can expect to reap.

also see – Case Study Tips: 5 Examples of how not-to-waste your customer success stories (w/ best practices)

(Example: Facebook Success Stories)

Bonus Tip :

Do not forget to add relevant CTA calls-to-action buttons to your case studies and stories, so that it does not become a dead end. see this for a great example – Landing Page Optimization: Design success story and case study pages for conversion

6. Customer Photos and Selfies

It is a well tested fact that Customer Photos add credibility to your testimonials and make them look more trust worthy as mentioned earlier. Therefore last year stock photos got replaced by real customer photos. Now professional photos are getting replaced with Selfies with the common trend of selfies popularized by the likes of Kim Kardashian and Miley Cyrus.

This is primarily because it makes it easy for the customer from a convenience perspective and it looks more real than a professional portrait any day.

(Example: Volkswagen)

Bonus Tip:

Try asking your customers for a selfie and you will be surprised by their willingness. Sharing photos is an inherent human behavior and the reason for the success of the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Flickr, the list goes on and on …

7. Customer Video

Videos of customers talking about your solution are more engaging because most of us are better in grasping a audio-visual content compared to pure text and images.

(Example: Unbounce)

Bonus Tip:

Videos work only when someone is inclined enough to spend the 1-2 mins to see the video. Therefore always compliment with text and photo testimonials because it aids visitors to skim reading that is normal when you browse internet (read here about speed reading)

8. User Generated Content – Videos

User generated videos have all the plus points of reviews and videos combined together. They have the same level of credibility as user reviews, and the audio-visual component that comes with videos makes it very engaging to the viewer.

(Example: GoPro)

Bonus Tip:

You don’t always need a fun product like a GoPro to encourage user generated videos as your social proof. It will be nice, but not a must. Even a boring product like business software (relatively speaking) can have interesting videos depending on the customer industry. Example – An F1 race team could be making use of a lot of software in winning races ? right. you know what i mean 😉

9. Endorsements from Celebrities

Research shows that association with someone recognizable or desirable makes it more credible and trust worthy in itself. Endorsements from celebrities is very effective in the B2C space. Therefore you see a lot of celebrity advertisements in various media. You can use them in your website and content marketing as well.

(Example: Samsung at the 2014 Oscars)

Samsung has been very smart in using celebrity selfies. First it was the Oscars, then it was the White House. Nevertheless selfies is a new gig here, but celebrity endorsement in general has been there ever since the existence of marketing, which is ever since the stone ages.

Bonus Tip:

Even if you are in a B2B space, i am sure you will have brands who are a celebrity in themselves. The Apples, Googles, Facebooks of your world. An endorsement from a big brand in the form of a customer or even a partner goes a long way ….

10. Endorsements from Influencer(s)

Influencer can be anyone who has some clout with your target audience. An endorsement coming from someone whom your target audience trusts has much more credibility than anything coming from you as the service provider.

(Example: Neil Patel for UberFlip )

Bonus Tip:

It would be awesome if this Influencer is an expert in what you are trying to sell, but it need not always be the case. It can even be someone that your customer segment would look-up to. Example – Marketing automation software company Hubspot uses endorsements from Gary Vaynerchuk. Among’st many other things, Gary is a founder of winelibrary (an online wine retailer) and a person to look up to in the customer service and loyalty space, and hence someone that Hubspot’s customer segment would relate to. ( read more about it here)

11. PR and Media Mentions

Mentions in popular publications and media is also a valuable social proof because it is a know fact that credible news sources would be mentioning you only if they have reasons to believe in your story. Very valuable for new businesses.

(Example: Hubspot)

Bonus Tip:

From a credibility and verifiable point of view It is a good idea to provide link backs to the news articles that talk about you. If you are concerned that it would lead to link leak, then list them in a separate page.

12. Partnerships and Integration

Associating with other businesses and people who are more popular helps build credibility. In Information Technology it is important that your software plays well with the rest of the ecosystem and integration with other popular software is a must have.

(Example: Zapier)

Bonus Tip:

These are social proofs that cannot stand on their own, but play well as a complimentary proof. i.e in addition to having customer proofs. see this post on why customer poof is important – Why social proof is useless without customer proof at the top

13. Trust and Security Badges

Third party certifications are a must have if your product or service needs assurance about privacy and security.

(Source: Curated by Monetizepro.com)

Bonus Tip:

Similar to partnerships/integration that i covered earlier, trust/security badges are social proofs that cannot stand on their own, but play well as a complimentary proof. i.e in addition to having customer proofs.

14. Awards and Recognition.

Awards and recognition from popular boards or industry associations are valuable proof of credibility. They are similar to Media mentions, and are very helpful for new businesses or new products/services.

(Example: Jawbone)

Bonus Tip:

They are helpful in industries where customers look up to expert boards, associations, councils, connoisseurs, etc for opinions on the latest and greatest products and services that hit the market. example would be technology, engineering, and food industries.

15. Customer-Base Stats

Customer base or User base statistics in the form of social proof provide assurance to prospects that they are not alone and there is already a significant number of people or businesses that are benefiting from your services.

(Example: AirBnB)

Bonus Tip:

Keep it real. It is awesome if you can quote numbers in real-time, but if not it is OK. Please don’t make up increment counters. Everyone understands it is a big deal to be able to show real-time numbers. Rounded-off numbers look and feel much more genuine than fake counters.

16. Social Sharing Stats

Social sharing statistics is a social proof that is very relevant and valuable in content marketing. Knowing that it has been shared well increases the credibility in the content.

(Example: CopyBlogger)

Bonus Tip:

Many people recommend that showing stats that have low numbers is not a good idea. I don’t necessarily agree. Lets think like a customer – what could be that one reason as to why you are not showing your sharing stats ? A. you want to be modest and not be boastful. B. you have numbers that you are not proud of showing. what is your guess ? (i know this could swing both ways, but in the case of showing low numbers one thing is clear – you are honest)

17. Product or Service Usage Stats

Similar to Customer Stats, but this is more about the Product or Service in itself. Having a large number of customers does not always mean they are using your services well, and vice-versa – having a large usage does not mean many customers. Though it is true in most cases. Therefore both statistics are valuable.

(Example: Mad Mimi)

Bonus Tip:

Same as Customer Stats. Do not give fake counters. it is OK to say over 40 million emails sent. it does not have to be 40,145,987 !

18. Friends’ Recommendations

If you see that your friends and contacts in your network have recommended something it is very compelling because you can relate to it better. even if the number is small the impact is very big because you tend to think that if a few people you know have liked something what would be the scale at a broader level – quite big.

(Example: Coca-Cola Facebook page)

Bonus Tip:

I still don’t like coca-cola even though 5 of my friends love it ! 🙂

19. Trending Stats

Statistics like 48 people are listening, 10 people are viewing, 25 people bought this item, etc are quite compelling as a social proof because it helps us picture a long Q in front of the popular food joint, which assures us that the food must be good.

(Example: Mashable)

Bonus Tip:

Try to keep it relevant to the customer. ask yourself the question – as a customer why would you care if this number is high ? eg. you can easily show “100,000 people are viewing this page right now” but ask the question – so what ? if you have a good reason – go for it ! eg. if it a piece of content, then even 100 people viewing it means it is valuable and hence it is big deal.

