Secrets to Building and Protecting Your Online Reputation in an Era of Misinformation

Eric Eden: 0:58

Welcome to today's episode. Today we are going to talk about online reputation and why it is so important for B2B companies in the buyer's journey. Our guest today is Allison Hevner. She is the SVP of Marketing for TrustRadius. Welcome to the show.

Allyson Havener: 1:21

Hi, eric, great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Eric Eden: 1:23

Radius. Welcome to the show. Hi, eric, great to be here. Thanks for having me. So, before we jump into this great topic of online reputation, why don't you start off by just giving us a little bit of context, for a minute or two, about who you are and what you do?

Allyson Havener: 1:39

Yeah, as you mentioned, I'm the SVP of marketing at Trust Radius. Many of you if you've heard of Trust Radius millions of buyers come At TrustRadius. Many of you have heard of TrustRadius. Millions of buyers come. They do research on different software and ultimately make a decision on which technology that they want to use. So my job is to work with a lot of the vendors that have a presence on TrustRadius to attract these buyers and engage this kind of in-market audience and then we also do a lot of marketing to buyers just kind of in-market audience and then we also do a lot of marketing to buyers. So we really want to understand the way they want to interact with the vendor, the way they want to buy their expectations. How can we give them useful content so they can make the most confident decision possible? So I've been in the B2B space for a long time, growing up in SaaS. Before TrustRadius, I was at a company called Librium, which is an ad tech space. I I was at a company called Librium, which is an ad tech space.

Eric Eden: 2:24

I was there for eight years and grew my career and then came over to TrustRadius about three years ago and Allison and I met as part of a marketing leaders group called CMO Huddles, which is a fantastic group that talks about a lot of these issues, including what we're chatting about today, of how the buyer's journey has been evolving, and the reason I wanted to have her on the show is just to talk about if buyers are spending 80 or 90% of the time before they buy researching online which solutions they want to purchase before they even talk to a salesperson. The online reputation is pretty important and in a world filled with spam and fraud and bots, I find myself, even as a buyer of softwares and marketing solutions, sorting through is this real, is this fake, is this a scam? Is it sufficient? Is it fraud? There's so much noise out there.

Eric Eden: 3:28

It's really hard for buyers to sift through that and the last thing you ever want to do is be working in a company in a leadership position and buy something for the company that is not good, that is really bad. You could get fired bad. So it's a pretty important topic for a lot of people who have to buy things for their company as part of their job. Markers have to buy a lot of things for their companies as part of their job, but functionally, almost every function has to buy things, so this is a really important topic. Millions of people struggle with this research component, so we'll jump into this today. But let's start off with your story, allison. Tell us about some of the best marketing that you've done in this area.

Allyson Havener: 4:15

So when I think about marketing programs and when I think about Trust Radius and one of the things that got me really excited to come over to the company was that there was an in-house research team so this research team, not only they maintain our site in terms of you know what categories we cover, the products within those categories of that whole taxonomy, but they also do research in terms of all the buyers and vendors that we work with and really trying to understand what makes a buyer more confident to make a purchase, what are their expectations when they go into that research phase.

Allyson Havener: 4:49

And then how are vendors missing the mark? And so we've released a report for the last eight years called the B2B Buying Disconnect, and so we essentially study just that. Here are my expectations as a buyer, here's how it's evolving, given the macro trends around me, what I'm used to, and then how are marketers rising to that occasion and really meeting their buyers' expectations or where's the disconnect? And so this report is really the backbone of our marketing strategy and actually our whole go-to-market. So when we think everything from like brand thought leadership, our PR strategy all the way down to our sales deck that they use a lot of this research when we're in sales conversation and trying to push deals over the line, when we're engaging with our customers. So we really use this research in a full funnel kind of marketing capacity.

Allyson Havener: 5:42

And it really helps us in terms of building our brand, building our authority in the space and really trying to gain mindshare in the market. And so I would say our kind of marketing strategy is really research driven, and I'm really proud of that, because I think it's really hard for B2B, especially in SaaS, is what's our POV in the market? What macro trends are we going to align our brand to and have an opinion and put it out there in a consistent way? I think that's really hard for companies to do, and so to really lead with that and for that to be a real pillar of our marketing strategy I think is really special and something that we really hang our hat on.

