We at McClenahan Bruer Communications (McBru) are excited to introduce the new design and title of our e-newsletter on best practices in deep tech marketing: "Deep <Tech> Thoughts." If you've had a moment to visit our site lately or grabbed a business card from us, you'll notice that it reflects our new brand. Hope you enjoy.

Without further ado, following is our latest issue...

Customer Reference Programs: Why They're Important and How to Jump Start Them

Customer references are one of the most sought-after tools in deep tech marketing. Sales 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.

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.

I trust that the second pitch was more compelling.

Because we used a customer story to support claims of features, advantages, and benefits, we're able to differentiate ourselves from all of the other agencies who say they conduct media relations programs to generate heaps of coverage. Second, you're able to better envision what we do and how we do it. That's our process.

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.

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.

Obviously, I can't offer you an entire plan in a brief newsletter, and each program should be customized, but I can offer some insight into the steps you'll need to consider in proposing a customer reference program to 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.

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.

If you have any questions about customer reference program best practices or are interested in hearing about some case studies in the discipline, feel free to contact me.

Thanks for reading,
Jeff Hardison

P.S. Electronics industry marketers, be sure to check out our 2007 study of Chinese electronics engineers here. It's a one-of-a-kind study and the results might surprise you.

Next issue: A China trip report from our president Kerry McClenahan.