20. Subscribers and Followers

How many followers you have in social media or how many subscribers you have for your newsletter or mailing list definitely indicates the level of credibility and clout you have therefore it is a very valuable piece of social proof to showcase.

(Example: ContentMarketingInstitute)

Bonus Tip :

There are many styles of presenting this, but I love this one above used by the content marketing institute for 2 reasons – 1. It is different from the standard social follow-like buttons, hence making it interesting. 2. It is ordered in the order of high to low, thus making it easier to total. at the end of the day, it does matter what is the total following. doesn’t it ?

21. Projects and Portfolios

Proof of past projects or portfolios in the form of screenshots and photos is very common in the services industry, but is rarely mentioned in the context of social proof which is surprising because it is social proof – 100% for sure.

(Example: Razorfish)

Bonus Tip:

Try to strengthen your portfolio roster by including testimonials. Most people keep them separate, which does not make sense because at the end of the day both are proofs of credibility and it reinforces credibility and competency when both portfolios and testimonials (for those portfolios) are showcased together.

22. Visitor Activity Stats (NEW)

Live Statistics about the visitors and what they did on your website is a way of assuring your new prospects about the popularity of your site.

(Example: TweetStork)

Bonus Tip:

This is more effective for B2C industries like Retail, Booking sites, etc where the relationship is transactional in nature.

23. Best Practices Sharing by Customers (NEW)

Getting your customers to talk about their area of expertise is another way of showing social proof.

They might or might-not refer to your product/services, but by agreeing to share best practices they are endorsing you, which is great. They get to see this as an opportunity to showcase themselves as a subject matter expert, which is a Win-Win.

(Example: OfficeVibe)

Good example is the CultureTalks video interviews by OfficeVibe.

Correction : I got a clarification from Jacob Shriar, Growth Manager at OfficeVibe – the cool dude doing the interviews, saying that the CultureTalks video interview series is not necessarily with their customers, and hence they are not intended as testimonials for OfficeVibe. I would still like to retain it here because i think this is still a best practice, and a valuable social proof as such. And nothing stops you from doing similar interviews with your customers and using them as testimonials. read more about it here – Best Practices in Video Testimonials

Bonus Tip :

This is something that you can still try to do with your customers in cases where they are reluctant to provide any public testimonials (for their own reasons . eg. company policy).

And many more ……. I am sure there are other social proof that i have missed. Please share via commenting if you know them.

Summary:

It is a well proven fact that using Social Proof gets you more conversions, more traffic, and more leads. People always want to take the same path – the guaranteed path that others have taken leading them to success.

As you have seen above there can be 21 (and more) different kinds of social proof, and you can use them in innumerable ways across your website and content marketing. So go ahead and rock it.

Do keep one thing in mind though – keep them as real as possible because social proof is all about ‘assurance of credibility’ and any whiff of fake-ness has exactly the opposite effect.

If you have other good examples please share via commenting.

If you feel this is useful, please share it with your friends. appreciate it. thanks. anupam

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Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

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March 21, 2014

Social Proof Marketing: Why social proof is useless without customer proof at the top

Enough has been written about Social Proof, and how it helps conversions and lead generation. Absolutely ! No doubts whatsoever. But how do you prioritize and what is a must-have versus nice-to-have among’st the social proofs ? where should you put your money ?

Firstly, lets start with what is social proof ?

In simple terms social proof is the power of a group. The inherent human psychology of ‘Follow the Herd’ mentality unraveled and applied to marketing in a very good way. Prospects and visitors to your website get influenced positively by facts and figures that assure them that they are in good company.

Now, what factors should you consider when you look at the various social proofs ?

There are 5 things you need to keep in mind in choosing the social proof you want to brag about .

1. Credibility

The credibility of the person or source of information is very important. There are 2 factors here –

A. Is the credentials of the person (or source) known or can be verified easily (eg. google)?

B. what is in it for the person who is vouching ? ( what is the vested interest, if any ?)

2. Quality (versus Quantity)

It is important to show volume numbers to showcase the wide adoption of your product or service, but it is much more important to showcase that what you are providing has been valuable to the people who matter the most – the ones who have been using your product or services in the past – your existing customers.

3. Buyer Persona (versus no persona)

People get influenced by what people similar to them say and do. You need to think what can help you to convince your prospects that people with similar persona as theirs have been using your services.

(to know more about buyer persona, see this informative post by Tony Zambito – What is a Buyer Persona? )

4. Storytelling

Presenting content in a story format has proven to be much more effective in engaging the audience. therefore you need to think what proof allows itself to be presented in a story format.

5. Authority matters

According to Seth Godin, we always look up and pay attention to people who have the authority in the subject. Think who is in the best position to vouch for your capabilities as the service provider ?

(to know more about authority and why it matters, see this post in Copyblogger by Seth – Striving for Authority)

Finally, so what is the pecking order of priority in choosing your social proof ?

Based on the above 5 criteria, i would rate them in the following order.

1. Customer testimonials (quotes, photos, videos, case studies, logo, benefits metric, etc)

2. User reviews

3. Kudo tweets and posts in social media by customers

4. Endorsements by 3rd party (Influencers, Celebrity)

5. Media coverage (as seen in …)

6. Partners and awards

7. Trust and security seals

8. Social sharing stats (number of shares, re-tweets, likes, follows)

9. Product and service usage stats like emails sent, pages created, goods shipped, etc

10. Subscriber base voume stats like number of users, customers, followers, etc

Of-course, if you can show all of these and more – should i say – go knock yourself out !

Summary: Customer Social Proof in the form of testimonials ( quotes, case studies, reviews, tweets, photos, videos, logos, endorsements, benefits metric, and more) must be on top of your social proof points showcase because they are much more effective in persuading your prospects to do business with you. Therefore it is in your best interest to make it a priority to collect them, and publish them all across your marketing.

let me know what you think ?

please share via commenting. thanks, anupam

……………………………………………………………

Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

………………………………………………………………..

see some best practices on usage of customer testimonials

1. Email Marketing: Testimonials help increase click through rate, get more CTA conversions.

2. Content Marketing: Testimonials help increase blog conversions, and get more leads.

3. Landing Page Optimization: Design success story and case study pages for conversion

4. Best Practices : A-Z customers – examples of cool our customers page

5. Best Practices: Hero Image Testimonials – Examples of Cool Home Pages

6. Best Practices: Contextual testimonials – examples of features pages that rock

7. Best Practices : How to keep testimonials real, and reasons why not to fake them

8. Content Marketing: Increase email newsletter click through and CTA conversions using testimonials

see other posts related to social proof

1. The Psychology of Social Proof & How to Build Trust in Your Business by Andy Crestodina at Unbounce

2. 7 Things You MUST Understand When Leveraging Social Proof in Your Marketing Efforts by Gregory Ciotti from Hubspot

3. Why You Must Have Social Proof On Your Blog by Julie Neidlinger at CoSchedule

March 16, 2014

Content Marketing: Increase email newsletter click through and CTA conversions using testimonials

So how can you increase the click through rate and conversion from your email newsletters ? In simple terms how can you increase the chances of your subscriber taking that next step you desire them to do by clicking on that button or link or call you after reading your newsletter ?

