G2U Edge Webinar Recap: Making the Most Out of Every Review

Hot off the release of our Fall Reports, Katlin Hess, Director of Customer Marketing at G2, and Anna Niles, Senior Product Marketing Manager at G2, led a G2U Edge webinar on how to get the most from every review. They focused on collecting more, using them to attract customers, and giving your marketing an edge. 

Whether you’re eyeing the top spot on the grid or looking to turn reviews into revenue, we’ve got you covered.

How to build a comprehensive review generation strategy

In terms of diversifying your review generation strategy, there are four best ways to go about it. 

• The basics: There are one-off point in time campaigns sent to a specific list of already engaged customers. These often occur quarterly just before the review deadline. 
• Set it and forget it: Take advantage of some of the specific tools we offer to make review generation even easier. These include custom APIs, Review Us widgets, integrations with Pendo and Delighted, and a Review Us button. These are great throughout customer touchpoints, like the log-in page of your website or in a customer newsletter. Once set up, this tactic generates reviews consistently. 
• In-person: Another great option is to prompt your most engaged customers and users in-person for reviews at events or conferences. An easy way to do so is with a G2 Review Booth. Asking your customers for reviews while they’re highly engaged with you is a great way to hear what they have to say.
• Across the lifecycle: Lastly, think about where, in the customer journey, that customers are  already highly engaged, where you want to capture their feedback, and where they’re most likely to give you feedback. Some opportunities in the lifecycle to ask for reviews could be after implementation, after a support ticket has been closed, or even in your email signature. 

A great customer example is Dreamforce 2023, where an exclusive hoodie was available on-site for customers who reviewed Salesforce Service Cloud or Field Service through the QR code.

How to make your reviews work for you

Once you have your review engine running… now what? 

To make the most out of your reviews, it’s important to focus on the customer voice. In fact, in our most recent buyer behavior report, 31% of buyers say review sites are the most consulted information source when making a software purchasing decision. And 80% of those buyers are using customer testimonials toward the beginning of their decision-making process, while 70% use them at the end.

"People really want to see what real customers are saying about you, at every stage in the buying journey, which is why reviews are so important."

Katlin Hess
Director of Customer Marketing, G2

Customer voice is a really great way to capture testimonials from customers, especially in a place where buyers are already going – like G2, where 90 million visitors check annually. 

When you have reviews from your customers, there are so many great ways to start putting them to work.

1. Reference Pages

Think of our Reference Pages as mini landing pages that are completely customizable and can be an extension of your brand, website, or even G2 profile to cater to whichever persona you’re trying to reach. 

These pages can display your best reviews from the buyers who love you most. It’s easy to create custom pages as an extension of your G2 Profile with:

• Curated reviews, crowd quotes, and reports
• Badges
• CTAs
• Branding and imagery

2. Crowd quotes

These highlight the most impactful parts of your reviews and tag them for easy sharing, both internally and externally. So, if a specific review is going on your website or being featured on an ad, you’re going to want to showcase higher-rated reviews.

These quotes can be pulled based on role, industry, and what the rating looks like.

3. Social media campaigns

Reviews can also be used in social media campaigns. We offer various interactive widgets to embed, from Grid® Reports to badges, that make it easy to show off just how customer feedback.

All you need to do is grab the code for the one you want, pass it to the team that manages your website, and they can get it added to whatever place you need. 

How to use rankings and reports in marketing materials to drive revenue

Whether it’s a widget to auto-populate ratings and reviews or the Grid® Report, some ways you can use them are:

• Website homepage
• Blog posts
• Product pages
• Landing pages
• Social media profiles
• Trade show booths
• Nurture campaigns

A great example of this is when Serena Williams celebrated and congratulated Luminous on their Summer 2024 G2 Badges on her Instagram story.

It’s also important to consider the various reports available on G2 that can be used in marketing materials. 

• G2 category Grid® Reports contain data collected from reviews submitted by real users, as well as vendor information aggregated from trusted online sources to compare products based on satisfaction and market presence scores. Whether you’re using the actual Grid® Report or the widget, it’s a great way to highlight your position on G2.
• G2 category Index Reports aggregate several data points collected from verified user reviews to provide a unique and focused score for evaluating a single factor in the software purchase process. Index reports highlight product success in usability, implementation, relationship, or results. 
• G2 Momentum Reports compare vendors based on a composite score that takes into account a product’s review growth, employee growth, growth in web traffic, and social growth over the last year. 
• G2 Compare Reports feature a side-by-side comparison of up to four competing products based on satisfaction ratings, and highlight the leading product for each metric.

How to leverage licensed content

Whether it’s campaign planning, press releases, landing pages, sales collateral, or even social sharing, there are a ton of ways teams can leverage licensed content from G2 to use across various channels.

• For marketing teams: G2 reports are a great tool for Marketing to use to leverage customer reviews and generate MQLs. Whether you have an in-house content marketing team or not, your marketers can depend on these quarterly reports and the data to use at their discretion. 
• For sales teams: G2 reports make selling easier by arming your sales team with competitive positioning data to help close deals already in the funnel.
• For product teams: Licensing a G2 report also allows your product development team access to data on what users are saying about you and your competitors, so you can make your product even better.

It’s always a good idea to be creative in how you use G2 data. A great example is below, where Vitally did a LinkedIn paid promotion featuring their G2 badge and specific G2 data.

As your team plans for each quarter regarding our Quarterly Reports, it’s important to think ahead on how your sales, marketing, and product team may want to use the data and share G2 content. 

To start thinking ahead of the curve, consider all of the places your customers are and where you can share this data. Some popular places we’ve seen are:

• Press releases
• Landing pages
• Ad campaigns
• Blogs
• Sales collateral
• Infographics

The sky's the limit for how you can use this licensed content, just be sure to think about it in advance! 

Get the most from your reviews

You and your team work hard to generate reviews on our platform, so taking the time to squeeze every drop of value from G2 badges and reports is an absolute must. And since our next round of reports will be here before you know it, now is the time to start making a plan for you to switch up your review generation strategy and find new and exciting ways to use this content.

Already a G2 customer and ready to take review generation to the next level? Reach out to your account rep for more tips and tricks!

Not a G2 customer? Learn more about review generation by booking a demo.