We Took a Risk on Social Proof in Our Marketing. Here’s Why It Paid Off

Think of the last time you went to buy something on Amazon. I guarantee you looked at two things—first the price, then the reviews.

Chances are, the reviews carried significantly more weight than the price in your decision-making. That’s not just because you’re a savvy shopper. It’s because of one of the most powerful psychological tools in marketing and sales: social proof.

As humans, we’ve evolved to look at how other people in our herd are behaving when we’re uncertain of what to do. This is why we tend to choose a popular restaurant over an empty one, or why we buy the new iPhone after we see all our coworkers with one.

The internet allows us to easily access and quantify that social proof, but until recently, it’s been largely siloed to the B2C world. That’s quickly changing.

The Amazonification of B2B tech

Thanks to sites like G2 Crowd, Captera, and Gartner Peer Insights, social proof has made its way to the B2B tech industry. Buyers can read hundreds of vendor reviews from people like them, filtering by industry and company size, to get an unvarnished look at how customers really feel about the investments they’ve made.

Most companies shy away from highlighting these reviews in their product marketing strategy because they can’t control the narrative. We’ve gone the other way, linking to reviews front and center on our homepage and product pages.

It’s a calculated risk—by pointing prospects to user reviews on a public site, you give up control of your product positioning and leave yourself open to critical feedback. But if your product delivers and your product positioning is on point, the two should align.

Most importantly, user reviews are way more trustworthy and influential than anything we’d say about ourselves. Ninety-two percent of consumers are more likely to trust non-paid recommendations than any other form of advertising. Reviews also hold us accountable to our promise—helping brands tell great stories, earning people’s trust, and driving business results.

That’s why we’re incredibly proud to be the top-rated solution in G2 Crowd’s Enterprise Content Creation Grid for Fall 2020 by a wide margin. It wasn’t based on the opinion of some analyst behind the emerald curtain—just the feedback of our customers. We’re always striving to improve so we can keep helping brands hit their goals, but we’re honored to earn top marks across the board.

To my fellow B2B marketing leaders—embrace user reviews. Read them for insights into how you can improve your product and positioning. Solicit them in your customer newsletters. And when they’re good enough to earn you some serious honors, write a self-aggrandizing blog post to highlight how well you’ve done.