Social Media B2B

In a football game the punter is really the unsung hero, as he truly controls field position. However, he only gets mentioned when he drops the ball or shanks one out-of-bounds. In he world of B2B e-commerce product reviews play the role of the unsung hero. While many experts and marketers are out touting the wonder of the next new shiny application, the product review goes forgotten and ignored.

Think of everything you have read about social media and marketing in the past 6 months. How many times do you hear someone talk about product reviews as a marketing opportunity? The people who don’t want to talk about product reviews, or are scared of them, are the people that make over-priced products that don’t work.

B2B companies with great products should consider the power of product reviews.

This won’t work for all segments. Someone who paid $500,000 for a new chiller or oven isn’t going to leave a review saying the product is bad and he wasted his company’s money. However, there are many cases where this could work well for product-based businesses. Many service-based businesses have been doing their own “product” reviews for a long time through platforms like LinkedIn recommendations or posting client testimonials on their site.

Here is an example where B2B product reviews could work. Amway Global is a huge global company, but they sell many products to small business owners, including cleaners and other supplies.

These products are at a price point where reviews really make sense. Small business owners don’t have a lot of time to research cleaning products, so having reviews at the point of sale could be the closer Amway needs to help boots sales and reduce customer services calls and questions.

Why Product Reviews Are Important In B2B Marketing:
Relationships matter in B2B selling. Purchasing decisions are emotional. People buy from a person they feel connected to or buy a product they are connected to. If you are a B2B company that sells direct online, then there isn’t a sales person to develop a relationship, only a product page. How do you elicit emotion to drive purchases and stop buyers from clicking away?

Product reviews give potential buyers the ability to emotionally connect with others who have purchased your product. Your customers become your sales force at the point of purchase.

Check out a future post for “Ideas For Generating Product Reviews”

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