How to hack G2: Get your first 20 reviews as B2B SaaS

Social proof is the golden key to unlock growth in B2B SaaS. Getting reviews on comparison sites like G2 is one of the best way to build this trust.

Here is the EXACT process how we got 20 reviews for our B2B SaaS on G2 in 2 months with an average rating of 4.8/5. And how you can hack G2 to get organic reviews from your existing customers.

First, let's look into why getting reviews on a third-party site is a good idea to start with - and whether it can be the next big growth channel for your SaaS.

Social proof is where any modern SaaS prospect look before buying. For B2C it's alot about word-of-mouth and talking to friends, getting recommendations, etc. The same goes for B2B, but you also have some specific ways to get information about potentially helpful software to buy.

For example, prospects in B2B SaaS do research, discover, and decide what new products to buy via:

• Attending industry events and physical events

• Asking for tips in shared Slack channels, Facebook groups, and communities

• DM:ing specific friends and people in their network for tips

• Joining webinars where thought-leaders share how they work

• Asking industry peers on LinkedIn, HackerNews, or Reddit

• Reading reviews on comparison sites like G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, Tekpon, etc.

• Reading reviews on niche platforms like HubSpot marketplace, Zapier, etc.

• Exploring on-page stories, case studies, and testimonials

• Searching on Google, Reddit, Facebook groups, Quora, etc. for recommendations, similar use-cases, and transparent info

So, despite reading reviews on comparison sites might only be one of the ways people learn more about SaaS solutions. ALOT of buyers will look into third-party review sites as a way to validate your SaaS, or even find it. Case studies and good customer testimonials on your own website helps, but third-party ones from reputable sources typically weigh heavier - as they feel transparent and honest.

Also, not existing on review sites can be a red flag, even though the buyer got an initial tip from a friend or industry peer about a software. So it's a big part of validation despite initially being referred from somewhere else.

In short - getting reviews on comparison sites like G2 can be one of the best way to grow your B2B SaaS.

When I looked into scaling social proof, review sites and G2 was all quite a new area to me, and I did not find much data on how people did it online. So, here is some (hopefully) helpful advice from how we scaled from 0 to 20 reviews in two months, reaching to the top 30 webinar software, and managing to get 6 badges in the G2 Winter Report 2023. And while spending zero $$.

I have founded the B2B SaaS company Univid - a webinar platform to create engaging webinars in 60 seconds. 👇

We had built a great product with happy users, and a solid social proof section on our own website with quotes. But we needed more top-of-the-funnel exposure to get the word out there, and reach outside of Sweden and the Nordics, where we have our primary customer base.

Also, I read The Transparency Sale by Todd Caponi, that talks about the importance of transparency and social proof when scaling B2B SaaS. It resonated with me on a deep level. I have been a big advocate for pushing social proof since day 1 - as the main driver of growth when building a B2B SaaS, through our customer stories on our website, on social media, and in demos.

Todd's idea of "unexpected honesty" and working with reviews as a way to do this - was something I wanted to incorporate into our growth marketing mix.

We have users that love the product, so if we can funnel them into writing us reviews we could quite fast climb to the top for some wider international exposure and social proof.

We did not have any budget set aside for this. But, we understood that we would need to incentivize the users to write the review. Completing the review takes a few minutes of their precious time - and requires them to take active action on their end. Thus, we opted for finding ways to motivate the customer to complete the reviews, without offering them a monetary incentive. Also, we wanted it to feel genuine and not like a monetary exchange.

I have read a lot of companies work with incentives and other ways to get reviews. I wanted to work completely organically, with zero spend.

After some research, G2 seemed like the obvious first choice for us as B2B SaaS - as most people trust it and go there to do their research, it ranks high on the SERP on Google, and you can get some familiar badges to put on your website.

Asking the right person is key to getting more G2 reviews for your B2B SaaS. You will find this person amongst your customer base - as it has to be a user of your product for the review to be valid.

You typically would use NPS to gauge how satisfied a certain customer is with your product. You can also use NPS to know who to ask for a G2 review. Or use some more qualitative way, like simply calling the customer over phone to ask for feedback. If it feels like good timing and they tell you good stuff - go in for the ask.

Otherwise, 1. don't ask right away, 2. please them until they tell you good things the next time you call, 3. call again in 2 weeks.

The same really goes for any type of ask. Your social proof strategy or upselling strategy, determines on what asks to put the effort. But the method of figuring out who to ask is the same. This is what we typically divide our asks between for our B2B SaaS 👇

These are the types of asks we leverage to build social proof in our B2B SaaS. We ask happy customers either for a review, referral, or upsell.

An ask means you want to get something FROM the customer. Thus, you should have delivered major value before asking. Preferably, to the amount where the customer do not even feel like it's an ask anymore. This happens at the point of peak excitement. More on that below. 👇

When to ask for a review

Also, event though asking the right person at the wrong time can be devastating. Imagine the following two customers:

- Customer A: Just spent 30 minutes ripping their last bit of hair out discovering the 3rd bug in your SaaS this week. They have now been waiting on the live chat for your customer support to answer, and the CS also missed their first message in Intercom because of their daily 5 min coffee break. However, typically this customer is very happy with the service and a big advocate with almost maxed out NPS of 8.

