Monica Caraway
Over 90% of B2B buyers read customer reviews before making significant purchases(1), with most software buyers reading up to 10 reviews before deciding(2). This makes reviews, testimonials, and case studies essential tools for closing sales. They’re a direct line to building trust and establishing credibility with prospects.
As a B2B business, you should leverage these powerful endorsements as a crucial part of your ongoing marketing strategy. Whether nurturing leads or providing your sales team with the tools they need to close deals, having a steady stream of customer feedback is crucial to your success.
Here are some practical tips for securing these valuable endorsements for your business.
Ask, and You Shall Receive
The first step to gathering more reviews and testimonials is simply to ask. You need to make obtaining reviews a priority for your business. They’re powerful marketing tools that can sway potential clients who are on the fence about your product or service.
Establish a workflow or step in your client process/SOP that includes following up with both new and existing clients. This approach helps maintain momentum in gathering valuable endorsements and helps ensure that no opportunity to collect customer feedback is missed.
Include Testimonials and Case Studies in Contracts
Why wait until the end of a successful project to ask for a testimonial or case study? Instead, include a clause in your statement of work or contracts that outlines a customer’s agreement to provide feedback upon project completion. Doing so sets expectations early on, and your clients are more likely to follow through. Here's Orange Marketing's terms language, and it has only ever been removed once: "Publicity. You grant us the right to add your name and company logo to our customer list and website, unless you, in your sole discretion, direct us not to do so."
The Importance of Committing to Customer Reviews
At Orange Marketing, we walk the talk. Our Founder/CEO, Rebecca Gonzalez, recently highlighted on LinkedIn how we surpassed 100 five-star reviews on HubSpot's Partner Directory. This achievement stems from consistently focusing on customer feedback since our first month in business. Our commitment is a motivating example for other B2B businesses looking to build a robust collection of customer endorsements.
Answer: What’s In It for Them?
Clients are busy, so it’s essential to highlight the benefits of participating in providing testimonials. You need to readily let them know what’s in it for them. This is where you can get creative. We sometimes write quickie case studies that we call "Customer Spotlights" which are basically one-pager case studies. Not only does a Customer Spotlight highlight the client's success, making them the star of the show, it is also content that they can link to from their site and repost on social media.
Customer spotlights are a win-win: they provide you with valuable content and give your clients a platform to promote their business, showcase their expertise, or even draw attention to an upcoming webinar or event. Presenting the opportunity as a mutually beneficial arrangement increases the likelihood of participation. Your happy client will also be more willing to help share the review or case study on social media once it's live, helping you get more eyes on it!
Make It Easy for Customers
The easier you make it for customers to provide feedback, the more likely they are to do it. Time-consuming interviews can deter even the most satisfied clients. Provide questions beforehand and assure the client that any scheduled interviews will be kept to a half hour or less (if possible).
One of the most efficient ways to gather testimonials and case studies is by using third-party AI software like Deeto. Deeto automates the process, allowing customers to answer a few questions that are then transformed into polished customer stories. This method requires minimal effort from your clients and ensures you secure the content you need—although, keep in mind, you'll not have control of the final content piece that is put together. So, tailoring a case study to target specific prospects by highlighting particular features/benefits isn't possible.
Scrape and Save Reviews:
Another practical tip is to scrape and save reviews from other platforms where your business is listed. Websites like G2 and Capterra are great for collecting reviews, but what happens if those platforms change their review policies or remove old content? You could lose valuable testimonials. Scraping reviews ensures you have a backup that can be used in your marketing materials, safeguarding your social proof from disappearing. As Rebecca encourages in her LinkedIn post, grabbing feedback from other websites is something we prioritize as well.
Our HubSpot Example:
HubSpot users often leave reviews on the platform. However, these reviews are at the mercy of HubSpot’s ever-evolving content policies. We repurpose those reviews as soon as possible by including them on a section of our website to help inform prospects.
Orange Marketing Reviews & Testimonials
Anonymize Case Studies
Sometimes, customers hesitate to provide testimonials or participate in case studies because they don’t want their business details made public. In these cases, offer to anonymize the content. By removing identifying information, you can still showcase the value of your product or service while respecting the client’s privacy.
This customer's company did not allow case studies or testimonials, so we went the anonymous route as we were extremely proud of our recently successfully completed project to migrate them from Eloqua into HubSpot.
What's In A Name? 👀
How To Write Compelling Anonymous Case Studies
Ask Your Sales Team for Insights
Your sales team is a treasure trove of information. Sales has direct contact with customers and often know which features are most valuable in a sale. Leverage this knowledge by asking them to fill out answers to specific questions that could be used to create "mini-customer spotlights" (a one-pager) or full-on case studies. This approach saves time and allows you to generate content without involving the customer in a lengthy interview process.
Types of Questions to Ask Sales
For businesses that may not have the bandwidth to create full case studies, mini-customer spotlights may fit the bill. These shorter pieces can be just as effective in highlighting the value of your products or services. By asking your sales team to contribute to these spotlights, you can quickly build a library of customer stories that can be used across your marketing channels. Questions to ask sales that you or your marketing team can flush out into a spotlight include:
Company Background:
(Name, website, and note anything unique about them if applicable.)
Customer Challenges:
(Customer's goals/struggles/other types of options they tried to solve their problem, etc. - Help us tell the story so other potentials see themselves in the writing.)
Which features were most valuable in this sale?
(Specific software/service features)
Example Mini-Customer Spotlight
From the questions above, you can create a basic, one-page breakdown that you post as a blog post and turn into a beautiful PDF for sales to use in outreach and in nurture campaigns.
A Little Effort Goes a Long Way
Getting more customer reviews, testimonials, and case studies doesn’t have to be daunting. By asking proactively, making participation easy and beneficial, and utilizing tools like Deeto, you can build a robust collection of social proof to help your business thrive. Remember, every customer story is an opportunity to showcase your success—don’t let these opportunities slip through the cracks.
The Power of Customer Feedback—And What Comes Next
Securing customer reviews, testimonials, and case studies is just the beginning of building a powerful marketing strategy. Reviews must be part of a broader, well-executed demand generation strategy to unlock their potential.
That's where Orange Marketing comes in. We specialize in turning your customer endorsements into compelling content that drives awareness, generates leads, and ultimately boosts your bottom line. From targeted content marketing to strategic email campaigns, our demand-generation services are designed to make your business stand out.
Ready to take your B2B marketing to the next level? Learn how our demand generation strategies can transform your customer feedback into powerful marketing assets that resonate with your audience and drive growth. Connect with us to learn more.
