Marketing and Sales Enablement

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Success Story 1: Sales team goes all-in on Gartner Peer Insights, leverages Voice of the Customer document

• Size – Medium
• Market – Communication
• Enagaged since – 2016

Synopsis

This Vendor originally engaged with Gartner Peer Insights to build their presence on the platform and promote their happy customers. While the Marketing team understood the value of the reviews, their Sales teams were not fully on-board.

About a year later, this vendor was not in the published Magic Quadrant document. Their executives were scrambling, and the Sales team was wondering what they would do without a reprint of the MQ to highlight how they compare to the competition.

There was an upcoming Customer’s Choice round for this market, as Customers’ Choice is typically announced three months post the publication of the Magic Quadrant. Their executives understood that there would be a Voice of the Customer Gartner research document following the announcement of the Customers’ Choice.

The executives pushed the sales teams to reach out to each customer to ask for a review on Gartner Peer Insights and focused all their marketing resources on the upcoming Customers’ Choice round. They were able to achieve the distinction and were featured in the Voice of the Customer document. This helped them validate their position in the market by using the peer perspective, and the sales teams were able to reprint the document to leverage in sales conversations with prospects.

Success factors

• Including the Executive Team in conversations with their aligned Gartner Peer Insights Program Manager to create a strategic game plan to achieve Customers’ Choice
• Getting the sales team onboard to aid in reaching out to customers for review, as they understood the value that the Customers’ Choice and Voice of the Customer would bring them in future sales conversations

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Success Story 2: Mid-sized vendor finds success with review sourcing to achieve Customers’ Choice

• Size – Medium
• Market – Applications
• Enagaged since – 2017

Synopsis

This vendor noticed that there was activity in their market from some of the smaller vendors in the space, and took notice. The VP of Product Marketing, Director of Corporate Communications, and Global Head of AR all went through an onboarding call together to ensure all parties with an interest in Gartner Peer Insights were receiving the information from their Gartner Peer Insights Program Manager.
After internally brainstorming how they should approach Gartner Peer Insights, they determined that the VP of Product Marketing would “own” the day-to-day activities associated with Gartner Peer Insights, and they would set a cadence as a group with their Gartner Peer Insights Program Manager to meet every quarter to ensure they were on track.
After realizing that they were just 28 days away from a Customers’ Choice, they sourced 140+ reviews via personalized emails to customers and email marketing campaigns to anyone who had taken part in a client interview in the last quarter with the Product Marketing team. They received Customers’ Choice a few weeks later.
Since sourcing reviews is not a one-and-done effort, they integrated the ask for a Gartner Peer Insights review into their client interview process and onsite at their events, and have received Customers’ Choice three times in a row since.

Success factors

• Appointing ownership of Gartner Peer Insights to Product Marketing, while keeping other stakeholders in the loop via quarterly calls
• Taking an “all hands on deck” approach to sourcing hundreds of reviews in 3 weeks for Customers’ Choice
• Integrating Gartner Peer Insights into their marketing efforts throughout the year

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Success Story 3: Small vendor dominates less-mature Gartner Peer Insights market

• Size – Small
• Market – Healthcare
• Enagaged since – 2019

Synopsis

The Product Marketing Manager and Event Marketing Manager at this Vendor teamed up to own the Gartner Peer Insights program. This Vendor valued Gartner Peer Insights for their sales and marketing initiatives and was keen on getting customer feedback through the Gartner Peer Insights platform. They understood the benefit to being one of the first vendors to source reviews in a less mature market.

They created their first review sourcing link and received 5 reviews, all of which were published. After establishing a program where an email notification is triggered to the customers asking for a review 3 months post-implementation, they are now the leading vendor in their market in terms of review count. This is an example of recognition and dominance within a less mature market without receiving the Customer’s Choice. They plan to achieve at least 50 reviews within the next few months. Should this market be up for Customer’s Choice in the future, the vendor is already set up for success.

