Not all customer references are created equally. The trick is not to focus on trying to turn all of your clients into super customer advocates (our research shows that only .5% of your customer base will participate in your most intensive marketing activities). 90% of customers are taken right off the top – prevented from contributing to named reference activities for legal, PR, company policy, and time constraints.
B2B marketers are used to thinking about the marketing and sales funnel, but this metaphor is also useful to apply to customer reference activities. By focusing resources on optimizing customer references based on where they reside in the B2B Customer Reference Funnel, you can make the most out of your customer reference pipeline.
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