- Customer B: Just spent 30 minutes experiencing the wow-factors that you know make lasting customers. They spent the last 5 minutes telling everyone at the office about the life changing experience of your SaaS. Overall they are happy with the product with a NPS of 7, but they are currently absolutely loving your product (at peak excitement). However, this excitement will fade a little over time.

So, despite Customer A being at a rough state 30 minutes with the product, they are big advocates over time and get even more value out of it than Customer B. But if your Customer Success asked them for a review, just as your CS got back from their unfortunately timed coffee break - the customer would feel like you were asking them to give you a million bucks.

But if you asked Customer B, they would feel like you are the rockstar they already had planned to introduce to their parents.. Or something along those lines at least!

The same customer is at different states of NPS in time. I typically refer to this as chronic vs. acute NPS.

• Chronic NPS: average NPS over time

• Acute NPS: current NPS at the time of asking

So, asking for the review at the right time (when acute NPS is high) is really important to the success of your social proof strategy. At peak excitement the acute NPS is as high or higher than the chronic one. That is the perfect time to ask.

And it goes without saying - your long term customer success' goal should be to keep chronic NPS at max levels across your customer base.

At Univid, our customers host webinars, so usage and “peak excitement” is quite closely connected to the events. There are some wow-factors in the on-boarding journey, before and after, but primarily going live for a big audience with lots of engagement, etc. you have quite strong emotions - happy (or not happy) afterwards.

Your customer success team (or person) is really important here - as well as usage data of your SaaS. For example, you can set up triggers for your known wow-factor functionality in your product - so you get a ping in Slack when they have been used.

This allows you to take action and reach out at the right time.

How to ask for a review

Therefore, we decided to run a super qualitative approach for collecting G2 reviews, where we reached out for feedback after, either calling and emailing. This helped getting awesome feedback and getting closer with our users.

Calling is awesome as you can get qualitative data, also most customers are stoked and positively surprised when you call to check in on them. I would recommend you do it regularly before, so it does not come out of the blue as a one-time occasion.

Emailing is also nice, as it is direct and gives the customer a clear message, that they can read when it suits their busy schedule.

EMAIL TEMPLATE TO ASK CUSTOMER FOR G2 REVIEW - B2B SAAS EDITION

Use this email template to ask your customers for a G2 review for your B2B SaaS. It's been proven with a 95% hit rate for our B2B SaaS. Make sure you ask at the right time and tailor the template to A. your users and B. the pay off or peak excitement they have experienced.

SUBJECT: Awesome first [PEAK_EXCITEMENT_RESULT] - quick question

Hi [FIRST_NAME],

Woo, such a nice first [PEAK_EXCITEMENT_RESULT]! Congrats on being up and running. Hope it has been a smooth ride thus far?

A quick question - I wanted to check if you could help us out with a review on the comparison site G2. We are currently at [CURRENT_NO_REVIEWS] reviews, with the team goal set for [CURRENT_NO_REVIEWS + 3] reviews before the week ends (3 left!) :)

It would help us a ton in our journey as a startup as we are [STARTUP_GOAL], being able to refer to what top [USER_ROLE] like yourself think about [SAAS_PRODUCT]. It takes max 2 min to add the review.

Would this be OK? Happy to drop you the link in that case!

Ps. I'm really happy to have you guys onboard. We also just onboarded [OTHER_CUSTOMER] this week - and I am now working day and night on taking [SAAS_PRODUCT] international.

Best regards,

Then, we mentioned the WHY - our international expansion, and exactly HOW much their input would mean in terms of getting to our current subgoal of 5, 10, 15 reviews, etc. We built a hit list in an Excel sheet, and followed up, bumping a few ones that did not fill it out right away. But got a 95% hit rate of users that we contacted that dropped us a review.

Doing this quite actively - and making it a team goal we tracked and celebrated, meant we quickly got some pretty fun results. We followed our progress closely in Slack and on our Friday meetings.

These were the results we got in 60 days:

• Amongst top 30 webinar software on G2

• Reaching the first page on G2 for webinar software

• Entering the G2 grid

• Average of 4.8 / 5 rating

• 6 badges in the G2 Winter 2023 Report

  • High Performer x3

  • Best Support

  • Easiest To Do Business With

  • Users Love Us

We are now beyond 35 reviews, and excited to follow how our pipeline or growth is affected going forward. It’s been excellent social proof to use in our funnel - from outreach, to demo, and pushing deals forward. Also, G2 helps in getting exposure for new prospects in the market for buying B2B SaaS solutions.

Proof: If you want to check us out at G2, feel free to: https://www.g2.com/products/univid/reviews