January Office Hours: Driving Growth with G2

With the new year comes a refocus on what’s working and what needs improvement. And maybe after some examination, you find that trying something new is in order?

Well, if you’re looking to make some new moves with G2, this Office Hours is here to help fuel your 2024.

Robin Izsak-Tseng, Katlin Hess, and Rachel Gianfredi, leaders from different functions of the G2 marketing team, give their unique points of view on the most important things you can implement right now to maximize your use of G2. Together, they explore how integrating customer feedback, leveraging Buyer Intent data, and optimizing marketing efforts can positively impact your business.

We’ve condensed all their collective wisdom into this handy blog (and included timestamps) for your future reference. These are our top 5 moves that you should make in G2 to power growth in 2024.

Implementing an Always-On Review Generation Strategy (5:25)

Katlin, our head of customer marketing, starts off by discussing the four pillars of review collection:

Establishing a continuous, always-on strategy for gathering reviews is crucial. Katlin emphasizes the importance of capturing a holistic view of your product or service by soliciting feedback from a broad customer base, not just your NPS 9 and 10s.

After all, 85% of consumers consider reviews more than three months old to be irrelevant.

Additionally, responding to reviews helps you build stronger relationships with your current customers and shows your prospects that you care and are actively listening to feedback about your product.

She then outlines practical steps for diversifying your review collection methods – expanding beyond the typical one-off review campaign. There are various strategies for continuous review collection, like set-it-and-forget-it tactics such as in-app prompts or in-person connections through our Review Booths.

We know that sometimes it can be hard to know when to ask for reviews. Katlin shares some out-of-the-box places to implement review asks, including at renewal or QBR, after a support ticket, on your sign-in screen, and in your email signature.

Katlin also shares two additional ways to score big review wins – through review accelerators via in-app prompts and G2’s “Review Us” button.

Getting started with in-app prompts is easy. G2 offers three options for in-app asks – via widgets, integrations, or APIs. Highlights from our customers who have implemented these methods include 2x more reviews through our Pendo, Medallia, Delighted, and HubSpot integrations and a 10-30% increase in conversion due to reduced clicks and friction, powered by our API.

However, if you feel like you want to dip your toe in the review collection pond today, an easy solution is our “Review Us” button. It can be put on any web or landing page and allows you to capture immediate feedback within the context of your product or website.

Robin also reminds us that a great way to incentivize reviewers while giving back to the community is through G2 Gives. G2 Gives allows you to solicit reviews where each one will trigger a $10 donation to the charity of your choice.

Creative ways to use G2 Gives include choosing relevant holidays or events, for example, during Black History Month, and setting up your favorite charity as the recipient of the donations.

Taking these approaches not only ensures your reviews are current and relevant but also broadens the scope of genuine customer experiences showcased on your G2 profile.

Building Segments and Refining Targets with Buyer Intent (14:14)

Robin, G2’s VP of Revenue Marketing, shares tip number two, centered around the power of G2’s intent data. She starts off by reminding us what powers G2 Buyer Intent – the over 90 million visitors a year to G2.com. G2 Buyer Intent allows businesses to see who is actively researching their products or services, category, and even competitors.

This invaluable data can fuel targeted marketing campaigns and enable sales teams to prioritize outreach to prospects showing a keen interest.

“There should be no such thing as cold outreach anymore. It's 2024, and intent data can show us who's looking on G2 for solutions like yours.” 

-Robin Izsak-Tseng

VP of Revenue Marketing, G2

Robin shares a few plays for streamlining the use of G2 intent data. First, G2 offers a seamless integration of G2's Buyer Intent data with LinkedIn advertising as a strategic move for businesses already investing in the platform. This integration, described as a “no-brainer” by Robin, allows for the retargeting of specific personas showing interest in your products on G2.

Setting up this integration facilitates real-time retargeting efforts on LinkedIn, enhancing the effectiveness of ABM strategies and paid advertising campaigns.

A second example Robin shares is using Buyer Intent data to refine lead scoring within tools like HubSpot or Marketo. This integration also extends to platforms like Salesloft and Outreach, enabling more targeted outreach efforts from sales and business development representatives.

At G2, we like to say we “drink our own champagne,” and Robin highlights how we leverage the G2 and Slack integration internally. The integration shows real-time signals of Buyer Intent within Slack, allowing your sales team to reach out to warm leads.

Another strategic advantage of utilizing G2 Buyer Intent to monitor customer behavior is the identification of potential churn risks and upsell opportunities. By observing customers researching competitors on G2, businesses can proactively engage in conversations to mitigate risks or go after opportunities.

By integrating Buyer Intent data into your CRM and marketing platforms, you can tailor your messaging to meet the specific needs and interests of potential buyers, making your outreach efforts more effective and efficient.

