A few months ago, I started a series of blog posts about why it’s important to make your marketing credible and how you could do it through thought leadership and creating valuable content. With the refined focus for Dude, It’s Marketing, this series of posts is more relevant than ever, as start-ups need credibility to secure their first few customers and begin to build a brand.
In this post, I’ll look at another way that start-ups can make their marketing more credible, which is to earn awards or endorsements from outside organizations. Outside or third party is obvious as you can’t just create an endorsement for yourself or give yourself an award. You’ll also note that I use the word earn, which is intentional, as there are clearly different types of awards and endorsements in terms of exposure and credibility.
I’ll address the elephant in the room first so we can move on: you can buy awards. There I said it and I’ll admit I’ve done it. I’m not sure how surprising this is to all of you, and I hope it isn’t, but I have seen shocked looks on some peoples faces when I tell them this is possible and that all awards are not created equal. Suffice to say, if you are trying to make your marketing credible, this is not the type of award I’m referring to and that’s why “earn” was used intentionally.
Winning an award that has been judged by a panel of industry experts, who are credible in their own right, can quickly raise the awareness of your company and provide strong third-party validation of your products or services. Even better, if the award is the result of a product review, or some other testing or validation was involved, that will increase the credibility of the award and the impact it will have on your marketing.
When you earn a respected award like these, you definitely want to promote them as they will increase your company’s credibility but make sure you do it in a subtle way. You want to get the word out but work with the third-party that granted the award so that you follow their guidelines as doing anything they don’t approve of will only undermine the award for you and others.
Awards aren’t the only way to make your marketing more credible. Endorsements and references from trusted third parties can be even better than the awards. Think of how much more credible your marketing will be when a well-respected industry analyst talks about how a specific problem needs to be solved and you have a solution. Or, think of an article in a trade publication that is written by an editor or a post in an industry blog that highlights the need for a solution similar to yours. In fact, I want to explore the media and analyst endorsements further in a subsequent blog post because I don’t want to get sidetracked here.
In the end, the very best kind of endorsement is from your customers. Every start-up needs to find their first one or two customers which are always the hardest but also absolutely crucial to success. Once you get someone interested you need to nurture this relationship to make sure the customer is always happy so they will act as a reference for other customers and hopefully provide a public endorsement in the form of a quote or a positive review on a web site.
Now I know every start-up wants to land the tier 1 customer or key influencer and have them issue a news release or do a customer testimonial but in the early days you can’t always just try and hit the grand slam home run. Start-ups are built by securing many smaller victories along the way. If you get the big win early, leverage it as best you can, but don’t wait for that.
In the early days, go after any customer, get your product installed and take whatever form of endorsement they will give you from answering a few questions from a prospect privately, to providing a quote, to writing a positive recommendation on a third-party site. Success breeds success and these small wins will lead to the big customer and testimonial.
Start-ups need these award and endorsements to make their marketing credible just like a prospective employee needs references. Companies want to go with the product or the person that they know someone else has recommended. Some award and endorsements are better than others and will vary by industry. Earn the ones that are respected and that you would be proud to show.
In this post, I’ll look at another way that start-ups can make their marketing more credible, which is to earn awards or endorsements from outside organizations. Outside or third party is obvious as you can’t just create an endorsement for yourself or give yourself an award. You’ll also note that I use the word earn, which is intentional, as there are clearly different types of awards and endorsements in terms of exposure and credibility.
I’ll address the elephant in the room first so we can move on: you can buy awards. There I said it and I’ll admit I’ve done it. I’m not sure how surprising this is to all of you, and I hope it isn’t, but I have seen shocked looks on some peoples faces when I tell them this is possible and that all awards are not created equal. Suffice to say, if you are trying to make your marketing credible, this is not the type of award I’m referring to and that’s why “earn” was used intentionally.
Winning an award that has been judged by a panel of industry experts, who are credible in their own right, can quickly raise the awareness of your company and provide strong third-party validation of your products or services. Even better, if the award is the result of a product review, or some other testing or validation was involved, that will increase the credibility of the award and the impact it will have on your marketing.
When you earn a respected award like these, you definitely want to promote them as they will increase your company’s credibility but make sure you do it in a subtle way. You want to get the word out but work with the third-party that granted the award so that you follow their guidelines as doing anything they don’t approve of will only undermine the award for you and others.
Awards aren’t the only way to make your marketing more credible. Endorsements and references from trusted third parties can be even better than the awards. Think of how much more credible your marketing will be when a well-respected industry analyst talks about how a specific problem needs to be solved and you have a solution. Or, think of an article in a trade publication that is written by an editor or a post in an industry blog that highlights the need for a solution similar to yours. In fact, I want to explore the media and analyst endorsements further in a subsequent blog post because I don’t want to get sidetracked here.
In the end, the very best kind of endorsement is from your customers. Every start-up needs to find their first one or two customers which are always the hardest but also absolutely crucial to success. Once you get someone interested you need to nurture this relationship to make sure the customer is always happy so they will act as a reference for other customers and hopefully provide a public endorsement in the form of a quote or a positive review on a web site.
Now I know every start-up wants to land the tier 1 customer or key influencer and have them issue a news release or do a customer testimonial but in the early days you can’t always just try and hit the grand slam home run. Start-ups are built by securing many smaller victories along the way. If you get the big win early, leverage it as best you can, but don’t wait for that.
In the early days, go after any customer, get your product installed and take whatever form of endorsement they will give you from answering a few questions from a prospect privately, to providing a quote, to writing a positive recommendation on a third-party site. Success breeds success and these small wins will lead to the big customer and testimonial.
Start-ups need these award and endorsements to make their marketing credible just like a prospective employee needs references. Companies want to go with the product or the person that they know someone else has recommended. Some award and endorsements are better than others and will vary by industry. Earn the ones that are respected and that you would be proud to show.
People have become cynical because of the companies and leaders who have lied to them.This has helped positively establish my product and my business in the minds of customers who are active online.Starting a blog for your small business is a way to not only improve credibility for your business, but to also bolster your search engine optimization and social media marketing.
Posted by: laptop sleeve | 01/06/2011 at 01:49 AM