Newsletter is one of the best ways to keep your audience engaged with a continuous feed of good quality content. As per the research done by the Content Marketing Institute, It is in the Top 3 as a tactic used by marketers in both B2B and B2C industries.

At the end of the day, the end goal of any content marketing tactic is to be able to get more traffic to your website, get more conversions, and get more qualified leads. There are many things you can do to make your newsletter more engaging. In-fact you have experts who have articles like 100 different things you can do to make your newsletters work better for you. I love all of those suggestions, and i would recommend you to follow them because they are all good. The only thing i have for you is …

Add Testimonials to your Newsletter !

Embedding snippets of your customer testimonials in your newsletters makes your CTA (calls to action) more credible. When i say testimonials, it includes any of these – logos, customer names, quotes, stories, spotlights, case studies, videos, photos, reviews, infograhics, trending charts, metrics, etc, etc. A dash or pinch of your customer’s vouch adds the much needed credibility to whatever you are trying to say to extra convince your reader/subscriber to take that next step. Test it out !

I have a very good example that i was really impressed with. Its from the B2C segment this time.

The Bridal Photographer

His Newsletter has a lovely set of testimonials from his past clients. Those photographs make anyone click on those links to find out more. I am sure if you are his target audience – i.e guys and gals planning for your wedding, you will pick up the phone to call !

Just a word of caution – Two things that you should pay attention to while choosing your testimonials would be

1. make sure your testimonials are real, and look and feel like one

(read this to know more Best Practices : How to keep testimonials real, and reasons why not to fake them)

2. make sure the testimonials you choose are as much relevant as possible to the context of you CTA (calls to action)

(read this to know more Best Practices: Contextual testimonials – examples of features pages that rock )

Bonus Tip: David has the luxury of picking photos from his awesome collection. Of-course, he is in the business of photography. But that does not mean that other businesses cannot get some beautiful “real life” photos of their customers. I am 100% sure that your customers will not mind sharing their good moments ! Inherent human desire to share images is the foundation of many successful companies today. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Whatsapp, Flickr, etc, etc …. to name a few 🙂

Test your next newsletter with the best of your testimonials and see what happens. please share your experiences by commenting below

thanks, anupam

……………………………………………………………

Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

………………………………………………………………..

see more ideas on getting more leads from your content marketing using testimonials

1. Email Marketing: Testimonials help increase click through rate, get more CTA conversions.

2. Content Marketing: Testimonials help increase blog conversions, and get more leads.

3. Landing Page Optimization: Design success story and case study pages for conversion

4. Best Practices : A-Z customers – examples of cool our customers page

5. Best Practices: Hero Image Testimonials – Examples of Cool Home Pages

Email Marketing: Testimonials help increase click through rate, get more CTA conversions.

So how can you increase the click through rate and conversion from your emails ? In simple terms how can you increase the chances of your recipient taking that next step by clicking on that button or link after reading your email ?

Email as a marketing tool is still very much alive and kicking, in-spite of the exponentially growing clout of social media. The primary reason for this is the fact that the first thing that everyone does in the morning is checking their emails !!

The smartphones and tablets have made emails even more important because now you can access them 24/7. Not everyone checks their Facebook or Twitter pages multiple times in day, but that does not apply to their emails.

Emails are no longer recommended for cold mailing though (also called spamming), but they are highly recommended for engaging customers to take the next steps – whatever is the desired CTA (calls to action).

Emails can be used to achieve goals like more usage/adoption in a SaaS/Subscription business, or more purchase/reduce abandonment in a retail/eCommerce site, or even take your customers through the lead maturing steps. Whatever is the end goal, emails serve as an effective way to help in the conversion of your customer.

It is very effective when the goal involves getting the customer back to your site because with emails you can go to them, to their inbox, to bring them back to you, unlike any other channels. This is also called a drip campaigns or drip marketing, and most email marketing tools have features to setup and manage the emails and the auto-responders.

There are many articles where email marketing experts tell you the 100 things you can do to improve the conversion from your emails! I would definitely recommend you to read all of that because they are all good suggestions 🙂

After you do that, I just have one suggestion for you – embed testimonials in your emails ! Add snippets of your customer testimonials in your emails. When i say testimonials, it includes any of these – logos, customer names, quotes, stories, spotlights, case studies, videos, photos, reviews, etc, etc. A dash or pinch of your customer’s vouch adds the much needed credibility to whatever you are trying to say to extra convince the recipient to take that next step.

I have a couple of good examples from Vocus today.

(disclaimer: i am in no way associated with either Vocus or any of their companies showcased here. Neither am i paid by them for mentioning them as a best practice)

Example 1. PRWeb (a press releases company)

The welcome email from PRWeb. I need to admit that the customer testimonial with the photo and the compelling quote is very engaging, and definitely tempts you to get started in using PRWeb’s press release services.

Example 2: iContact (an email marketing company)

The Download whitepaper email from iContact. The customer testimonial idea is good and makes it interesting.

Bonus Tip: If there is something i would like to change here – there could have been a better choice for the actual customer and quote used because Chris here is talking about how good iContact is as an email marketing tool, and he is not talking about the “10 rules for successful email marketing guide” that this email was about.

See my other posts from our best practices series

Content Marketing: Testimonials help increase blog conversion and get more leads. (Best Practices with Example)

Best Practices: Testimonials that Convert – Example of a Success Story Landing Page Optimized for Conversion

Best Practices: Contextual testimonials – examples of features pages that rock

Best Practices : Keep them (testimonials) real – reasons why not to fake it

Best Practices : A-Z testimonials – examples of cool ‘Our Customers’ tab

Best Practices: Hero Image Testimonials – Examples of Cool Home Pages

Summary: Embed customer testimonials in your emails to increase the click through rate and conversion rate from your email marketing campaigns. But make it more relevant by using testimonials that are contextual to the topic of the email.

Please share your experiences and opinions via commenting. If you think this will be valuable to any of your friends, please share.

thanks, anupam

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Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

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Content Marketing & Social Proof – Get More Conversions, Traffic and Leads from your Content Marketing

It is a proven fact that showing Social Proof helps increase reader engagement and sharing. But that’s old news! In this article i want to talk about how you can actually increase conversions from your content marketing using social proof !

You say it out loud or not – The end goal of Content Marketing has always been to get more conversions – either in the form of more traffic to your website, and/or more leads to your marketing funnel.

This is also evident in the recent survey done by the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs as seen below.

(Source: 2014 B2B/B2C Content Marketing Trends—North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs. see full report here – B2B, B2C)

It is interesting to see the commonality between both the B2B and the B2C companies in this respect.

Now the biggest challenge today with content marketing is not about the question of value in content marketing (luckily, we have passed that stage). It is also not about how to engage the audience. It is about the ability to produce enough quantity of content, and the lack of time to produce quality content .

In this context, it is very important to see how to GET MORE from what you already have. This is where looking for ways to get better conversions from your existing content marketing efforts makes a lot of smart sense.

OK. Now how to do this ?

