Reviews are eating the software world.

90% of buyers are more likely to convert after reading reviews. Product and peer reviews provide powerful and authentic insights into driving purchases, gaining visibility, and offering unique information to prospective buyers.

Investing and prioritizing in building a community centered around user-generated content, especially reviews, helps new audiences learn more about the brand and its offerings. When they hear from real users, they find it easier to place their trust in what they’re saying about the company.

Online reviews are key to helping customers understand what you value, the purchase journey, and how they can be successful business users.

G2 is the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace. With over 60 million annual buyers coming to G2, it’s no surprise that our data on software buyers looking at your product, category, and competitors makes for effective sales solutions, marketing messaging, and customer success communication.

Think of G2 as giving your business a double bonus: one for your product to get noticed and gain visibility through profiles across more than 1,500 software categories, and the second for prospective buyers to read product reviews, engage with the company, and convert into your customers.

Why should my company care about being on G2?

If you find yourself asking this question, here’s another question: why should buyers care about you?

Software buyers worldwide trust G2 to help them choose the right solutions for their business needs. With more than 1,756,700+ (that’s a lot) authentic user reviews, G2 is THE place where people can discover, review, and manage their software.

About 90% of all buyers are more likely to make a purchase after reading a review and hearing from a peer. At G2, our mission is to make trust a central part of the digital transformation our world is going through and will continue to grow.

Our data provides buyers with better guidance in the form of reviews, technological research, and comparative studies to ensure they avoid the inherent risks of buying business technology.

For sellers, G2 offers you more than a million pairs of eyes monthly to help you gain visibility in your software category. G2 allows you to establish a strong market profile, collect real user reviews, automate review generation, leverage buyer intent signals, and access competitive insights.

With G2, SaaS companies can connect with buyers directly and engage in conversations that help guide them through the sales funnel and make the right purchase decisions.

You can also discover accounts looking for your product and related competitors to ensure you capture their attention. G2 Marketing Solutions is the perfect addition to your existing marketing toolkit to accelerate deals and market your product in a smarter way.

Why software brands should be on G2:

• Gain buyer trust in their software purchase journey.
• Create a community for learning through peer-to-peer reviews.
• Make data-driven decisions through reviews and technological research.
• Get increased visibility over products and services as a vendor.
• Engage with buyers to move them through the sales funnel for greater conversions.

How do I get my free profile optimized and set up?

Now that you’ve hopefully been convinced about why having a G2 profile is a business asset, let’s get into how you can set up a profile that stands out. Follow this step-by-step guide with best practices to optimize your product page and leverage user reviews to boost your sales pipeline and online brand reputation.

Step 1: Update your profile

Buyers that come to G2 are “ready to buy”. On G2, they look for product information and positioning and often compare multiple products in the same category. To help them understand your offering, the first step is to update profile details as comprehensively and accurately as possible.

Product information

Consider this your holy grail to potential buyers. Ensure that all the information in this section is up-to-date and factually correct.

• Product logos: Your logo is your brand’s first impression on a potential customer and can differentiate you from your competitors. Use a product logo easily recognized by G2 users and avoid logos with text as they will appear small on Grid Reports.

• Product description: This section should give your audience a deep dive into your company’s background and product. Again, ensure that all profile details are thorough and accurate, so visitors fully understand your solution.

  We recommend writing three short paragraphs detailing basic information (company name, location, size, etc.), the product’s key features and functionalities, and the software’s primary use case that outlines the problem it solves for users.

• Additional information: You can add more details about your product and mention information such as the type of software, languages your product supports, external community links, and product facets that give you a competitive edge.

• Product images: Pictures speak louder than words. Add up to six screenshots of your product so visitors can better understand how they can use it. The various file types supported for product images are .png, .jpg, and GIFs smaller than 5 MB.

Lead emails

Any G2 vendor receives up to 4 leads/month on the free plan. You can see 4 buyers from G2 who have viewed or compared your product with a competitor. To get these leads to the right POC and reduce response time, it is essential to update the “lead email.”

Ensure to configure the email addresses of the employees who will receive lead alerts regarding account-level data.

As a quick refresher, an account is an organization actively researching G2, and information such as company name, industry, and geographical location count as account-level details. With a free profile, you are eligible to receive 4 free account-level leads (woohoo!).

Discussions

This space allows buyers to ask questions about using a product, its features, and best practices. The discussion platform is also a way for users to bring up specific use cases of the solution to help them make a purchase decision and move down the sales funnel.