Measure and Drive Consistent Success with Integrations (24:27)

Robin explains that it’s very difficult to have a conversation about being successful with G2 without mentioning integrations. She and Rachel, G2’s Principal Partner Marketer, walk us through some of those key integrations.

Robin shares her screen and shows what the Slack integration looks like, and how to see a company’s Buyer Intent data. She then looks at a specific company that compares one of our products to one of our competitors and shows their journey on G2.

The best part about using the Slack integration and following the buyer’s journey is that it allows you to send over warm leads to sales to start a conversation.

Additionally, leveraging G2’s integrations can streamline your workflows and enhance your marketing and sales strategies. This not only saves time but also ensures that your teams have access to the latest data to inform their outreach and strategies.

Robin also notes that she was able to set up these integrations herself, without the help of our marketing operations team. The process is easy; anyone who has admin access to my.g2 can set up the integrations.

Rachel further explains how integral integrations are to your G2 experience.

“At the end of the day, G2 is a workflow tool which means it's only as powerful as the workflows it's applied to.”

-Rachel Gianfredi

Principal Product Marketer

She shows an overview of the G2 integration ecosystem, which can be found at our Partner Hub, to demonstrate the variety of tools that we integrate with.

A valuable tip she offers is that if it’s difficult to get buy-in from other teams, integrations can be an amazing way for you to put this data in front of them and have it show up in some of the tools that they are living in all day long.

For example, turning on the Gong integration allows your sales teams to start seeing active deals that they're working on and touchpoints where an active opportunity is visiting G2. This is a dynamic capability that can further enable your sales team to close more deals.

Rachel also calls attention to our often-overlooked review syndication network. This is where reviews from G2 are automatically populated in the AWS Marketplace, Microsoft Azure, and many other influential websites we partner with.

These syndicated reviews can reach millions of more buyers by showing up in these spaces. No review software works harder for you than a G2 review because it shows up on more than G2.com.

Rachel then demos how to set up the backend of the Slack integration and the ease of setup. She reviews the various filters and fields you can narrow down on the companies that appear. This is especially useful for sales, where they can zero in on their territory, industry, and company size.

Making Your Reviews Work Harder for You (47:59)

A lot of times, we think about reviews as a marketing or customer marketing activity when it really should be an all-company activity.

Katlin goes over the pathways to share reviews internally (both positive and negative) and gives examples of teams that would find them helpful and interesting.

These include customer service because some reviews focus on the quality of customer service they received and documentation to share or update your documentation to help users understand how to work with your product.

Facilitating these internal conversations about reviews helps to build a culture that embraces feedback and review collection.

But beyond collecting reviews, it's essential to actively utilize this content across your marketing channels, such as social media, blog posts, and landing pages.

“There's nothing more valuable than the voice of your customers, and with your G2 review content, it's not a curated case study or testimonial it's actual feedback that was left publicly on an authenticated source.”

- Katlin Hess

Director of Customer Marketing

An unsung hero in my.G2 is references from reviews. Every time someone leaves a review, there is an additional question that asks if they would be willing to be a reference for this company. The reviewer checks that box, and on the backend in my.G2, you can see all of these references available.

From there, you can download a CSV with their email addresses and reach out to those customers. They’re an engaged and willing group who you can utilize to build advocacy programs or develop customer stories.

Katlin also discusses Reference Pages and their usefulness in narrowing down reviews based on firmographic data. Let’s say you’re looking for reviews from an enterprise account in the finance industry. With Reference Pages, you’re able to find those reviews and create a profile page based on them.

These Reference Pages are great enablement tools and can be used in one-to-one conversations, landing pages, and paid campaigns.

From featuring glowing testimonials on your website to addressing constructive feedback internally, each review offers an opportunity to boost your brand's credibility and improve your offerings.

Tracking Attribution and Measuring Impact (55:07)

Finally, Robin goes over a key feature called Track My Prospects that shows how much traffic is going to your G2 page and if anyone goes back to your website from there.

She also suggests creating a simple landing page that’s receiving only traffic from G2 to push people who are comparing your solution to a competitor. Those are quality leads and should be reached out to.

Understanding the ROI of your G2 activities is crucial for justifying further investment and optimizing your strategy. By using Track My Prospects, you can find how prospects interact with your G2 content and gain clear insights into the effectiveness of your efforts.

2024: Your Year of Growth

As we look ahead to the rest of 2024, these five strategic moves on G2 present a comprehensive approach to not just having a product on our platform, but thriving.

By embracing continuous review collection, leveraging Buyer Intent data, integrating G2 with your existing tools, maximizing the value of your reviews, and tracking your success, you can take your business to the next level.

Here's to a successful year of using G2 to its fullest potential!

Ready to take your G2 game to the next level in 2024? Learn how G2 Buyer Intent can give you crucial insights and help you take the action you need to maximize your growth.