Well .. Adding snippets of Social Proof along with the CTA (Calls-To-Action) provides that additional level of credibility and assurance to the visitors to convert – to take the next desired step – like visiting a landing page or visiting the website, or signing up for a newsletter or any other call-to-action. Thus acting like a lead capture magnet inside your content.

When I say Social Proof, I am referring to testimonials, photos, reviews, videos, quotes, social mentions, benefit metrics, etc, etc that are not related to your content, but related to that next step that you want your reader to take. I shall show you what this means in the next part

(Read more about the different kinds of social proof here – 21 different kinds of social proof for your marketing )

Now, Lets look at how to use social proof for conversion in content marketing by considering each of the different tactics within content marketing – Blogs, Newsletters, Email Campaigns, Case Studies, etc.

In each case, we will look at some examples as best practices.

1. Blog

I shall be covering Blogs in this article.

Blogs are one of the most popular tactics in content marketing.

(76% of B2B marketers and 72% of B2C marketers use Blogs as part of their content strategy)

Your blog would typically cover topics “related” to your business. The idea is to get eye-balls and traffic via search engines and social media, which you would hope will convert to traffic and leads to your business.

Adding snippets of social proof like testimonials in your blog will help significantly in converting this traffic from your blog, over to your business. Acting like a lead capture “magnet” !

Lets look at this awesome example – The Quicksprout Blog.

Across the blog, you will see how Quicksprout is very smartly using some very powerful and compelling testimonials to act as a lead capture magnet. Very nice !

This is very significant because Quicksprout is Neil Patel’s blog. For those of you who don’t know who Neil is – He is considered “the guru” of website traffic optimization, and he the founder of some super successful companies like Crazyegg and Kissmetrics ! Google him.

Not the kind of guy who would do things without testing out something – not once, but probably a zillion times !!

This is social proof in action for you

Bonus Tip:

The Quicksprout blog runs into 100’s of pages and Neil has been blogging since 2007. So there is a ton of very very useful content out there. I would recommend everyone to have a look, in-case you have not done already.

2. Newsletters

Please see my article – Increasing Click Through and Conversions in Newsletters by Adding Social Proof

3. Email Campaigns

Please see my article – Increasing Click Through and Conversions in Emails by Adding Social Proof

4. Case Studies

Please see my article – Increasing Conversions in Case Studies and Stories by Adding Social Proof

Summary

The end goal of any Content Marketing tactic is conversions. Adding Social Proof as lead capture magnet helps do just that – get more traffic and more leads from your content – over to – your business.

Would love to hear your opinions and experience via comments.

If you like this please do SHARE it with your friends and contacts. appreciate it. thanks. Anupam

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Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

………………………………………………………………..

Landing Page Optimization: Design success story and case study pages for conversion

Customer Success Stories, and Case Studies should always be tied with relevant CTAs (Calls-To-Action). There are 2 reasons as to why you should design your case study and story pages for conversion, and why it would be a huge lost opportunity if your visitors end up in a dead end after reading your story.

1. If your visitors have taken the trouble of reading your customer story and case study, it very well means that they are interested in your product and services. It is a golden opportunity to engage your visitors to take the next steps by popping the question.

2. your customer story and case study pages occupy prime real-estate space on your website. It is one of the most prominent 1st level pages out there. Therefore makes sense to think of converting the visitors to leads. Also the visitors to the story pages have a higher probability of conversion going back to our point #1.

One of the best examples of CTA (aka calls-to-action) in testimonials are the ones on Kissmetrics Our Customers Page. Though they have 1000’s of happy customers, they are only showcasing 2 of them on their Our Customers Page. They are smartly placed to make the visitors take the next step and read those stories. They are clickable and with a CTA button to make it very obvious. It takes you to the actual story page, which is even more interesting.

It is not the usual monotonously long story in a single tone. It is interspersed with different things like quote snippets, highlights of benefits reaped, detailing of the features that the customer used to get the claimed benefits , etc. All making it more engaging.

The one i am looking at is the LiveChat story, and there are some really impressive quotes by Szymon Klimczak, their CMO, which make it even more compelling.

The best part is that there are CTA buttons tempting prospects to sign-up. They are spread across the page so that it does not get lost with the folds. Though they are all for sign-up purpose, they are made interesting with different reasoning’s, which is cool.

The story page of Kissmetrics is very much a Landing Page in itself . We can call it a – Success Story or Case Study Landing Page ! Which is very smart because the whole purpose of a Customer Testimonial or a Success Story/Case Study would be to get you more leads. Also, the concept of hand picked stories, optimized for conversion makes a lot of sense from an ROI perspective as well.

What do you think ? Please share via commenting if you know of other examples …

thanks, anupam

……………………………………………………………

Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

………………………………………………………………..

Also see

1. Our earlier posts on more best practices

Best Practices: Make your Features Page Rock with Contextual Testimonials

Best Practices: Rock-Star Customers on the Home Page

Best Practices : A-Z Customer List is Outdated

Best Practices : Keep them Real to add Credibility

Best Practices: Returns (ROI) from your testimonials – reasons why measure ?

2. This awesome post by Marie Dean & Peep in ConversionXL – Why you should invest in good testimonials and some great examples

3. This very comprehensive list by Tatiana Liubarets & Helen in Writtent – 25 Success Tips for Writing Irresistible Customer Success Stories

February 14, 2014

What is the real cost of your Customer Success Story ? Why the hell should you care ?

Customer Success is no longer a nice-to-have for any company. It is a Must-Have!

Especially if you are in a subscription based revenue model – it is in-fact the #1 of the many must-haves! Customer Success would be on top of your priorities. everything else comes after that.

Documenting your customer’s success is a smart way of taking that success to beyond that single customer, to be used for getting you more customers – by using it in various marketing and sales campaigns. (check out the 25 different ways to use a customer success story)

You will probably not find anyone who is not documenting their customer’s success – in some shape or form – it could be as simple as a customer name/logo/testimonial to a more detailed asset like a customer video. (check out the 21 different ways of documenting success – aka Social Proof).

Now every piece of freaking content costs $$ – in the form of efforts, resources, time, and money. So …

1. What is the cost of a customer success story ?

and

2. Why the hell should you care about it ??

Lets look at them one after the other

1. What is the cost of a customer success story ?

Lets take this head-on and list out all the things as below (I am sure i am missing some things here. please add via comments)

To make this simpler you can think of each of the above items falling into either of the 3 buckets

A. The Basics – Recipe for a great dish

Firstly, you need to have an awesome product(s) and/or service that your customers would value, which is by-the-way the starting point and the recipe for a great story.

B. The Right Ingredients & the Cooking (the hard part)

Secondly, but most importantly It involves making your customer a success in using your product and services. And this is not a one time delighting the customer, but doing it for every single thing and on a continuous basis – In a way that your customer loves working with you. Now you have all the right ingredients.

C. The Presentation

Finally, it is about documenting that awesome story (or collecting that awesome quote), and publishing it in ways that would really add credibility to your marketing messages and influence your target audience to take that next step.

Bonus Tip – Do not lose track of the #1 end objective of any content in marketing – Conversion!

check out some best practices, and awesome examples here

1. Best Practices in Customer Stories and Case Studies

2. Best Practices in Customer Videos

3. Best Practices in Our-Customers Pages

Each one of the above A-B-C buckets costs you a good deal of investment in the form of $$ spent, efforts put, time spent, resources used, sleepless nights, cups of coffee, etc, etc. right ? 🙂

2. Why the hell should you care about it ??

As seen above – a Customer Success Story does not come cheap.

