The MoPR Blog

My partner Melissa is fond of telling clients that “nothing succeeds like success.” The stories of success that a company can tell do a far better job communicating relevance, value and, yes, leadership than can any self-made proclamation. Melissa is also fond of telling clients that “the marketplace is full of leading leaders.”

No one pays attention to any company’s claim that they are the market leader anyway. And let’s face it, in most cases, if you’re a company selling to enterprises worldwide and you don’t have more than 10,000 customers, you aren’t the market leader.

Leaders are typically recognized as such without having to explain their position within their respective markets. Does anyone doubt that IBM, Ford or Proctor & Gamble are market leaders even if they don’t explicitly say so in their press releases?

Increasingly, more and more companies clamor for leadership positions in markets that are increasingly defined as smaller segments of bigger markets in which there is no hope for domination. In this context, is success really predicated on leadership? My opinion is that relevance and value are more important business qualities to possess. A company’s product or service must be desirable for the company to be both relevant and valuable. The best way to tell this story is through the use of customer case studies.

What better asset does a B2B company possess other than the public opinions of its happy customers? Yet rare, it would seem, is the company that understands the business mechanics involved in customer participation in its marketing efforts.

One of the largest components in any company budget is marketing. Marketing money is spent making a company relevant and valuable to prospective customers. It’s a cost center, not a profit center. Therefore dollars spent on marketing a product or service are part of the cost in providing that product or service to customers.

Time and again it is shown that using existing customers in marketing activities builds interest in and confidence for a company’s product or service among prospective customers. To achieve the same impact without the use of a company’s customers is more challenging, more time consuming and more expensive. Put another way, using customers in marketing increases the margin on products and services. Not using customers decreases the margin.

A concept that seems more commonly held, however, is that asking a customer to participate in marketing programs is an imposition or a favor for which many in sales are reluctant to ask. Businesses that win the perception race are the ones that make good use of their customers. If your company is to win the perception race, achieve relevance and value in the market, and do so without decreasing your margins, then here is some advice that I’ve seen work:

• Ensure marketing programs are covered in the contract agreement with customers. Specifically state that the customer consents to:
  • the use of its name in public lists of customers,
  • the use of its logo in groups of customers on your website and PowerPoint presentations,
  • the announcement of the customer relationship by press release,
  • the ability to use the customer as a success story at a later date, and
  • the customer serving as a reference to other customers, press and industry analysts.
• Concessions to the above typically are footnotes that indicate listing a company as a customer does not mean the company necessarily endorses the product and that the customer has the right to review and approve drafts. Read the note below about “approvals will not be unreasonably withheld” contract language.
• Give the customer incentives to leave the marketing language in the contract. A key incentive is price. When pricing is set, consideration is given to the cost. If the default position when determining price is that a customer participates in marketing, then should that customer decline to participate it adds to the cost to the product, and therefore the price should go up. Most companies won’t tell a customer that it’s raising the negotiated price, so try offering a discount to customers that leave the marketing language intact.
• Change the corporate understanding of how to use customers in marketing. Salespeople should understand it’s their obligation to find customers that will participate in marketing. Some companies give their salespeople extra commission or bonuses for getting customers to agree to press releases or case studies. While that works, a more fundamental understanding of why customers should be used in marketing should be taught. After all, it’s in the customers’ best interest that their vendor is successful. Asking for a press release isn’t asking for a favor, it’s conducting business.
• Make sure that customers who participate in your marketing programs are acknowledged and rewarded. In fact, there are awards for which vendors can nominate their customers and make them look like heroes to their colleagues and managers (and their future colleagues and managers; what better way to enhance a resume than showing off an industry award).

Now, the note about contract language: There is a clause often inserted into contracts that innocuously states “approvals will not be unreasonably withheld.” This clause is a pendulum that swings both ways. It is designed to protect companies that make agreements but where portions of that agreement may be outside company policy. A company may have legitimate reasons to refuse allowing its name to be used in conjunction with the services of a particular vendor. Perhaps stating the relationship gives the customer’s competition information that will allow it to compete better, for instance. To avoid complications for situations like these, companies have taken the step to create a blanket prohibition for participating with vendors’ marketing efforts. In such a situation, the company can fully agree to a marketing section in a contract yet still avoid complying with its various conditions. In such a case, the withholding of an approval is not unreasonable. However (PR practitioners take note), if that same customer allows one vendor to issue a press release, its withholding of an approval for another vendor’s release may then be considered “unreasonable.”

The bottom line on using customers in your marketing is the actual bottom line, particularly when one adds up the costs associated with creating effective marketing. No one can tell a company’s story more believably than happy customers. Every B2B marketing team needs to make customer involvement a top priority.

Because of the interesting colors and contours, the Experience Music Project in Seattle is a great backdrop for headshots of the non-avian variety.

It was kind of fun to be the center of attention. There we were dressed in suits, a photographer with a big camera, bigger lens and even bigger bag of equipment snapping shots of us from all kinds of angles. There were the single shots, then shots in pairs, then group shots.

Our photographer, Jeffrey LeBlanc, was awesome. Not only is he also in the mobility biz himself, he is enormously creative and fun to work with! If you need a photographer in Seattle, Jeff is your guy!

We used all kinds of mobility technology props, which was easy, because we normally carry all kinds of mobility technology. Melissa’s pink iPod and Stacy’s pink Razr no doubt will stand out.

Boatloads of tourists – and by that I mean tourists sitting in busses shaped like boats – passed by, gawking. Clearly we had to be local celebrities. Another photographer even joined in. We have no idea who she was.

Soon we’ll see the results. But getting our pictures taken was definitely one of the highlights of this trip.