We recommend staying engaged with buyers as the conversations are not only helpful in building customer relationships but also help with SEO. Frequently asked questions can be picked up by Google in search results under the “People Also Ask” section.

Step 2: Update features and pricing

A product is nothing without its features –  quite literally. Knowing a software’s capabilities provides visitors on G2 with cues about how it will benefit them.

Similarly, equipping users with pricing information helps them define the product’s value and gauge whether it is a tool they want to invest in. For vendors, it is also a way of showing transparency and gaining buyer trust.

Features

Information regarding features helps G2 categorize your product correctly and direct relevant visitors to your profile. Details on product features can also aid reviewers when considering different solutions.

When providing details for features, ensure that you mark the level or pricing plan at which a feature is offered. If your product is part of a category that doesn’t show product features, worry not – our research team fleshes out all categories to add questions that users may have regarding product features.

Pricing

A company’s pricing options can affect the type and volume of customers, the frequency with which existing customers re-purchase products, the ease with which a business grows, and the ability to form long-term customer relationships.

Here are some best practices while adding pricing information to your G2 profile:

• Add up to five pricing plans (if applicable) to outline details for features offered with every package.
• Explain how your pricing and packaging differ from competitors in the same space.
• Let buyers know of any free trials you may offer, as that information will appear below the product’s pricing table and on G2 Compare pages.
• Inform visitors if you do not disclose pricing information publicly and write ‘Request a Custom Quote’ next to the respective plan.

Step 3: Run review campaigns

After you’ve set up your G2 profile, it’s about time to start collecting user reviews. The best place to start is with people who know and love you – AKA your existing customers. Once you’ve reached out to them and have gotten your first few customer reviews, create a review collection strategy to drive the impact of online reviews in the long run.

It is important to remember that your review generation strategy must always be on top of mind for your customer success and marketing team.

While it can be tempting to forget about collecting user reviews once you feel you’ve hit a solid number, automating the process with G2 Review Generation can help you continuously collect customer quotes and testimonials. Leverage this information for your website and social platforms to connect with potential buyers.

Ensure that your review collection plan has a regular review assessment to continue working the power of social proof, gauge user sentiment, and inform value propositions for your product development processes.

What benefits do I get from having a free G2 profile?

There are nothing but benefits to claiming a free G2 profile. But if you’re still unsure, let me elaborate on its impact on increasing brand awareness, understanding customer sentiment, and capturing buyer demand.

Elevate brand awareness

Having a G2 profile gets you noticed by buyers who visit G2 to research their next software purchase. Simply put, buyers can’t find you on G2 unless you have a profile.

When in-market buyers visit your G2 profile, you increase your chances of selling software to them by showcasing your user testimonials and product features.

User reviews generated on G2 highlight important product information, brand assets, and content to educate and inform buyers about your offering. All of this eventually works towards establishing and maintaining an online reputation.

Encourage brand advocacy

One of my favorite parts about using SaaS review sites, besides better product visibility and building trust with customers, is that they help identify people who adore your brand. Identifying your product advocates and customer community members is essential to relationship building when responding to reviews and engaging in interactions.

G2 profiles also serve as a tool to cultivate a user community, answer product questions, and participate in discussions simultaneously. It acts as a place to engage in customer-company conversations and strengthen rapport.

Refine sales and marketing

Being noticed through your G2 profile is a great first step, but that’s just what it is: the first step. Identifying and engaging with potential buyers is the next step to capitalizing on new sales opportunities.

Leveraging G2 Buyer Intent data drives sales and marketing revenue to move down the funnel and take decisions in their research for new software purchases.

Intent data provides critical business insights and allows sales and marketing to:

• Source contact information
• Identify in-market buyers
• Craft personalized messages
• Keep customer pulse to reduce potential churn

Drive product innovation

An underrated benefit of collecting and analyzing user reviews is its impact on a business’s product ideation and feature prioritization activities.

Customer needs and wants can most directly be gauged by reading their reviews concerning product functionalities and capabilities… or the lack of them. When you notice many people mentioning a specific capability they want or see in the current product, it serves as important user feedback.

An active presence on a software review site like G2 provides opportunities to understand functionality gaps and learn trends in the industry. This data can essentially guide your next big product idea and smart growth.

Happiness is: free stuff

People who say driving revenue and marketing pipeline through customer reviews is easier said than done haven’t leveraged G2. It is as simple as it sounds – claim your profile, start collecting reviews and get your product in front of millions of prospective buyers.

So what are you waiting for? Claim your free G2 profile today!