Learn why customer reference programs are important and how to jumpstart them.

1. POSITION PAPER
Customer Reference Programs:
Why They’re Important and
How to Jump Start Them

2. Customer references are one of the most sought-after tools in deep tech marketing. The
sales team depends on them to close deals with prospects. Marketing deploys them
across a range of activities from media interviews and testimonial ads to webcasts and
speaking opportunities.
Yet, so many deep tech companies have a very informal and often scattered approach to
securing references and deploying such an important tool in the marketing belt.
Fact is, today, garnering and deploying customer references might be the most important
initiative a company can take on.
Tell the Customer’s Story
We often expound in marketing that companies should sell benefits and advantages over
features. In other words, many customers aren’t enticed by a hammer equipped with a
head and a handle (the feature). They want the ability to easily pound a nail into wood
(the advantage) in order to build a house for shelter or to hang a painting to beautify a
room (the benefits).
Fortunately, many deep tech companies long ago incorporated advantages and benefits
into their marketing. What is less common is conveying the specific environment of a
particular customer’s application in order to help prospects and influencers imagine the
product in action. This is also known as the customer’s story.
To better understand the importance of telling customer stories, consider which is more
compelling:
1. Our agency leads aggressive media relations programs (feature) that help you
increase sales (benefit) by raising positive awareness of your products through
media coverage that your prospects trust (advantage).
2. Our agency leads media relations programs (feature) that help you increase sales
(benefit) by raising positive awareness of your products through media coverage
that your prospects trust (advantage). For example, one IT software company
came to us with the challenge of building credibility among financial services
companies. We developed a media relations campaign that secured 15 articles
in targeted financial-services trade publications by highlighting customer case
studies from the industry. When polled, five out of 10 new financial services
customers claimed that they came to the IT software client upon encountering the
positive media coverage.
Clearly, the second pitch was more compelling.

3. Influencers Want to Hear the Customer’s Story
Many journalists, who are important influencers in the deep tech ecosystem, already
embrace the importance of customer stories. While some technology trade journals still
enable you to get away without telling a customer story, increasingly, many don’t. And,
unless your company is extremely successful or well known, nearly all general business
publications and daily newspapers require a customer story.
For one, when journalists ask for a customer, they’re seeking validation of your claims.
Second, journalists have a goal to clearly communicate to their readers; after all, many
people have an easier time envisioning what your products do through a real-life example
as opposed to confusing, undifferentiated marketing speak around features, advantages
and benefits. In fact, many top-tier technology journalists craft whole articles around a
customer story with maybe only one mention of a technology supplier’s products.
It’s ironic: In marketing, we’re taught to craft stories using the inverted pyramid method,
with the general leading into the specific. However, the world thinks in right-side-up
pyramid fashion with the concrete helping us understand the abstract.
A Formalized Customer Reference Program
For most of you who already understand the value of customer references, the above is
just reinforcement of what you’ve known all along. What you really care about is how to
obtain more of this holy grail in deep tech marketing.
Do you ever find yourself thinking, “References would be great, but many of our customers
are barred from participating for competitive reasons.” Or, “References aren’t possible.
My customers’ PR departments keep a tight leash on who talks to the public.”
If so, your company is probably a good candidate for a formalized customer reference
program. You’ve already conquered the first step: understanding the supreme value of
leveraging customer references. Now you need to convert the marketing activity into a
program to gain the resources and freedom you’ll need to be successful. Here are some
insights into the steps for launching a customer reference program in your company.
Talking to and leveraging customers is an activity potentially rife with landmines, from
upsetting sales reps trying to protect relationships to ruffling the feathers of corporate
communications needing to keep a tight reign on outbound communications. Therefore,
gaining senior management’s buy-in is the important first step.

4. Once you’ve conveyed the importance of customer references, hopefully using some of
the aforementioned arguments, your proposal to management should plan to address
how you’ll:
1. Recruit references (e.g., phone, e-mail, through sales, etc.).
2. Qualify references.
3. Deploy references (e.g., media interviews, joint webcasts and white
papers, speaking opportunities, etc.).
4. Reward references. Note that many companies prohibit their
employees from accepting incentives from vendors.
5. Track reference activity. Word to the wise: Unless you have less than
20 customers in your reference program, spreadsheets prove inferior
to databases for tracking activity.
6. Partner with other departments, agencies and customer reference
program experts.
And that’s just the basics to get you started. Robust customer reference programs, often
found in larger companies, sometimes entail many more components, such as how to
integrate with the sales department to sophisticated rewards programs and customer
advisory boards.
Fleshing out the specifics of your customer reference program involves one eye toward
process and practicalities and another toward creativity. However, do realize that best
practices have already been honed by customer reference program experts within fellow
deep technology companies and agencies. You don’t have to go it alone.

5. For further information or questions:
Jeff Hardison
503.546.1009
jeff@mcbru.com
CONTACT US
5331 Macadam Ave, Suite 220
Portland, OR 97239
503.546.1000
www.mcbru.com