In-fact, it is one of the most expensive content kinds you would ever create because it involves much more than just creating an excellent piece of content. and the most important thing – it involves your Customer !

Therefore it will not just be a shame, and a lost marketing opportunity if you are not getting returns for your efforts, but much more – It is unfair to your customer to have taken all their time and effort, and not utilized it well. You have not just wasted your efforts, but that of your customer as well ! period.

Let me know what you think – Do you agree ? disagree ? Would love to hear about your own experiences and opinions …

and if you like this, please do share it. appreciate it

Food for thought – Now i have a million$ question for you – How do you measure the returns of your customer success stories ? How do you know what is the impact ? How do you know which is your best story ?

please share your views by commenting. thanks, anupam

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Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

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February 7, 2014

Best Practices: Contextual testimonials – examples of features pages that rock

The best way to make your features page more engaging to the visitors is to add some testimonials. Not just any testimonial but the ones that are contextually relevant to the feature you are talking about. It makes it more credible if you can compliment your claims with some customer quotes talking about the same features.

A Great Example is Unbounce’s Feature page. (www.unbounce.com)

(source: unbounce website, 7th Feb 2014)

I love the way how each and every feature description has a corresponding quote from a customer vouching how great that feature has been to them.

(source: unbounce website, 7th Feb 2014)

Summary: Add testimonials to your features page to make it more credible and engaging . But don’t just add ANY testimonial, but ONLY the ones that are relevant and contextual to what you are talking about.

If you have other examples of cool usage of testimonials in the features and functionality pages, please share in the comments below.

Also see other posts from the Best Practices series

Best Practices : A-Z Customer List is Outdated

Best Practices: Rock-Star Customers on the Home Page

Best Practices : Fake It Till You Make It – Does Not Apply Here

Best Practices : 6 Easy Steps to an Awesome Testimonial

Updated : Unbounce has recently updated their features page to make space for more features, and it no longer looks the same, but nevertheless the concept is still valid.

thanks, anupam

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Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

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February 1, 2014

Best Practices : How to keep testimonials real, and reasons why not to fake them

This week’s case of Fake Testimonials by a Business in Australia raises a lot of questions about the real credibility of Customer Testimonials showcased by companies in their websites and social media.

(read about it here – $145,000 Fine for Fake Testimonials )

Faking customer endorsements is totally not worth it for the following 3 reasons

1. Its High Risk – The risk of losing credibility and the financial losses in the event of getting caught are not worth the perceived gains from providing unreal testimonials.

2. Buyers are Not Dumb – when you are buying something, you would look at a product or service as a total package. If what you are offering is crappy, no matter what fake testimonials you put on your website, no-one will buy it. even if someone buys it they will find out sooner than later, and in today’s world where everyone is connected, it will hardly take a few secs to spread the word about how crappy you are. There is only so much you can hide.

3. Are you even on the Right Path ? if you are in a situation where you have an established business, but not even a single customer who is happy and can vouch for you, then you have more serious problems. You need to seriously think if you are even in the right business and if it even worth to continue. Cut your loses. In finance parlance – you don’t spend good money to recover bad money. Be smart and smell the coffee.

Now what can you do as a business that does not want be anywhere close to the above situation ?You need to do 3 things

1. Make sure you are selling something awesome ! if you are doing something good you will always have people who will appreciate you for it. Similarly, if what you are selling is good,you will have at-least 1 happy customer ! (unless you are new in which case you are yet to have your 1st customer, which is understandable and perfectly OK. everyone starts with nil customers)

2. Set a Process to Collect Testimonials. Do not assume that you will get raving reviews without you doing your bit of outreaching to your customers and asking for one. And make sure you are having approval/written consent from your customers for what you would share in public (your website/social).

(see this Best Practices : 6 Easy Steps to an Awesome Testimonial )

3. Make them as Real as Possible. When you put out your testimonials on your public pages make sure you have all the details that will assure people that it is real. Have real names, quotes, title, photos, video recordings, public profile (like Twitter handle, LinkedIn, Website, etc ). The more details you provide, the more it is verifiable, and the more credible your testimonials sound.

( also see

a. This awesome post by Pratik on how to make them real real – Why People Don’t Trust Your Landing Page Testimonials

b. Our earlier post of great examples of testimonials very real Best Practices: Rock-Star Customers on the Home Page)

Do a simple test – you can Google pretty much anyone these days. if you cannot find this person on Google Search, high chance it is a fake !

Summary: It is plain stupidity to have Fake Testimonials. Assuming you have at-least 1 happy customer, all you need to do is setup a process so that you can reach out your happy customers on a regular basis. And make sure to provide all real details when you put them up online.

If you have other suggestions or opinions, please do so by commenting. thanks

by Anupam Bonanthaya

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Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

………………………………………………………………..

also see my other posts on how to get more returns with your testimonials

Best Practices : 6 easy steps to awesome testimonials

Best Practices : 6 easy steps to awesome customer testimonials, and success stories

Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

………………………………………………………………..

January 22, 2014

Best Practices : A-Z customers – examples of cool our customers page

The very common A-Z Customer List is outdated ! You need to drop it. Unless you are expecting that your prospects will be using your customers list similar to their phone books – which is searching for their friends by name. And the chances are Nil.

(Source: Just as an example)

This is a bad idea for the following 4 reasons

1. The top down presentation approach ( inverted pyramid) with the attitude saying we have so many customers, and you can look for what you want does not work. In this age of Internet Marketing, you need to drive your visitors to the relevant stories. Else it is not relevant to them, and very few people will care to search through ‘your’ haystack to find ‘your’ needle.

2. Our Customers page is typically one of the main pages that a prospect visits, which means it is a very high value piece of real estate on your website. A bland list of 100’s of names is not my idea of engagement. Especially when there are other 100 interesting things competing for my attention as a visitor.

3.What are the chances that someone will go through everything to find something that is of interest to them? Nil. what are the chances that someone will click on even 1 of them. very low. Remember the attention span of an average visitor on the net is a few seconds, not hours.

4. It is a wasted opportunity big time given that you are sitting on a goldmine of content. Content is King/Queen. Hiding all the interesting stories inside is a waste of valuable “priceless” content. Not using it is not just waste of your content $, but plain stupidity in terms of lost opportunities.

A better way of doing this would be to push this list all the way to the bottom of the pyramid, and you have your most interesting and relevant stories showcased at the top. Not as a list again but in a more engaging format with all the details and grandeur – logos, interesting photos, names, titles, compelling quotes, etc, etc retaining all its character and uniqueness, thus making it interesting. I mean to say don’t start your customers page with the A-Z list since it is a major put off. It is OK to push it to the bottom of the pyramid, since now you can afford for no-one to read it. Even if it ends up as a list, you must categorize it based on the likely profile of the prospects. Eg. Industry, Use Cases, Demographics, Size of Business, etc. just in case someone finds them ! 🙂

Our Customers page of Salesforce is a very good example.

