How to Generate Leads and ROI from Reviews ?

The Corona era has seen marketing shift almost overnight, with a major focus on online lead generation.

Most traditional online lead generation methods rely on a slow low-conversion funnel, starting with search, leading to content and finally conversion.

Even those leads that are “captured” are usually of low intent and relevancy. Now more than ever, marketers are required to generate more meaningful leads, but there’s a paradox- everyone is online, yet the intent level has dropped. Marketers from all over complain that traffic is higher, but conversion is lower. Some might call it “webinar fatigue”- there’s endless content, but less bandwidth.

So how do you identify the (fewer) leads that count? Those people with budget who are actually looking to buy a solution like yours NOW?

One solution is review sites. They are fed by organic traffic, offer in-depth reviews of your product and have built-in mechanism for identifying higher-intent leads and conveying them to you.

B2B Review sites, much like their consumer equivalents (Tripadvisor, Yelp etc) leverage customer-created content to generate leads. B2B customers are like consumers in the respect that no one buys anything nowadays without consulting such sites. They are an increasingly important part of the buyers’ journey and it is important to have a presence. This is especially true given that it could well be that your product is listed on these sites without your knowledge (and most mainstream products at any given security category will be listed).

User Review sites are often within the top 3 organic search results when prospects are researching a solution, so they will be a place most people will get to when searching in your space. This is because they have massive traffic, are built according to the latest Google algorithms and Google ranks these site higher for authority and authenticity. In fact, these sites often rank higher than a vendor site.

The site allows users to compare “A Vs. B”, which usually means they are going through a shortlist of vendors before making a buying decision. This makes sense, as think about what stage of the buyers journey are you in when you read user reviews? This is not the type of content digested unless you are serious about purchasing a solution.

In addition, the content listed on these sites can be very detailed. IT Central Station reviews sometimes read as a full product review by 3rd party analyst firm, with the additional advantage of being unbiassed. Yes, it is possible to fabricate false reviews (both positive and negative), but the site’s quality team approves each review only if it submitted by a real person. Often, they will conduct a phone interview to ensure the review is authentic and detailed enough.

Marketers can leverage these reviews as “mini case studies”- they are, after all, written by real customers using their product. Marketers can also use this site for competitive intelligence and product feedback. All reviews must include at least one negative aspect- so it is possible to collect these and pass these on to the product team to facilitate improvement. Marketers can also use the site to research content ideas (what doesn’t work and what would the customers love?).

How to get started?  

It is crucial to have a sales process in place. Generating leads without anyone following them is useless. Then it is important to convey to the sales teams that leads originated from the site are to be considered “hot leads”. For instance, a user searching your brand, or comparing you to the competition is usually in an advanced stage of the buying process; his needs are defined, and budget allocated. Now he’s compiling a shortlist before moving into POC process. This could also be used to understand if an existing customer is starting to look for alternatives. Either way, a swift action is paramount. It is important to acknowledge that this isn’t your website – you can’t control the content. Obviously, offensive reviews shouldn’t be allowed (the team uses AI to identify bots and offensive language, fake reviews etc.) but not all reviews will be “straight As”. This is a sign that the platform maintains an authentic voice.

Conclusion

Marketers working with the platform describe a partnership that allows them to generate leads and listen to their customers – all without having to work hard to generate content. The leads are generally of higher intent, which is what marketers need the most nowadays. 

For additional details, please see IT Central Station website:

https://try.itcentralstation.com/webinar/