Eric Eden: 6:24

I think that's fantastic. What is the hardest thing about having a research-led marketing foundation?

Allyson Havener: 6:32

It takes time and it takes resources that you don't necessarily, as a marketer, have a line item for research or survey or this or these types of reports, like usually you would contact like a third party and maybe an agency who could help you with this. Some PR agencies do this. It's not necessarily a line item that we have to build do the research and build your own report. I think also marketers get nervous when it comes to research like this because we've all done some kind of brand analysis or brand survey that took 10 months and you're like, oh my God, this is the worst experience and by the time you get it it's stale.

Allyson Havener: 7:15

And so I think research, inherently to marketers, is like a kind of a scary concept because we want to move super quickly. We want like a finished product or a piece of content in hand so we can slice and dice it into 10 different pieces of content and get it out into market. We want that third party validation, so we're a little bit nervous to do it ourselves. Will people believe us? Will people care?

Allyson Havener: 7:40

So it's a big, it seems like a big undertaking. However, if you think about it as this is going to be the backbone of our marketing across the entire funnel and reposition it like that, I think it becomes this kind of staple piece that you can use. And then also, if you put some budget behind it and you get your team behind it, you get your company behind it, you'd be surprised A how fast you could move. B how much it will be used across again, like the entire customer journey. And then three, you'll be surprised by how much you can actually squeeze the lemon of this report and how much the market in your industry would be receptive to it, especially in a world of AI where content is becoming super commoditized when you have proprietary research.

Eric Eden: 8:29

Yeah, I think. From a credibility perspective, absolutely. I think a lot of people who are just writing content that is opinion-based does not have the same value. Since you've been doing it for eight years, that tells me that it's working, but would you classify it as high impact for the business?

Allyson Havener: 8:54

Yes, extremely. We look at a lot of our reports. We've done like smaller reports, but this is definitely our biggest report that we've done. And when we think about impact, I really think about us trying to create like a movement. Right, we're trying to change people's mindset. We're trying to lead this change in the market, which is really hard to do, and the only way you can really do that is content, and people are going to consume content in many different formats. So you have this really lengthy report that's like really dense, has a lot of data in it, a lot of key insights, but how do you extrapolate that into different formats? And so we think about it in terms of the impact is the consumption of the report and all of the essentially all the other pieces of content that we generate from that.

Allyson Havener: 9:45

And I think marketers are always trying to justify themselves and the programs and everything that they do. And okay, we did this report, but how did it lead to pipeline or close one, et cetera? And I think you have to back up a little bit and think about your ultimate goal and what you're trying to do. Are you trying to gain more mindshare in your industry? Are you trying to build your brand, are you trying to create a content strategy and shift opinions, and I think when you look at those kind of bigger picture goals that you could have, that actually really does help you in your bottom line.

Allyson Havener: 10:19

It might not have this direct tie to it this person read the report and they converted a month later or whatever it is but again you're essentially priming your audience to think a certain way. So when your salespeople do come knocking or when you are doing that event or people are going to be more likely to come and work with you or talk to you, or you're building that brand trust and that brand equity that I think is really important for the more bottom funnel metrics that you're building, that brand trust and that brand equity that I think is really important for the more bottom funnel metrics that you're looking at. So this is a huge high impact piece for our marketing but again, it's so integrated into everything that we do and our whole company is so bought into it that I don't have to justify it with bottom funnel metrics.

Eric Eden: 11:23

In years previous, I've seen you and your CEO co-present on the research report and that it calls out some of the challenges with online reviews of products and takes a more honest approach to okay, how are we going to solve this. And when people read the report and it's we're on the eve of it coming out, so I'll link to it in the show notes so people can check it out. But what I really like about it is that you call out things like it's not about quantity of reviews, it's about the quality of it. So are people just spamming in five-star reviews that don't really say anything and are the scores giving a fake impression of really how good things are? And I think it's just really interesting because so much is really at stake for people. Like I was saying the one CEO I worked for when I made a purchase for the company that was a six-figure purchase he casually mentioned to me if this doesn't go well, the board may fire you, and I was like wait what? And so I think it's pretty people take this pretty seriously.

