When developing new services or products for your company, it is crucial to understand your customer well. You need to know what is relevant to your customer and what they value.

In today’s digitally connected world, selling isn’t easy. Buyers have all the information they need at the click of a button, and therefore, they are in control. So as a seller, how can you accelerate your sales success?

No matter how much customer content you produce, it always seems like a never-ending struggle to keep up with the demand from other teams. And, while sometimes you really need to push for more, there’s also the case where your content gets lost through the cracks and people might not be aware of everything that is available.

The success of many customer evidence programs is usually measured by the number of stories produced/published. But as the saying goes, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it…”, was the customer story ever published?

Part of any Customer Advocacy strategy (and very often the first step into Customer Advocacy) is producing and publishing Customer Stories.

Today, the most important person selling your product or service is no longer you—it’s your customer. What’s important is customer engagement and how it benefits you, your customer, and your prospects. When it comes to customer marketing, you may have heard a few terms - Customer Advocacy, Customer Evidence, and Customer Reference. They all sound similar, and we may think we know what they are, but they are in fact quite different.

There are case studies and there are customer stories. You’d think it’s a similar concept with different names. But what if it’s not?

A question I have seen come up on many occasions: is there a particular number of customers that a B2B company needs to recruit before starting an advocacy program?

There is often a magic number used – especially among large global businesses – and that a customer advocacy program should include 35% of your customer base. However, I believe you can start on a much smaller scale.  And it’s all about ROI.

“Where shall we eat?” I asked my friend when we were at the mall. “Oh, I’ve heard there’s a restaurant close by which is excellent - my mom swears by it,” she said. So off we went to have lunch there, and true to expectations, it was very good.

Now this might seem very normal to ask our friends, relatives, and colleagues for their thoughts, recommendations and reviews of just about anything. In fact, the world over, most of us love talking about the brands that we like, love and hate, and why we feel that way: HubSpot even says that consumers discuss specific brands casually 90x per week.

You may be asking yourself if there’s more you can do to stand out from your competition. Perhaps by showcasing more effectively the benefits your products and services bring your customers in their everyday life and work. And you’d be right to keep questioning.

But have you considered the importance of creating your own Customer Evidence Program?

It all stems from the age-old wisdom that your customer’s voice is “louder“ than your own. When your customers are happy, you can’t have better advocates.