Success factors

• Internal alignment on the value to be the first to increase presence in a less-mature market
• Setting internal metrics to achieve Customers’ Choice criteria
• Established program to ask all customers for review via post-implementation email

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Success Story 4: Analyst Relations brings in Product Marketing, Customer Marketing teams to drive success incrementally

• Size – Medium
• Market – Software
• Enagaged since – 2019

Synopsis

This vendors’ Analyst Relations team noticed that Gartner Peer Insights was increasing their presence via the Voice of the Customer document, and wanted to ensure that they did not fall behind the curve.
They started their Gartner Peer Insights program by first completing an onboarding call with an Onboarding Specialist. From there, they worked with their Product Marketing teams to ensure the products/markets listed on Gartner Peer Insights aligned with their current product marketing efforts.
Once their products were aligned correctly, the AR team set a meeting with their aligned Gartner Peer Insights Program Manager and their Customer Marketing team to cover proven best practices for reviews, and attainable goals to set internally.
Over the course of 3 months, they set an initial goal for 20 reviews net new reviews, then once met, shot for 50 reviews, and so on. They now have the most reviews in their market and are set up for success in the event that a Customers’ Choice and Voice of the Customer research document comes up for their market.

Success factors

• Analyst Relations lead the program delegation for each step of their program
• Established incremental goals for their Customer Marketing team (ex. 20 reviews, 50 reviews, 100 reviews)
• Leveraged best practices to establish pathway to success for all teams

Exposure within Gartner Research

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Success Story 5: Vendor sources 60+ reviews in 2 weeks, is the only Customers’ Choice

• Size – Medium
• Market – Applications
• Enagaged since – 2017

Synopsis

This vendors VP of Communications realized when looking at her Standings page for the Customers’ Choice in their market that no other vendor had achieved the Customers’ Choice yet. She understood the marketing power that would come with being able to say the “only Customers’ Choice in the market,” and connected with the CMO.
With less than 2 weeks until the sourcing deadline, and 30 reviews away from Customers’ Choice, they reached out to their Gartner Peer Insights Program Manager to understand exactly what they needed to do to achieve Customers’ Choice. Within 1 week, this vendor sourced 45+ reviews by creating an email target list of everyone that had attended a webinar or event in the past 6 months and asked for their help in sourcing reviews towards Customers’ Choice. They achieved Customers’ Choice and licensed the accompanying Voice of the Customer Gartner research document for additional promotional opportunities and lead generation.

Success factors

• Solicited advice from their Gartner Peer Insights Program Manager on different methods to achieve ~45 reviews sourced in less than 2 weeks
• Buy-in from all within the Marketing teams and understanding of the marketing power that comes with being the only Customers’ Choice in a market
• Quickly actioning on review sourcing strategies

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Success Story 6: Vendor leverages flex reprint program to drive lead generation, brand awareness

• Size – Small
• Market – Marketing
• Enagaged since – 2019

Synopsis

The Head of Analyst Relations and Head of Social Media Marketing at this vendor became engaged with the Gartner Peer Insights program after seeing other vendors promoting the Customers’ Choice and reviews in marketing materials. They understood the value of leveraging the platform for marketing and were looking for best practices to source reviews. As they started sourcing reviews for their products via social media promotions and email marketing campaigns, they created a widget and embed it on the homepage of their website.
During their recent Customers’ Choice round for their market, they just missed out on the distinction as they did not meet the review count requirement. Due to higher ratings, they were a part of the top left quadrant in the Voice of the Customer Gartner research document, which publishes after a Customers’ Choice is announced.
They leveraged their existing Flex reprints program and are using the VoC as a reprint to establish themselves as a player in the market, and for lead generation. Within their reprint promotional materials, this vendor highlighted their high rating by using the comparison image, and product capabilities break down.

Success factors

• Analyst Relations and the Social Marketing team worked together to build out an engagement plan to source reviews as part of their external practices
• Leveraged their high rating within the Voice of the Customer document, even with a lower volume of reviews, for brand awareness and lead generation

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Success Story 7: Smaller vendors leverages Gartner Peer Insights for competitive comparisons

• Size – Small
• Market – Networks
• Enagaged since – 2019

Synopsis

This vendor’s Marketing Director reached out to their Gartner Account Executive to understand how to leverage Gartner Peer Insights. An onboarding call lead by our Gartner Peer Insights Onboarding Specialist was held with the Marketing Director and Director of Strategic Partnerships. They were extremely interested and wanted to jump-start their program immediately. After their onboarding call, the team quickly scheduled a meeting with their aligned Gartner Peer Insights Program Manager to talk through sourcing strategies, they immediately took action and sourced 10 reviews within 1 week.
As part of their ongoing program, they engaged frequently with their Gartner Peer Insights Program Manager to learn about the best practices and to ensure they were in compliance with our policies. This vendor is now using Twitter to share and highlight its top-rated reviews.
Using reviews data, they have stacked themselves against their competitors, primarily for promoting their higher ratings. This Vendor has also made both external and internal facing decks utilizing their Peer Insights data to assist in sales meetings. They are leveraging their review content in these decks to promote their rating and highlight customer satisfaction. Even with a minimal number of reviews, this vendor is already leveraging Gartner Peer Insights as a value-add in their marketing and sales efforts.

