We’re all used to going online and finding outside information in the form of ratings and reviews in the B2C world, however when it comes to B2B, service providers still tend to be the gatekeepers for prospects in terms of finding customer feedback before they decide to purchase.  It’s not that they intended to be the gatekeepers, it’s just that nobody else shared or organized the information with the exception of high-end analysts firms that sell their reports and evaluations for a fee that most small to mid-size businesses can’t justify.

However, with more people participating in social media for their professional lives, that’s changing fast.  People are creating and joining professional groups and networks to share information with one another relating to their jobs and responsibilities.  As this trend progresses, more professionals are starting to share their experience with business products and services and the companies that provide them just as they do in their consumer lives.

While your business will never be able to control or manage what’s discussed about your company and solutions, there are steps you can take to curate positive reviews and referrals in a way that helps them rise to the top of your prospects radar.

Create a referrals or customer comments page on your own site.

Something that is well within your control is to create your own customer comments and referrals page on your site.  Ask key customers to provide you with a recommendation that you can publish.  In addition to displaying those comments on your respective product pages, create a specific landing page for each one with a title like “[Product Name] Reviews” or “Customer Comments on [Product Name/Company Name]”.  Make sure you also include those terms in your page meta-data.  This will increase your chances of the positive reviews you’ve put together coming up at the top results when someone does a search.

Listen and participate in social discussions on your company and solutions

Use a listening service of your choice to closely monitor any mentions of your product/service or company.  Thank those that are positive and address the negative ones.  If someone’s had a bad experience and is making it public, do your best to resolve that mistake and/or apologize to the customer in the same medium.  Not only will this ensure that prospects that see the comment also see your resolution but there’s a good chance that you’ll turn that upset customer into a company advocate.

Ask key customers to provide a recommendation of your company on other sites

In addition to getting customers to provide you with a recommendation on your own site, it’s also worth it to get them to provide a recommendation on your company on other sites that prospects may go to in order to learn more about your company.  One key point here is to make sure that the review/recommendation is for your company and/or solution and NOT for a person on your team.  Why? People and companies take different paths and if that person leaves, it does you no good.

Taking these steps will allow smart businesses to curate comments about them or their solutions.  It won’t totally control the conversations and it isn’t a magic bullet for marketing but as the use of social media continues to grow for B2B companies, it’s a best effort to make sure the positive Word Of Mouth from your customers gets heard by as many people as possible.

When you think of a white paper, what comes to mind?  Is it a boring, descriptive, overly-professional document that you’ll struggle to get through in the hopes of learning something?  Would you ever voluntarily read a white paper with a boring title from a company you don’t know?  You’re not alone.

Hence, the ebook.  I’m not talking about books you can download on a Kindle.  I’m talking about short (5-20 pages) documents that have the goal of educating and enticing without all of the stuffiness.  Just as the use of social media is the cool and “in” marketing tactic to create content people are attracted to instead of interrupted by, the ebook is the new, hip document that people create with the goal of educating others via a document that they actually want to read.  The reasoning behind it is that people can learn something for their job and enjoy what they’re reading at the same time.  There is no longer the major dichotomy between Personal=fun/enjoyable to Work=buttoned up/boring.

A great example of an ebook that stepped away from the standard educational information of the industry and increased market awareness for the business is “Healthy Smile, Healthy Sex!:  How Your Oral Health Affects Your Sex Life” by Dr. Helaine Smith. 

Let’s start with the title.  Even when you’ve been sitting in your dentist’s waiting room for an hour with nothing to read, did you ever want to pick up an educational brochure?  Me neither.  And that’s when you’re a captive audience.  Yet, this ebook has been downloaded thousands of times by people nowhere near a dentist office and educated them on things they need to be concerned about regarding dental hygiene and how it can impact other parts of their lives…some may say the most important part of their lives.

Then there’s the content.  I have never read any dental white papers but I’m fairly confident none of them are aimed at me, the patient, and discuss sex, pot smoking, pregnancy, and aging all in a quick, entertaining, and informative manner on topics that matter to me.   I don’t need to know the deep, technical stuff.  That’s for the dentist.  I just need to know enough to educate me and help me understand what I can do on my own and why going to a dentist regularly is important.

Finally, a good ebook will have calls to action. In the ebook, Dr. Smith let’s people know her background and how to contact her for speaking engagements as well as sign up for her newsletter and blog.

The white paper is not dead and there are some out there that do it right, however those creating content for their marketing endeavors should probably go with writing an ebook.  They’re more enjoyable for everyone involved and have the ability to attract many more prospects.

Have you written an ebook for your business?  Please feel free to share how it went.