(Disclaimer – I am in no way connected with Salesforce (SFDC) in any form. Neither am i getting paid by them for using their name as a best practice )

The page is organized as a 3 Tier pyramid. The top stories in the slider. Next the featured stories and finally the rest of everything at the bottom.

Tier 1 – Top x Stories

(Source: http://www.Salesforce.com 23-Jan-2014)

Tier 2 – Featured Stories

(Source: http://www.Salesforce.com 23-Jan-2014)

Tier 3 – Rest of the Stories

(Source: http://www.Salesforce.com 23-Jan-2014)

It is visually engaging and entices you to click to read the stories. And every customer has a picture, even if it is just the logo in some cases. It makes it much more interesting to browse through compared to a A-Z list with bland text.

Summarizing: Please do yourself a favor by not hiding your customer stories inside an A-Z list. there are 100’s of ways you can use them better, but not in an A-Z list.

Do you agree ? Please share your opinions and experiences via comments below. thanks

by Anupam Bonanthaya

……………………………………………………………

Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

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January 11, 2014

Best Practices: Hero Image Testimonials – Examples of Cool Home Pages

It is a proven fact that using customer testimonials (quotes, logos, names, photos, videos, etc) on your landing page increases the visitor engagement, reduces bounce and increases conversions. This simple case study by Wingify way back in 2011 does a good job of explaining the difference with/without testimonials using A/B testing.

2013 has been a landmark year where many companies having realized the benefits, have taken this head-on and started showcasing their customers on their home page! . This in my opinion has brought about a much welcome change in the personalization and user experience. The non real stock images got replaced with real people that you and me can connect with. It no longer sounds like you are talking with the automated phone support machine. And it goes without saying that it has improved all the landing page metrics drastically.

I have listed some of the most impressive ones below.

Do keep in mind that the companies showcased below have some of the best marketers on their team, and it goes without saying that they keep continuously changing and optimizing their pages on a daily basis. As a result what you see on a specific day might be different than the screenshots below. Nevertheless, using testimonials on the home page is still a best practice from an outcome perspective.

you can also see other 24 usages of customer testimonials in my recent article – Customer Testimonials: 25 Ways to Boost your Marketing (w/ examples & best practices)

1. Hatchbuck (www.hatchbuck.com)

(Source: Hatchbuck Website. 11-Jan-2014)

What i like about Hatchbuck is that this lovely lady with the beaming smile is so fresh and welcoming. she occupies almost 1/3 of the screen, but worth every pixel ! very simple and clean design. Even in the rest of the page there is a generous spread of customer photos and stories, and the marketing message that is delicately woven into them. Very effective in giving that first impression that it is all about the customers.

2. Helpscout (www.helpscout.net)

(Source: Helpscout Website. 11-Jan-2014)

What i like about Helpscout is that it is very effective use of a combination of customer photo and quote. Using the customer’s quote as the marketing message is very smart – simple support system. very powerful. It effectively gives the impression that the customer is talking your voice.

3. Infusionsoft (www.infusionsoft.com)

(Source: Infusionsoft Website. 11-Jan-2014)

What i like about Infusionsoft is the slider with many stories. saying the same things – grow sales. save time to do fun things. It gives the impression that it is providing value to the customers as a group (versus 1 customer). the power of group consensus.

4. Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics)

(Source: Google Analytics Website. 11-Jan-2014)

What i like about Google Analytics is that it is a dynamic set of testimonials. It keeps changing randomly for every visit. Though it is a set of 3 stories (my guess), the good thing about dynamic set of stories is that firstly – the surprise element makes it more interesting for repeat visitors. its no longer the same predictable content. so there is a reason to stop by. secondly but more importantly – it assures your customers that other customers are happy. do not forget that it is not just your prospects that visit your home page, but your customers too. even if it is to log-in to your account.

I am sure i must have missed out some others. please share via commenting if you know of other awesome sites.

Summary: Bottom-line, using customer testimonials as the center-stage on your home page is very effective in increasing the visitor engagement and experience. And it goes without saying that it reduces bounce and increases conversion.

also see more of my recent posts

Social Proof Marketing: 21 kick-ass social proof examples to boost your content marketing

Case Study Tips: 5 Examples of how not-to-waste your customer success stories (w/ best practices)

Content Marketing: Increase email newsletter click through and CTA conversions using testimonials

Email Marketing: Testimonials help increase click through rate, get more CTA conversions.

Content Marketing: Testimonials help increase blog conversions, and get more leads

Landing Page Optimization: Design success story and case study pages for conversion

Best Practices: Contextual testimonials – examples of features pages that rock

Now over to you. please let me know your views by commenting below. thanks.

by Anupam Bonanthaya

……………………………………………………………

Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

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January 5, 2014

Why in 2014 your Marketing Automation Strategy should include Customer Testimonials?

Marketing Automation is all about management and tracking of the lead generation funnel as it progresses through the various stages from being just a target audience, to becoming a contact list, to becoming a hot lead, all the way to converting to become a paying customer.

The backbone of an effective marketing automation is a solid content strategy. If you don’t have credible content to feed to your marketing channels, it is just bare bones of marketing messages being spammed out. Ranks very low on visitor engagement, leading to bad return of investment reflected in the various metrics like high bounce rate, low conversion rate, etc, etc.

Customer Content aka Customer Testimonials ranks on top in the content strategy because it is the kind of content that can be interesting to the audience, but at the same time delivers your marketing message. Boom. Kills both the birds in one shot. And they are wildly persuasive as a sales enabler. Nothing is more welcoming on your home page than the broad smile of a customer vouching for you.

(Want to see how some of today’s trendsetter companies are using testimonials from their star customers as an opener on their home page ? Best Examples of Customer Testimonials on the Home Page)

Now how do you get this customer out there on your home pages and landing pads ? And do that not just as a one-time accomplishment, but on an ongoing basis so that you have your best and freshest customers onstage in front of your audience on a daily basis. That’s where a need for Testimonials Automation comes in.

There are many challenges here. I can think of at-least 8 Challenges or Pain Points

1. Do you know who your happy customers are? There is a difference between someone who is using your services/product, and someone who is willing to vouch publicly for you. So you need to go through your list of customers (aka customer-base) and short-list those that you feel might vouch for you. What if that customer turns back and says you sucked! Most people assume their customer is happy if they have not heard back from them with a complaint, which is a big mistake. So, you will need some kind of a regular feedback mechanism to gauge the temperature of the customer at any point in time. So you need a shortlist based on the pre-qualification and pre-validation.

2. Are you the best person to approach this customer? Being the marketing person, high chance that you don’t have any relationship whatsoever with the customer and hence they would not respond to you. The best person to be the face is obviously the sales/business dev/account manager or even the customer success specialist, who would have an ongoing relationship with the customer contact. So you need to synergise with the sales or customer success teams in approaching the customer.

3. Is there a right timing? Do you approach the customer on a need basis? (just-in-time) OR do you have a process where you are continuously qualifying and recruiting references? What is the right timing? What if they say NO/come-back-later? Is there a linkage to an Issue tracking process? Is there a template/script that the sales/success person could use? So you need to define some guidelines.

