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Publicizing who my customers are for validation

3 points by pupeno ↗ HN
We are getting a few big name companies, organizations and universities to buy our product. I'm talking about world wide known brands. I'd love to have a page showcasing the list of high profile customers, with their logos and so on, but of course, I can't use the logo without permission.

I asked a few and they all rejected it, many on the basis of existing policies they have to stop this from happening. We certainly could use the validation for PR. Any recommendations on how to approach customers for this? Is it legal for me to use the name of this customers, without their logos, without requesting approval?

My product is Screensaver Ninja (http://Screensaver.Ninja), which I though was going to popular amongst small companies and individuals but it turned out to be more popular with big brand companies.

4 comments

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dtournemille
Bake in a marketing clause in your contracts that are tied to a price discount. A marketing menu, if you will. The discount will more than pay for itself by helping to lure new business. Press release gets you a 10% discount. A press release plus and a case study gets you a 20% discount, so on and so forth. Or ask your customers what would motivate them.
michaelZejoop
I think this is a great response; it may come in handy for what I am up to.
codegeek
Reach out to your existing clients and politely ask them if you can include their recommendation on your marketing site. Don't say "we will use your logo". Instead say "we would love for you to give us a recommendation that we can display on our site". Heck, offer them a discount for a month to do this. Why not.

Also remember that some clients may actually be willing to do this to advertise their own brand but a few may not. The ones that are not interested, you can only try so much.

Very critical: Don't mess up relationships with existing clients. If they say no, don't use their logo or name anywhere on the site. You could get into trouble in many ways if you do that.

pupeno
Right now, the version of the product we are offering, is the traditional software licence in which they buy a copy. So, offering them a discount is almost always useless, as they already bought a copy. Once we launch the corp version with subscription we could start doing this https://screensaver.ninja/corp/

And I agree. I want to maintain my relationship with existing clients, specially ivy league universities, banks, etc.