Success factors

• Quickly taking action following the onboarding call
• Promptly leveraging review data for sales and marketing
• Integrating Gartner Peer Insights as a non-negotiable to their sales team

Product Development Opportunities

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Success Story 8: Vendor asks every single customer for review, ensuring a representative sampling

• Size – Medium
• Market – Security
• Enagaged since – 2017

Synopsis

This Vendor has been engaged with the Gartner Peer Insights program since early 2017. Their biggest success is the implementation of evergreen sourcing strategies. Specifically, they involve their sales teams and align sourcing Gartner Peer Insights review to their sales teams KPI’s and objectives (tracked for each associate through unique review sourcing links for each salesperson). They also systematically ask every single customer for a review on Gartner Peer Insights via automated email at the close of all support tickets. This approach ensures there is a representative sampling of reviews on Gartner Peer Insights, they are not just cherry-picking their best references.
The CMO has a regular cadence with their Gartner Peer Insights Program Manager and meets bi-monthly to ensure the program is progressing in line with the CMO’s goals. Because this Vendor asks every single customer for a review, the reviews on the site are representative of their customers’ experience. This allows the CMO to pull learning (using Gartner role-based products) from the reviews itself, and sit at the table with the Executive Board to work through the learnings and actionable drivers from the Gartner Peer Insights data.
In spite of being in a highly competitive market and not having a large customer base, their presence is greater than other competitors and their product teams are developing quickly to ensure the happiness and success of their customers.

Success factors

• Established multiple methods of sourcing reviews to ensure representation on the Gartner Peer Insights site
• CMO is engaged with the Gartner Peer Insights to ensure goals are being met
• Leveraging Gartner role-based products to pull learnings from the reviews data to iterate quickly on product and services

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Success Story 9: Vendor increases customer satisfaction using review feedback

• Size – XX-Large
• Market – Communication
• Enagaged since – 2017

Synopsis

This specific large, well-known vendor was going through a period of financial instability. Internally, they decided to leverage Gartner Peer Insights to collect reviews from their customer base to highlight the customer experience at the vendor. Everytime a customer hit a milestone (example: 100 days usage), their system triggered an email outreach to ask them to submit a review.

Their reviews data was then used in their marketing efforts to revive their position within their industry. They put forth the peer perspective to gain the trust of their new and existing customers.

They also focused on product development opportunities by proactively reaching out to the customers who had submitted negative reviews. By analyzing these reviews via the Gartner for Product Teams deliverables, they realized the areas where the company needs to improve – support was an area that was highlighted as being less than the industry standard and were able to pinpoint this with factual information from their customers to their executives.

Success factors

• Used customer milestones to systematically reach their customers to ask for a review in a systematic, scalable way
• Analyzed the data from the reviews via Gartner role-based products to highlight where they were falling behind the competition to increase customer experience

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Success Story 10: Vendor receives 125+ reviews in a single day at their customer event

• Size – Medium
• Market – Cloud
• Enagaged since – 2017

Synopsis

When this vendors’ VP of Marketing saw vendors sourcing reviews at a recent Gartner Conference they attended, they realized how much more they should be doing to leverage the Gartner Peer Insights reviews.
They set a meeting with their Events Team and their Gartner Peer Insights Program Manager about 5 months out from their own customer event to ensure they could have a review sourcing booth at their event, and see that the appropriate number of laptops were available for their event size (1,500 customers and partners).
The Events team followed the Vendor Event in a Box packet closely and even made a custom review sourcing landing page for their event. They had 10 laptops, and 2 people staffing the booth at all times to interact with attendees and answer questions. They gave out fun thank you gifts, like stuffed animals and mini drones in exchange for a review. In a single day, they had over 125 reviews submitted (~10% attendees)

Success factors

• Planned well enough in advance to get the support of the Events Team in setting up a review sourcing booth at their customer event
• Provided fun swag in exchange for a review that spread via word of mouth, clear signage throughout the event, and push notifications onsite
• As partners are not allowed to submit reviews, their 2 people staffing the booth at all times were able to ensure that partners/employees did not submit reviews, only end-user customers