4. Is there scope for reviews/iterations? – Do you take whatever the customer says? Do you think they will know the message you want to drive? In addition, depending on the size of the customer, they might have their own review process/dos-don’ts. So you need to factor in the fact that there will be iterations.

5. What about Approvals/Legal stuff? – you want to make sure that you have the right approval text/proof that the customer has approved the usage of the testimonial in its form. You don’t want to be caught off-guard if someone comes back to you at a later stage saying you have published something without consent. Not unlikely when people keep changing on either side. So you need to get your legal guys involved.

6. The Repository – You would need a common place to store it, so that it is easy to manage updates and searches. Either a file system or a database. Most CRM systems have some place holders. There are specialized Customer Reference Systems that are more comprehensive. So you need a repository.

7. How quickly can you publish it? – You need to be able to update your website with new set of testimonials, as and when they are available (within minutes, not weeks) OR even on a need basis as and when you have a new campaign. Otherwise it is a lost opportunity. Similarly there may be a need to pull out some on urgent basis. E.g. that customers is now facing some challenges and not exactly in the smiling mood. Keeping the website updated with the freshest and best testimonials is one of the biggest challenges. So, you need to make sure your content and website teams are able to handle it.

8. Can you do this every single day? – Testimonials are only as good as their freshness. Because it has to be relevant to today’s audience and carry today’s selling message. Your visitors and prospects are smarter than you think. They can tell a stale sandwich on that display isle from quite a distance. Also, you need to be able to demonstrate that a good% of your customers are happy at any point. This means that you need a process that can do 1-7 above and churn testimonials on a continuous basis, as you are growing your customer-base.

And I am sure there are other challenges that I might have missed. Please feel free to add your experience via the comments.

Summary: Marketing Automation does not work without a regular feed of good Content. Customer testimonials are awesome content because they can keep the audience engaged, yet deliver your marketing message at the same time. Therefore it is imperative that you include them as #1 in your content strategy. And you need to put together a streamlined process so that it is something that works on a freaking daily basis, and makes your selling awesome on a daily basis.

Over to you. Please share us your experiences by commenting. thanks.

by Anupam Bonanthaya

……………………………………………………………

Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

………………………………………………………………..

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1. Content Marketing Without Marketing Automation: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense (by Randy Shattuck)

2. Thinking About Using Marketing Automation? Remember Content! (by J-P De Clerck)

December 30, 2013

Top priority for Customer Reference (Customer Success Marketers) Professionals in 2014 ?

Traditionally, Customer Reference Managers Or its equivalent function within marketing in any B2B company have had the enviable job of promoting “Our Customers Success”. Also called as Customer Success Managers for the same reason. The obvious reasoning behind promoting the customers’ success has been – We have all the right reasons to make sure our customers are successful and we are telling the world about it, because the more successful they are in using our products and services in solving their business problems, the more we tend to gain – directly in terms of repeat sales, and indirectly in terms of referral sales and being a reference. Win-Win.

The job typically involves targeting the star customers, making sure they are happy, recruiting them as a reference , creating testimonials (content), and engaging them in the various marketing and sales activities. At all times making sure that both parties are happy. In short – you are the one stuck between the customers and the stakeholders. And that could be badly injurious to your health for all the expected reasons. just kidding 🙂

This function has become all the more important in 2014 for the following 2 main reasons.

1. The importance of Customer Success

Especially in a revenue model where customer value is not limited to one time buy, but spread across the lifetime of the customer in terms of support, upgrades, up-sell/cross-sell, referrals, being a reference, etc. Customer Success has become even more of a critical function for businesses that have a subscription model (eg. SaaS) where all revenue is equally spread along the lifetime of the customer.

(See this blog article on the importance of Customer Success in SaaS in 2014- Predictions for Customer Success in 2014 (Lincoln Murphy with Nick Mehta of GainSight)

2. The importance of being the Most Valuable component in the Content Marketing Strategy

Remember content is king and queen today. Even Google will not find you if you don’t have content ! But the best part is that customer content a.k.a customer testimonials (quotes, photos, case-studies, video, etc included) is #1 within the content stack in terms of value and effectiveness. Reason being customer testimonials if done right comes with the dual benefit – Firstly, that of providing credibility, and Secondly has the ability to deliver that marketing message to your audience, which other pure content types have to try hard to accomplish.

(see 1 cool example of how some companies are using testimonials from their Reference Customers – Best Examples of Rock-Star Customers on the Home Page. Pick your Favorite ?)

In the rest of this article i would be covering the challenges of the role in the perspective of REASON#2. Customer Testimonials being the Most Valuable component in the Content Marketing Strategy. (please watch this space for another blog article soon on the role of Customer Success Manager as it pertains to a SaaS business, and its linkage with the traditional Customer Reference Manager role)

Working with some of the Top Customer Reference Professionals in the industry gave us in-depth insights and learning’s on the challenges and solutions that could work.

I am summarizing it into 5 important areas as follows.

1. You never have enough Reference Customers. Ever. – You are always challenged in providing enough choices in terms of fitment of the right star customer for the right marketing/sales situation. It is probably not that you do not have enough happy customers; it is just that you don’t have enough willing and agreed customers that met all the criteria, and available at the moment. As a result, you tend to over-use certain customers, and under-use a lot of others.

Focus on Creating Tangible Content – Of course recruiting more customers is the silver bullet solution, but the focus should be on getting written or recorded pieces of content. They act as solid proof points that the customer is happy and willing to vouch for you. And they have a considerable shelf-life and can be used off-the-shelf. It also addresses the Top 3 challenges of content marketing as seen in this info-graphic from Marketing Profs. Now, this does not take away the need for situations where you need customers to be available online, but it does fulfill the majority of your content needs, hence reducing the need for online situations.

(Infographic Source: Survey by CMI/Marketing Profs in 2013)

2. Where do you start ? – One of the biggest challenges in recruiting customers to be a reference would be where to start. You would typically have a large customer base and it is a no-win game to second guess which ones to approach and when to approach, especially when you are not the ones who has the best access to the customers ! That is – the availability of a high quality lead list with all the necessary details is one of the critical success factors.

Build a solid pipeline – Work with people who have the best access i.e the Sales/Account teams. Have a mechanism for them to nominate their best customers. Put together a reward/award system to recognize the best contributors.

3. Synergize with Sales – Sales/Account staff are the best people to know the temperature of the customer, and also have the best access. But seldom are they motivated or vested in the overall process. Also, they are typically very busy selling and have very less time and persistence to followup for other non-sales activities.

Build a Win-win Relationship – You need to address the top 3 concerns that they might have.

What is in it for them? How they win by helping show-case their customer’s success. Everyone likes to be a champion.
Piggy-Back versus By-Pass. Approaching the customer as a team with the sales person leading and not as a competing team is the key.
Always keep in the loop. Sales/account team will always be the 1^st person to be approached by the customer with a question/concern, hence always keep them appraised.

4. Kill Complicated Processes – Lengthy processes and multiple touch points is the biggest show stopper in taking a piece of testimonial from being just a customer intention to being a published asset for you.

Keep it very simple yet realistic – Build a process that is very simple and transparent to all the parties involved. But always keep in mind that a piece of testimonial is an agreement that both parties agree upon as the common positive takeaway. It will need iterations and approvals, and your customer’s time/effort is very precious.