Eric Eden: 12:30

When you're buying stuff, that you need to really make the right decisions, and if you're looking at product reviews and they're not really honest, if they're just full of spam. If there's fake scores, all of these sorts of things, it's a big problem, and a lot of it comes from some of the review sites out there being just completely pay to play, and I think there's some really interesting controversy. I won't get into calling out the brands by names, but there's some interesting controversy where people are saying that the reviews online they have are completely fake. The value isn't there, and a lot of people did actually lose their jobs because people bought a big ticket item. It didn't deliver, and so I think it's really interesting that you guys frame up this research report like these are the problems and then you talk about how you solve them. Right, did I summarize that fairly?

Allyson Havener: 13:26

Yeah, exactly, I think we actually have this other research report that came out earlier this year about review quality, and so we're came out earlier this year about review quality, and so we're pretty transparent when it comes to review quality. Trust for UDS. We rejected over 60% of the reviews submitted for AI, fraud and just low quality. So we sent it back asking them like hey, can you give us more detail? Like we need at least two to three key insights in this review for it to be published. On average, our reviews are over 400 words. So we definitely think about the quality of the review and when you look at the research of what people really care about when it comes to reading reviews, and especially when your job is on the line, it really comes down to two things. A, the most important thing is the person that I'm reading. Whoever the reviewer is a peer, so they're like me at a company my size, because if I'm at an SMB or like an early stage company, that's very different than somebody that's at an established enterprise, right, and so you're looking at somebody that's relatable to you and in a role similar to yours.

Allyson Havener: 14:31

The second thing is review quality, and what we see is in our research is that most people read three-star reviews because they're looking for the middle ground. They're not looking for the detractors or like the people that are cherry-picked and giving them five stars. They're just looking for information to understand what are the use cases that were implemented, what are some of the gaps that they saw. And again, when your job's on the line, you're super risk averse and you're skeptical. So the more that you have these in-depth, quality reviews, the more you're going to build brand trust. But also, when you're on a shortlist, you only have so many opportunities to get to the top of that shortlist and most people will make a decision before even talking to a salesperson. And that's where it really backs into how important online reputation is, but how important it is to do it right, because if you go to somebody's profile, it's really easy to see the gamification that happens. And then they have thousands and thousands of reviews. Everything is five stars.

Eric Eden: 15:33

That doesn't build brand trust that doesn't actually help your buyer make a confident decision. I love that advice to read the three-star reviews. But, alison, are you saying that technology products aren't perfect? Is that what you're saying, right?

Allyson Havener: 15:48

now Look, we all like there. I think it's like, at the end of the day, the grass isn't always greener using some other technology, but it's just you have to know what grass you're working with, in a sense, and what's best for your company and where you are in your sophistication level. And I think what happens and you're seeing a big shift in this now, and you'll see this in our report we talk about it is people before had a fear of missing out. Oh, I need to get this platform, I need to get this platform. Oh, this next sparkly, glittery thing.

Allyson Havener: 16:20

And then, all of a sudden, we're sitting with a bunch of tech stack flow and nothing talks to each other, and now, as buyers have become much more risk adverse, much more skeptical because there's so much misinformation out there. I would rather just adhere to the status quo and keep things moving forward and try to implement all this new technology where my job's on the line, and so that's going to be a big factor for vendors to overcome hesitation and indecision, and that's really where it's going to come down to transparency and building that brand trust whatever your question is about our product, it can do that.

Eric Eden: 17:01

That's what the sales people would tell you right, we need reviews to be a little bit more honest. I think you have another insight on given how hard this is. How can companies have a better strategy about building their online reputation with customer groups?

Allyson Havener: 17:20

Yeah. So I think obviously reviews is one avenue, but at both companies at LiveRamp and at TrustRadius we heavily leaned into customer advocacy. I think that and you see it for everybody in the marketing world you see how customer marketing is like taking a side step and hasn't really been integrated into the marketing strategy. Really successful companies you can see that they put their customers front and center, but it's not lip service. You see a lot of customer voice that is shoehorned in. It's like a quote here, quote there, but it's not really how you're defining your brand and your messaging and using customer voice to do that. And I think it's really mission critical Again, if we go back to that transparency, that brand trust and having your customers do it for you, having them have the real conversations and giving them a platform to do that, it elevates you so much more than obviously you saying it or your salesperson saying it. It makes those conversations much easier for your salesperson if they've already heard it from your customers. And so I think about customer marketing not being like this addition, but it's actually integrated into our marketing strategy.

