The ABM Approach Most Sales Reps Are Missing
If 92.4% of B2B buyers are influenced by customer reviews, why aren’t more revenue leaders using this feedback as a powerful sales tool?
There are golden nuggets of information hidden among the reviews plated with pandering. You just have to take the time to tell the difference between genuine customer responses and counterfeit claims.
In doing so, you can nearly 3x your monthly opportunities by discovering unrealized differentiators.
But you may be asking yourself, “How could a simple task such as reading reviews produce an exponential return?”
A sales rep at Martal Group developed an account-based marketing (ABM) process based on leveraging reviews for results. He has agreed to share the strategies that have taken him from mediocre metrics to ranking as a top-performer.
Not only will we go over his ABM approach, but we’ll also share some examples of messages that have doubled (and sometimes tripled) his booked sales appointments.
Reviewing the Reviews
Like most sales reps, he had followed the repeatable processes that serve as the foundation for any productive outbound sales campaign. Study the buyer personas, build a prospect list, launch multi-channel sequences, etc.
Expectations were high; response rates were low.
He tried every play in the book, from changing the sequences to dialing more numbers to increasing follow-up, but to no avail. Marginal improvements came with these familiar sales maneuvers; however, a knowledge gap between the sales rep and his prospects seemed too big to bridge.
While debating whether to make another call or send another email, He found himself utterly frustrated. More than anything, he needed insight from the users of these products and services.
So the sales rep took to G2, Capterra, and Clutch. There he discovered why he wasn’t resonating with his prospects’ pain.
“Oftentimes,” the sales rep pointed out, “Companies are so close to their products or services that it’s hard to express the value in a way that addresses the everyday struggles these users face.”
After deciding not just to skim through the reviews, he started to take notes of the “nuances” customers were discussing in their comments.
As he unpacked the problems of each competing product, a clearer picture of his prospects began to form. No longer were these people faceless, nameless buyer personas on a spreadsheet.
The sales rep recorded and absorbed all the information he could from the reviews and used the demographic data to match the pain points with the known potential buyers.
Then, he rebuilt the copy in hopes of scheduling an extra meeting or two a month.
Unexpectedly, the results from the sales rep’s reviewing the reviews experiment far exceeded past efforts. Within a few days of launching his revised campaign, he landed 5 sales meetings.
So what does this process look like?
As promised, let’s go over a few reviews and the copy he used to book appointments.
Differentiation in a Saturated Market
He started searching for answers on review platforms while campaigning for a telecommunications company. He knew the market was saturated. Finding a differentiating factor would be the key to adding value for prospective clients but could be challenging given the vast competitive landscape.
What he found was the myriad of providers in the telecom industry actually made it more difficult for businesses to select a reliable service. In other words, choices were paralyzing prospects. An aspect that is easily overlooked amid the ever-expanding list of features and benefits.
He was working with a telecom company that had a simple yet powerful solution for those prospects struggling to compile a shortlist of vendors.
Here’s how he positioned the telecommunication company’s competitive advantage.
Customer Review Snippet:
“We found lots of issues with integration, inexperienced partners, and software issues.”
The Differentiator:
Inexperienced telephony and communications partners can cause more problems than the actual technology platform they are re-selling.
The Copy:
“While working with clients like {company name} we’ve found that partnering with a reliable telecom provider is just as important as the platform and equipment you integrate. We not only discover new ways you can implement a more cost-effective communications solution but also help you choose the best provider based on your needs and service area.”
The sales rep found that he was able to increase the number of new meetings with this new copy from around 13 to over 20 per month.
Fill in the Gap for New Concepts
In our following example, we have a SaaS startup helping businesses tackle the increased complexity of managing hybrid workplaces.
For the past two years, tech companies have been racing to conquer the new challenges of employee collaboration. During his deep dive into online deliberations, the sales rep found that certain high-demand features were lacking among competitors.
He segmented the outbound campaigns based on company size, departments, and job titles to reach the users who have typically been left longing for customization.
Let’s see how he used the customer review below to write copy with a renewed perspective of the prospect’s pain. 
Customer Review Snippet:
“I’d like to further segment our hot desk spaces by pods and neighborhoods, helping our organization teams ensure they can sit and work together when they are on site.”
The Differentiator:
A remote workforce may be the new normal; however, there is still the need and value for in-person meetings and collaborations. How can an organization facilitate this efficiently and safely?
The Copy:
“Do you and your team find it hard to collaborate in a hybrid workforce environment? Our platform allows everyone at {company name} to coordinate in-person meetings based on when and where co-workers will be in the office.”
Because hybrid workforce platforms are just now scraping the surface of capabilities, it can be hard to express these concepts to organizations that recently embraced the new norm.
Often, with newer technologies such as this, Martal Group has experienced a slow but steady progression to business development.
Despite these hurdles, the sales rep secured 3 qualified sales meetings per week, surpassing the historical track record of 1 new meeting every 7-10 days.
Fishing for the Details
Most of the time, the differentiators are not obvious. It’s the small details or lack thereof that mean the most to buyers.
Take cybersecurity, for example.
You might think there’s not much room for improvement in the training aspect. Regulations that keep companies in compliance are quite unwavering. However, the sales rep found that focusing on the “how” and leaving out the “why” of cybersecurity laws created a void of knowledge for many professionals.
He was able to highlight the importance of upskilling cybersecurity teams with a more advanced understanding of the ethical and infrastructural implications to build a stronger value proposition.
Customer Review Snippet:
“I would like the platform to better help me understand the importance of adhering to ethical cyber security behaviors for risk mitigation and analysis.”
The Differentiator:
Cybersecurity professionals need a platform that helps improve their skills while also incorporating the “business” aspects of an enterprise cybersecurity program, such as audit, privacy, compliance, and risk management.
The Copy:
“Without a concrete understanding of why regulations exist, your team will struggle to remember important cybersecurity compliance requirements. Change the way your team views cybersecurity training with an intuitive platform that’s proven to increase memory retention.”
Straight away, the sales rep was able to produce 5 qualified meetings within the first 2 weeks of campaigning.
Conclusion
You can sift through the statistics and dig into the demographics, but there is simply no substitute for a customer’s honest opinion.
As we can see from the sales rep’s results, resonating with prospects sometimes requires us to empathetically read through reviews and understand what people are going through each day as they strive to meet objectives, expectations, and demands.
The best part is you don’t have to break the bank by buying intent data or hiring an expensive market research team. The information is readily available for all to see because, as humans, we can’t help but share our experiences.
