While there’s far more research out there about the impact of online reviews on B2C companies, they’re still a powerful force in the world of B2B. Think about it: In a digital world where increasing numbers of people are shopping online, they can’t touch or feel a product for themselves. Instead, they rely on online reviews to be their eyes and ears. Truthfully, how much more likely are you to buy a product from Amazon if it has thousands of glowing reviews? The answer is probably a lot—and the same goes for B2B buyers.
According to research from G2, a leader in software reviews, 92% of B2B buyers are more likely to make a purchase after reading a trusted review. A further 67% of B2B buyers admit that online reviews from peers are an important part of the buying process…but just how important? Online reviews can influence B2B purchasing decisions at any stage, for any type of product.
Some specific points for you to consider:
Online reviews affect your search engine ranking. Before a B2B buyer reaches out to your company, they’ve already gone on a long journey. A Corporate Executive Board survey found that customers complete nearly 60% of a purchasing decision before they have a single conversation with a supplier. Part of this includes reading online reviews, which are actually an important search metric. As demonstrated by Moz, Google’s search algorithm factors in:
- The quantity of native and third-party reviews;
- The type of reviews and the authority of the third-party review sites;
- The keywords in the reviews;
- The velocity of reviews.
While it’s by no means the largest factor, some review categories do rank above others like mobile responsiveness, inbound links and search engine click-through rates. Negative reviews can, in theory, bump down your rank, but this isn’t the most important takeaway. The main takeaway is that online reviews are instrumental to the early stages of the sales funnel, whether that’s buyers initially searching for certain products and services within your industry or investigating your company, specifically.
B2B buyers actually like negative reviews. While nobody wants to make a purchase from a company that has an overwhelming number of negative reviews, B2B buyers do actually want to read some negative reviews to get a full grasp of the product they’re purchasing. Completely positive reviews don’t often tell the whole story, and buyers are already well aware that no product is perfect. In fact, according to a G2 study, 72% of buyers say negative reviews provide depth and insight to a product. About 40% believe they help build credibility. Overall, most buyers want to see a mix of positive and negative reviews
Showing online reviews alongside high-priced products can massively boost conversion rates. B2B buying is different from B2C buying largely because, excluding luxury items or vehicles, B2B products are very expensive. Reviews don’t matter as much when you’re buying a $30 piece of consumer tech as they do when you’re buying, say, tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of enterprise software.
The bigger the investment, the more wary buyers will be if they can’t find online reviews about a company. A great way to mitigate this is to put online reviews alongside your products. Research has shown that this move increases conversion rates of lower-priced products by 190% and higher-priced products by 380%.
A one-star increase in your rating can increase revenue by nearly 10%. Positive online reviews definitely help drive conversions, but how much? According to a Harvard Business School study of independent restaurants, an added star on a service like Yelp increased revenue by between 5% and 9%. Of course, this study had a narrow scope: It was one industry in the B2C realm. Nevertheless, we know that positive reviews help B2B businesses up to a certain point.
According to Spiegel Research Center, reviews from verified buyers, who are far more likely to give four- and five-star ratings, can improve the odds of a purchase by 15%. Anonymous buyers, who are more apt to give one- and two-star ratings, are seen as far less credible. Overall, too many stars can actually hurt your bottom line. Purchase likelihood peaks at ratings in the 4.0 to 4.7 range, then starts to decrease as ratings approach 5.0. In this sense, some things can seem too good to be true.
Online reviews speed up the B2B sales funnel. At the end of the day, online reviews don’t just help B2B businesses make sales—they help B2B businesses make sales faster. The B2B sales funnel is generally a lot longer than the B2C funnel. People can impulse purchase a new blender, but there aren’t too many businesses (that are, at the very least, still in business) who’d impulse buy hundreds of thousands of dollars of trade-specific machinery, for example.
The B2B sales funnel takes a lot of persuasion at every stage, but online reviews can help speed this up. Think about it: A company is more likely to buy your product if another, like-minded company says it will solve a key problem. All the product demos in the world can’t function as the same kind of social proof. They don’t have to guess about whether it will work; they know it will.
For this reason, online reviews should be an integral part of a comprehensive B2B marketing plan, and sometimes all it takes is a little incentive to push customers to leave their thoughts.
