Nowadays, we tend to look for and read reviews about almost anything, from restaurants to clothes to books. We've all used reviews to inform our buying decisions in some way.

Software buyers are no different. In fact, the stakes are much higher if a software purchase decision is wrong.

Loss in employee productivity, failure to meet business objectives, stakeholder dissatisfaction, unplanned implementation costs, and high switching costs are just some of the potential negative impacts stemming from a poor software purchase decision.

The range of business processes that can benefit from software as a service (SaaS) is immense, and it grows larger every day. Today's technology companies have, on average, more than 150 software applications, according to the Business at Work report from identity and access management company Okta.

The report adds that many industries, among them retail, professional services, insurance, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, and government, have made dramatic increases in software use. Companies of all sizes are using software to digitally transform their business and sell more of their products.

So many apps to manage and integrate means that selecting and purchasing software is perhaps the most important decision a company can make. Its impact on the business can be significant—positive or negative. That's why it should come as no surprise that today's software buyers want to be as informed as possible, and they often consult customer reviews when they are evaluating and selecting a new software partner.

Software provider marketers need to adapt their marketing methods to the new way of buying—which includes buyer reviews—to understand how to best reach more customers and ultimately sell more product.

So why and how should software providers use reviews in their marketing plan?

Understanding buyer reviews gives marketers a personalized account of the delights and challenges facing buyers as they navigate the complex considerations of their software purchase. Reviews also show marketers how a target audience evaluates software providers and how customers describe their experience with their provider of choice.

Marketers should not overlook the opportunities that customer reviews provide. Customers' valuable feedback can and should be integrated into the following five tactics.

1. Improving Market Position and Messaging

Marketers can learn first-hand which capabilities resonate the most with customers and which are their must-haves. They can also understand how competitors are perceived by real end-users and discover their unique differentiators.

Such customer and competitive insights can transform market positioning from subjective superlatives to words that create a feeling associated only with your brand and product.

2. Understanding the Mind of the Buyer

Buyers have a lot on their mind when making a purchase decision—things such as features, capabilities, cost, value, and software provider relationship. By gathering and analyzing reviews, marketers can evaluate the various dimensions of the buyer experience and uncover hard-to-find information about what might make customers not renew their software purchase.

Taking the time to understand the mind of the buyer shines a light on the relative importance and influence of various factors in the buyer's purchase decision.

3. Discovering Opportunities to Improve Your Product

By discovering what buyers think about the quality, breadth, and importance of features from competing software providers, marketers and product managers can make better decisions about where to invest in product development.

Using that information, marketers can learn what buyers think of the product strategies of providers, and how buyers perceive the rate of improvement and innovation from competing providers. They can find out whether customers feel supported by software providers in reaching their goals across integration, usability, implementation, customization, and training phases.