5. Doing manually is loss of productivity – doing things manually without the right tools and tackles would mean that you are spending a lot of time on the operations side, which means you are spending less time talking to the customers and the sales/marketing guys, which makes you less effective and spending late hours. Also, there is the high risk of things falling through the cracks.

Use Systems/Tools – The key would be to use the right systems though, the one that is simple to use yet helps you manage the process end to end.

I am sure that i might have missed out on some points here. please feel free to add by commenting on this thread.

Summary: The role of a Customer Reference (Customer Success) Manager as it pertains to promoting the Customers’ Success has become all the more important in 2014 due to the high importance of Content in the Internet Marketing Strategy and the key role played by Customer Content a.k.a Testimonials (quotes, stories, case-studies, videos, discussions, etc etc). There are many challenges, but also practical solutions that can help make it become the Most Valuable component in the mix.

Now over to you. Please share your opinion and experience by commenting. thanks

By Anupam Bonanthaya

……………………………………………………………

Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

………………………………………………………………..

December 10, 2013

Why Customer Testimonials ?

Customer Testimonials are an extremely powerful sales tool for a business for the following 5 Reasons

1. Voice of your Customer has less skepticism compared to your marketing messages. Less surprisingly, Studies from Wall Street Journal show that, 92% of consumers have more confidence in what your customers are saying than they do in anything that comes from the company media.

2. Testimonials from existing customers help provide the much needed assurance to new prospects during sales, thus helping close deals quicker. According to Bazaarvoice.com, with customer testimonials you can boost sales conversion to by more than 20%.

3. Testimonials play a big role even during the lead generation stage. Visitors are highly likely to get interested in your offering and spend more time on your site if they are welcomed by impressive quotes from your existing customers.

(Want to know about smart successful companies that use customer testimonials as the central marketing piece on their home page ? #1. Best Examples of Customer Testimonials on the Home Page )

4. Testimonials add the zing to your content strategy. In today’s world where content is the king, customer content in the form of testimonials is very valuable in helping get the traction with your audience for your marketing campaigns. customer stories have high engagement levels.

5. Not having testimonials has a huge repelling effect. prospects want to totally avoid businesses that cannot provide proof of a good experience from its existing customers. You might have many happy customers, but not having any public proof points means that you are high risk.

Summary: Irrespective of what you’re selling, you need to showcase what you’re existing customers are saying about you, through your customer testimonials.

Now over to you. What are your reasons ? please share your views by commenting. thanks.

by Anupam Bonanthaya

……………………………………………………………

Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

………………………………………………………………..

The Importance of Customer Testimonials (paradot.com)
5 Ways To Incorporate Testimonials Into Your Website (business2community.com)
Top Ten Tips for Terrific Customer Testimonials! (energiamarketing.com)
Four Ways To Add Testimonials to Your Website (roundpeg.biz)
How to Include Customer Testimonials on Your Website (findyourtippingpoint.com)
comScore Increases New Leads 69% by Adding a Customer Logo (optimizely.com)
Including Your Customer In Your Story (kimyuhl.com)
Four Cost-Effective Content Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses (business2community.com)

Unleash the power of Social Proof in Marketing

Testimonials. Case Studies. Customer Success Stories. Reviews. Videos. Social Stats. More…

inbound marketing

Best Practices : 6 easy steps to awesome testimonials

Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

In general, we can classify Social Proof into 3 Categories based on how it is created.

A. User Generated Content (UGC)

B. Company Generated Content (with endorsement from Users/Customers/3rd Party)

C. Company Generated Proof (unverified or not easy to verify)

6 Questions that i would ask any vendor

1. Social Proof – Do you have it ?

2. Credibility – How much can i trust this ?

I. User Generated Content – HIGH

II. Company Generated Content (with endorsement from Users/Customers/3rd Party) – MEDIUM

III. Company Generated Content (unverified) – LOW

3. Consistency – is everyone saying the same thing ?

A. Hubspot Case Studies

B. Hubspot Twitter Posts

C. Hubspot TrustRadius Reviews

4. Natural – does it look too scripted ?

5. Clear Benefits – are the features-benefits convincing ?

6. Buyer Persona – does it look like “me” ?

Conclusion – the good news is that you need everything !

Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page

Get More Leads and More Conversions by Optimizing the use of Testimonials, Success Stories, Case Studies, Videos, Reviews, Customer Photos, Tweets, or any other Social Proof, in your Marketing.

Ask for a Demo today to see how it can help “Transform Your Customer Success Marketing”. OR Contact Anupam Bonanthaya via LinkedIn

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How to design your case study/success story to sell.

5 Key Factors to help make a case study or success story to sell

Organized – Is it being organized in an intuitive way so that your prospects are inclined to read on ?

Engaging – Is the case study engaging with less text and lots of visuals, and organized in a story telling format ?

Clear Benefits – Are you highlighting the key benefits of using your product or service in the form of call outs or shout outs with metrics and compelling reasons ?

Clear CTA (Calls-To-Action) – are there clear calls-to-actions and do they stand out ?

Promoted – last, but the most important – how are you promoting your case studies ? or are you assuming your prospects will come searching for them ?

Example 1 – Hubspot

1. Organized – 4/5

2. Engaging – 4/5

3. Clear Benefits – 5/5

4. CTA (Calls-To-Action) – 3/5

5. Promotion – 4/5

Overall, I would rate Hubspot’s Case Studies a 4/5

Bonus Tip #1 :

Example 2 – VMWare

1. Organized – 2/5

2. Engaging – 4/5

3. Clear Benefits – 4/5

4. CTA (Calls-To-Action) – 1/5

5. Promotion – 2/5

Overall, I would rate VMWare’s Case Studies a 2.6/5

Bonus Tip #2:

Example 3 –Tibco

1. Organized – 4/5

Bonus Tip #3:

2. Engaging – 4/5

Bonus Tip #4:

3. Clear Benefits – 2/5

4. CTA (Calls-To-Action) – 1/5

5. Promotion – 4/5

Overall, I would rate Tibco’s Case Studies a 3/5

Bonus Tip #5:

Example 4 – AWS (Amazon Web Services)

1. Organized – 4/5

2. Engaging – 3/5

Bonus tip #6:

3. Clear Benefits – 2/5

Bonus tip #7:

4. CTA (Calls-To-Action) – 3/5

5. Promotion – 3/5

Overall, I would rate AWS’s Case Studies a 3/5

Example 5 – Box

1. Organized – 2/5

Bonus Tip #8:

2. Engaging – 3/5

Bonus Tip #9:

3. Clear Benefits – 2/5

4. CTA (Calls-To-Action) – 1/5

5. Promotion – 2/5

Overall, I would rate Box’s Case Studies a 2.0/5

Summarizing, You saw 5 different case study pages and the good and bad in each. They were just examples, but this applies to pretty much every case study or success story.

Overall, you need to pay attention to the following areas which are usually ignored.

1. CTA Buttons

2. Promotion

Anupam Bonanthaya is an experienced Customer Success Marketer and the Founder of CustomerRivet – The Social Proof Marketing Experts

Rivet.ly – Hosted Our-Customers Page