Customer references – the ace up your marketing team’s sleeve
Creation’s Simon Clark offers tips on how agencies and brands can use customer references to alter brand perception.
PR, communications and marketing are all powerful tools that help open doors and close deals. However, in today’s competitive landscape, customers, prospects and influencers all demand proof.
Strong data and industry award wins provide excellent validation to a business promise or marketing claim. However, one of the most valuable forms of endorsement is customers you can name in press and marketing materials, and third-party endorsers you can call on to sing your praises.
The more third party references for an organisation’s solutions or services that are out in the market, the more likely other key decision makers will speak with you.
The challenge
This is some solid advice, thanks Simon. People want what other people want so being able to share positive results and offer a direct line to speak to your brand advocates can be very powerful.
Sharing case studies gives lets you identify specific examples where you’ve already achieved exactly what the client is looking for in a similar context – this has been another powerful tool for those clients who may have been mistreated by previous providers. Rather than having to trust that we do as we say, they can see for themselves that we’ve already done it in the past and can speak to the client to fact-check.
One great point you raised is the potential benefit for the client – this is something we really don’t leverage effectively right now.
This would be a really great read except that I have no idea who this article is aimed at or what you’re talking about.