Marketing strategies have adapted and changed to fit the demands of today’s buyers. Product-led businesses have especially had to shift their focus as buyer preferences change. Nowadays, customers make purchasing decisions based on reviews, testimonials, and more. In fact, 72% of customers won’t make any buying decisions until they’ve read reviews! Luckily, product marketing teams can actually use this to their advantage. How, you might ask? Two words: customer marketing.
Product marketing teams often have difficulty proving the efficacy and ROI of their product. With customer marketing technology that aggregates customer evidence and turns it into compelling content, your organization can prove ROI and the value of your product with ease. By leveraging the customer’s voice in marketing materials, especially for product-led businesses, your organization will have the right data to convert leads into buyers and drive revenue. This is because customers see reviews as more trustworthy than traditional marketing materials.
So, how should you be doing customer marketing for your product-led business? Read on to find out!
What’s customer marketing and why is it important?
Customer marketing allows B2B marketers to use the voice of the customer within marketing campaigns and sales enablement content. With customer marketing, you can use customer reviews, testimonials, and social proof to expand brand awareness and influence buyers’ purchasing decisions. It also helps to increase revenue growth by engaging and converting existing customers multiple times through upselling and cross-selling. Upselling and cross-selling allow you to focus on customer retention while also keeping current customers engaged and happy with your products.
For a product-led business, this should be one of your organization’s top priorities. Customer evidence is incredibly convincing to today’s buyers. In fact, given two products with similar ratings, consumers are more likely to buy the product with more reviews! That’s not the only benefit, though! With customer success stories and social proof, your business is armed with insights to create the perfect marketing plan that puts the value of your product at center stage.
1. Gain customer feedback to make necessary product improvements
Customer marketing strategies enable product marketers to gather customer success stories and feedback at scale. This customer evidence provides product marketers with user data and opinions from customers in multiple industries, demographics, and company sizes to better inform potential product improvements. Customer feedback allows your business to see what real, current customers like, dislike, and would change about your product.
For example, take a look at this graph from Yellowbrick’s Research Library. By surveying their own users, Yellowbrick discovered what features their customers find most important. With this information, they can then focus more time and energy on improving those features rather than making uninformed changes that their customers may not appreciate.-png.png)
2. Utilize customer evidence to prove your products’ effectiveness
Customer evidence is a valuable tool for product-led businesses. The information and data gathered can be used to back up claims about your product and showcase value to potential buyers.
Customer evidence shows buyers what current customers think about the product, which may help them make an informed purchasing decision (about 95% of customers read reviews before making a purchase!). Since 83% of people think a business with user-generated reviews on their landing page is trustworthy, it’s wise for product-led businesses to lead with customer evidence.
For example, GitLab has a wealth of impactful customer testimonials and success stories that prove their product’s effectiveness. With many buyers now leary of sales content and pivoting to their own research, evidence like this is all the more interesting. In fact, 91% of consumers in the 18–34 age group trust online reviews as much as recommendations from family, friends, and other personal acquaintances. Take a look at the success story below and imagine how your business could infuse testimonials like these into your marketing efforts..png)
Check out the UserEvidence research library for more examples of impactful customer evidence!
3. Establish credibility and prove ROI to increase topline revenue
Customer marketing works two-fold: it allows product marketers to increase the lifetime value of current customers, while also working with the demand generation team to attract new leads. Customer marketing provides product-led businesses with the unique opportunity to prove their credibility and ROI early in the customer lifecycle. 76% of buyers are more likely to trust content shared by their peers rather than brands.
For example, Wrike surveyed their users about the ROI they garnered with the help of our platform. Their findings state that, on average, it takes their customers ten and a half months to see a return on investment from their product. By infusing this verified statistic (featured below) into their marketing campaigns, Wrike is able to share their ROI story.-png.png)
4. Win deals in new markets with effective customer marketing
Due to a lack of customer evidence, product marketers often struggle to sell in new markets. With a customer evidence-based platform, like UserEvidence, product marketers can aggregate and share customer success stories to excel at new market entry.
For instance, say a SaaS organization wants to expand into a new market overseas. However, they have little to no proof that their product solves the pain points that buyers within the new market may experience. By compiling customer evidence and creating compelling testimonials, verified statistics and more spanning all industries and use cases, product marketers have impactful social proof at their fingertips to cater to new markets and win over new customers. This enables the SaaS organization to break into the new market empowered with an arsenal of customer insights and success stories.
Consider the example below. This statistic from Showpad proves to new customers that they will benefit from their purchase in under a year. 
Since UserEvidence verified this statistic, new markets might find it even more appealing.
Final thoughts
Customer marketing and product-led businesses are the perfect match. Customer evidence can prove the value of your product to prospects, while also working to upsell and cross-sell to current customers. Additionally, customer-driven content, such as customer success stories and verified statistics, encourages buyers to trust that your products can resolve their pain points, which will directly influence their purchasing decisions.
Get started with customer marketing to maximize your product-led growth initiatives and drive revenue — Get in touch with us.