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Success Story 11: Vendor sources 300+ reviews yearly via onsite visits and industry events

• Size – Medium
• Market – Communication
• Enagaged since – 2017

Synopsis

This vendor had already been engaged with Capterra (part of the Gartner Digital Markets review platforms that focus on the small/mid-size buyer) so understood the value that review platforms can bring, but noticed that they were falling behind in their extremely saturated market on Gartner Peer Insights (focuses on the enterprise buyer). The CMO set time with their internal teams to discuss how to incorporate Gartner Peer Insights without over-extending the asks of their customers with multiple review platforms.
After meeting internally, the Customer Success Managers at this vendor decided to take ownership of the Gartner Peer Insights program, as they had direct access to the enterprise customers. They loop Communications, Social, and Analyst Relations when necessary and report their progress in their ratings, placement in the market up to the CMO on a quarterly basis. They also hold quarterly meetings with their Gartner Peer Insights Program Manager to ensure they are on track and understand all updates to the site.
This vendor has consistently sourced 300+ net new reviews year over year by sourcing reviews via onsite customer visits and at Gartner and industry events. They set up a specific booth area for writing reviews, and communicate to their customers via push notifications on their event app and in signage at the event asking customers to visit the booth to submit reviews. As an incentive, this vendor provides a $25 Starbucks gift card to each reviewer. These sourcing strategies help them solicit hundreds of new reviews each year.
This vendor has achieved the Customer’s Choice distinction in the past and always has a plan in place to source reviews for each round. They continue to leverage the Voice of the Customer Gartner research document with prospects and existing customers via email campaigns to drive validation in this saturated space against larger players.

Success factors

• Appropriate ownership with an internal team who owns the relationship with enterprise customers
• Integrating review sourcing into consistent strategies that are scalable, in this case at their own events, customer site visits, and industry events to avoid review fatigue
• Leverage the Voice of the Customer document for differentiation in a market that is saturated with thousands of reviews

Customer First Program

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Success Story 12: To stand out in an extremely competitive and saturated security market, this organization needed to maintain a high volume of reviews, and reassure prospective customers that the company’s reviews reflected the exact experience they would have, without any filters.

Approach

1. Organizational alignment 

• CMO brought the Customer First Program to the CSO and CEO to ensure commitment to representative reviews across the business.

2. Widget placement

• Listed Customers’ Choice badge and scrolling widget on the homepage.
• Placed a medium-sized widget in the middle of the company’s product page, with customer quotes

3. Programmatic sourcing strategies

• Asks customers to write a review at all customer events and webinars.
• Includes a pop-up asking for a review after a user logs in to the customer portal a certain number of times.
• Includes a link to read and write reviews in all customer-facing associates’ email signatures

Results

The organization plans to leverage the market benchmarking data within the Readership Analytics to get better insights into its market presence vs. competitors.
 
Leaders also plan to leverage the interest data and ranking in the market in monthly company wide sales updates, to motivate sales teams.
 

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Success Story 13: This organization’s 2020 customer success mission was to harness customer feedback in public forums to stay connected with how their customers feel, specifically in the areas of post-implementation and support. The Customer First Program aligned with the company’s commitment to listening to its customers, and growing from their feedback.

Approach

1. Organizational alignment 

• Customer marketing manager introduced the Customer First Program in a joint call with the Gartner Peer Insights Program Manager, the CMO, and the VP Customer Success.

2. Widget placement

• Listed rating and link to read reviews on a homepage carousel.
• Placed widget in the middle of the Customer Stories page.

3. Programmatic sourcing strategies

• All customer success managers (CSMs) include the ask for a review during the third call, and include a link to write the review in the follow-up email.
• Include the ask for a review in the monthly newsletter sent to all users, rotating the incentive and placement based on time of year.

Results

By committing to integrating the ask for a review into the CSMs’ talk tracks, this organization saw an increase in the number of published reviews.
 
Leaders leveraged the data in the reviews to adjust their support strategy, and used feedback from the reviews to create questions to ask during post-implementation to ensure customer satisfaction.
 
The organization plans to leverage its Readership Analytics data to better understand who their audience is on public review sites, and solicit reviews from customers similar to those who are reading their reviews. The company’s end goal is to ensure that prospective customers can see many reviews from people just like them.