Allyson Havener: 18:37

One example at TrustRadius we realized that key study is just like a scary word, like nobody wants to deal with a key study. We all know that we really love to hear like these stories, but really they're just like we called. We rebranded it as a customer spotlight and we really mean it about the person, not necessarily like the company or like that side of the house or like the logo that they represent, but really about the person and the change that they're driving and the results that they're driving. And obviously that it's how they're using TrustRadius to do that. But I think when you reframe things around to really highlight a person, the work that they're doing and how that's having an impact on their business, kind of changes the whole conversation and it doesn't feel self-serving.

Allyson Havener: 19:25

And so we've done that. We've reoriented our whole program. We call it our Customer Spotlight Program. It's is this how we highlight you in our newsletter? Is this how we highlight you on the website? Is this how we highlight you on social, et cetera. And actually a few of our customers have actually used the spotlights and like what we wrote about them to get their next job, and so that's when we have to drop the cord and that you're in the right direction, is where people are like really proud of this customer spotlight and they can use it to get their next job.

Eric Eden: 19:57

That's fantastic. What advice do you have for companies broadly about how to build their rep? What advice do you have for companies broadly about how to build their online reputation in such a way that will drive great results in the new world of the buyer journey, where people are doing all the research really before they even talk to sales? If you had to say one or two things that companies and brands should do, what are your top two recommendations?

Allyson Havener: 20:27

So one is buyers want to self-serve. Right In the B2C world. They can get everything at their fingertips. Most buyers are millennials. They've grown up on social, so try to give them as much product under the hood product information as possible. That's in the form of pricing, any kind of interactive demo where they can actually see the product and not have to talk to a salesperson, any kind of free trial. I know that gets harder in the enterprise, but even in our research enterprise, buyers still want those things. So I think the more prevalent and accessible product information is the better.

Allyson Havener: 21:04

The second thing is, when you're thinking about reviews and how prominent they are, don't do what you want to do, which is the highest NPS scores. Those are the people that we want reviews from. Try to not do the cherry picking. Don't be scared of even negative reviews, because sometimes it's how you respond to them. So if you get a negative review and you can respond to it like, that says so much that you are like again, we're not perfect, no product is perfect, but again it shows that you're willing to be transparent, You're willing to work with this person to improve the product and again that builds brand trust. So I think it's about making product information super available and not cherry picking when it comes to review generation and letting that be a kind of competitive advantage for you.

Eric Eden: 21:58

I think that's great advice. And just to wrap up by flipping the table, if you're a marketer like me who loves to buy things, who has to buy a lot of things for their company, for work, what are your one or two tips for buyers navigating the maze of online reputation, trying to find the right thing?

Allyson Havener: 22:26

find the right thing. So I think the more you can get involved in peer groups and listening to what's going on in the market, the better. I think also really challenging yourself and your team to overcome tech float. So I tell my team is always trying to buy something right, probably trying to buy something and I'm like, okay, what's the strategy? How is this? What's the implementation timeline? Who's going to be managing this? Think about that.

Allyson Havener: 22:48

When you think about people process technology. I think it's really having that strategy in place and pushing your team to think through okay, do we have the budget for this? Do we have the people for this? How is this going to improve our bottom line? Is this going to fit with the rest of our tech stack? Is this going to replace something? Is there a consolidation happening? But being really critical of your team and pushing them to think about what is our strategy and how is this technology going to ultimately improve our bottom line Because when you do that, you can really start to see their thought process and how, hey, you know what we actually do need this. But then if you've already done the first month or two of work after you purchase the technology, you can expedite the time to impact that technology is going to have on that bottom line, that technology is going to have on that bottom line.

Eric Eden: 23:41

Awesome advice. Thank you very much, Allison. I'm going to link to your website and the research report in the show notes. We appreciate you sharing your stories, your research and your insight with us today. Thanks for being with us.

Allyson Havener: 23:57

Yeah, thank you so much, this is fun.