This document discusses trends in customer reference marketing and peer-to-peer selling that professionals predict will occur in 2017. It includes statistics showing buyers rely more on peer recommendations than sales and marketing messages. Industry experts predict that in 2017, customer advocacy will play a bigger role in sales through account-based marketing. Customer experience and success programs will focus on making customer content easier to access and share in order to prove their impact on pipeline and growth.

1. Customer Reference Predictions

2. 2017 – The Year of the Customer
It’s almost 2017 – wow, 2016 went fast!
Like us, you’re probably wondering what’s
in store for the year ahead.
With all the emerging technology, strategies and
tactics to activate the voice of your customer, it can
feel overwhelming to know where to put your focus.
To help, we’ve compiled stats and opinions from
some of the top professionals in the industry on
what they think is on the customer marketing
horizon in the coming year.
Cheers to an amazing year!

3. Buyers Rely on Peers More Than Ever
B2B buyers had #TrustIssues in 2016.
They were skeptical of vendor sales and marketing messages and
began turning to their peers more than ever to help them cut
through the noise and make buying decisions.
That makes your existing customers – and more importantly their
advocacy and reference activities – more vital assets than ever
heading into 2017.

4. Research says so, too!
CXO’s make purchasing decisions 25% faster with a good reference. - IDC Research
The #1 thing that Buyers said influence their preference to purchase is
references… - Gartner
Effective customer evidence can reduce the sales cycle by 17-30% - Mainstay
Partners
Customers are 4x more likely to buy when referred by a friend. - Neilsen
53% of buyers rely on peer recommendations before making a purchase decision.
– DemandGen

5. Source: Inbound Conference, 2016

6. But forget what the
numbers say.
What do YOUR PEERS
think 2017 will hold?

7. “When you can tap into and leverage
the voice of the customer, that goes so
much farther than a salesperson giving
you their spiel. When you get to speak
to a peer about their experience with
the same product you’re evaluating,
there is so much more credibility,
power and value in that.”
Spencer Duncan
North American Reference
Coordinator, Ceridian
Peer-to-Peer Selling

8. “Prospects put more weight on social
proof from their peers than they do
anything else. When our customers
say, ‘I’ve used this product and I saved
X amount of money or time,’ it lends a
lot more credibility to our brand. This is
why advocate-authored content is
critical to reach buyers today.”
Chris Peltz
Customer Success
Operations Manager, HP
Software
Peer-to-Peer Selling

9. “Bottom line is this: people buy from
people they like. People they trust.
They’d rather hear the unbiased,
unfiltered story directly from their
peer’s perspective because they know
it doesn’t have marketing’s spin. That’s
the content buyers want now, and why
the voice of the customer is more
important than ever.”
Rae Harrison
Manager, Global Customer
Reference Program, Palo Alto
Networks
Peer-to-Peer Selling

10. “Your best salespeople are not on your
payroll. Your best salespeople are your
customers who are willing to advocate
on your behalf.”
Jill Rowley
Social Selling Evangelist
Peer-to-Peer Selling

11. “Peer influencers will be measured as
one of the highest contributors and
accelerators of qualified, interested
opportunities for B2B companies. As
attribution tracking gets better, we'll be
able to quantify just how important
peer influencers are, and how impactful
they are directly to your pipeline.”
Matt Heinz
President, Heinz Marketing
Tracking the Impact on Pipeline

12. “While the demand for references will
continue to rise, customer marketing
and reference programs will still
struggle with limited resources.
Customer programs will need to make
strategic decisions to ensure their
programs are providing value and
impact back to the business.”
Marie Ross
Founding Partner, Next Level
Customer Marketing
Prove the Impact of Customer Programs

13. “Customer marketers will become more
proactive and make Voice of the
Customer content easier to share,
easier to consume and easier to
measure.”
Robb Verna
Director, Customer 4 Life
Marketing, Greenway Health
Easy Access and Use of VOC Content

14. “With the realization that Account
Based Marketing can provide big
returns, it only makes sense that
customer reference or advocacy will
become all the more critical. If you
want to cross sell and up sell, you’ll
need a free-flowing inventory of happy
customers at the ready.”
Nancy Nardin
President, Smart Selling
Tools, Inc.
Integration with Account Based Marketing

15. “Customers are talking about stuff all
the time, on practically every social
channel available. Our job will be to
turn all that chatter into productive
dialogue. It’s not only about
understanding what’s working with our
customers, but also what’s NOT
working so we can have a conversation
with them and improve that to build a
happier, stronger relationship with
them.”
Mary Ketter
Global Customer Reference
Manager, JDA Software
Improve the Customer Experience

16. “In 2017, there will be a greater focus
on customer success and leveraging
references. I also foresee more social
media vehicles for identifying and
activating references.”
Abby Atkinson
Senior Manager, Customer
Reference Program, FireEye
Inc.
Increased Focus on Customer Success

17. “Customer programs will continue to
form new organizations, separate from
the sales and marketing umbrella.
These new organizations will have a
sole focus around customer success
and advocacy to help companies retain
customers in our new subscription-
based economy.”
Kristen Hofstede
Founding Partner, Next Level
Customer Marketing
New Departments Will Form

18. “The customer reference industry is
experiencing major growth as it gets
more recognition as part of purchasing
requirement due diligence and a driver
of sales for organizations.”
Barbara Thomas
Global Advocacy Marketing
Team Lead, Microsoft
Growth of Customer References

19. “Customer marketers will continue to
work on the integration of disparate
systems that provide customer
insights. Incorporating cross-functional
data helps provide a more
comprehensive view of the customer.” Rich Witmer
Director of Global Marketing,
Intergraph PP&M
Integration of Customer Technology

20. “In 2017, customer marketing will
continue its rise in b-to-b marketing
organizations as marketers leverage
their knowledge of customer needs to
support the achievement of retention,
growth and advocacy goals.” Lisa Nakano
Service Director, Customer
Engagement Strategies,
SiriusDecisions
Critical Path for Achieving Goals

21. “Even in the era of VC money and
unicorns, no business can survive if it
can’t keep customers happy, drive
adoption and usage, support customer
business objectives and ultimately
manage churn while increasing
retention and upsell.”
Sherrod Patching
VP Customer Success,
Leadspace
Customer Success Plays a Bigger Role

22. ”The strategic importance of customer
references will come to the forefront in
2017 as managers increasingly prove
reference efficacy: from impact on
demand creation, speed to close, ROI
payoff and more.” Jim Mooney
CEO, RO Innovation
Elevating the Role of Customer References

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About RO Innovation
RO Innovation is the world’s leading customer reference management platform
designed to enable peer-to-peer selling. No other solution simultaneously
activates the right content and voice of your customer at the right stage of the
buyer’s journey, while providing real-time analytics on new revenue driven by
customer advocacy. Learn more at www.ROInnovation.com.
Make sure you stay on top of these
trends…and any others that emerge in
2017!