Views on Reviews is a new series of interviews with B2B SaaS professionals who will provide a real-world perspective on what it’s like working on reviews. My ninth interview is with Nick Bennett, Director of Evangelism & Customer Marketing at Alyce.
Nick Bennett is the Director of Evangelism & Customer Marketing at Alyce, a corporate gifting platform for B2B marketing & sales.
He’s also the host of the podcast Rep Your Brand and advisor to several B2B SaaS companies such as Goldcast, Chili Piper, and Navattic.
Nick wrote perhaps the most viral LinkedIn post on the topic of reviews. At the time of writing, there were over 1,500 reactions and nearly 500 comments.
A seasoned field marketer, Nick’s known by his peers and colleagues as:
- …the glue that keeps Sales and Marketing operating as a team.
- …a creative and dedicated marketer
- …all around just a great guy!
Without further ado, here are Nick’s views on reviews.
1. I have to start with your viral LinkedIn post on how you drove 73 new G2 reviews in 2 days. Almost 500 comments and I can only guess how many DMs later. What did you take away from the response to this post?
Answer: There are lots of people that don’t understand how reviews work in B2B. Did you know that only 3% of people leave reviews so 97% have no idea how it all works, especially with B2B. People think that incentivizing for reviews is unethical, yet they don’t understand that you aren’t incentivizing someone to leave a positive review. You are asking for feedback, good or bad. Also, I realized that there are lots of trolls out there that attack you in the DM’s when you don’t go with their mindset.
2. What were some of your favourite top review generation tips that people shared in the comments on your post?
Answer: I really liked some of the tips where you move it to a monthly model and flow it across the entire quarter vs just waiting till the deadline to drive as many as you can because you forgot about it. David Kirkdorffer & Todd Kunsman both had some really great feedback and ideas around this.
You can see Todd Kunsman feedback and idea here (i.e. Todd’s comment on Nick’s viral post):
I’ll give you two good G2 tips, as someone who launched numerous campaigns (: Spread out your review campaigns, the reviews are weighted less over time. So older reviews count less to your score and impact reports. And second, always reply to feedback positive or negative.
It’s sort of just a race to get the most quality reviews, which I don’t necessarily love about software review sites, but there is a lot of valuable data and insights to gain still. Plus, that Chili Piper integration to book a meeting right from G2? Yeah, that’s solid.
– Todd Kunsman, Marketing Lead @ EveryoneSocial // Founder @ Remote Work Junkie // B2B & SaaS Marketing Advisor
You can see David Kirkdorffer’s feedback and idea in here (i.e. David’s comment on Nick’s viral post):
A few ideas to consider –
- You could do this every month.
- Using Marketo, you can build a suppression list of all the people who have already responded.
- You can resend a similar email to the folks who did not open your earlier email.
- When I look at G2 reviews, I notice when they were made. When so many cluster in the same month, I know it’s because of some kind of activity to drive reviews, and I become a little skeptical. So, now that you have a baseline for response rate, you can modify this process to send out less emails each month, but enough to get a few for a more continuous stream of reviews.
– David Kirkdorffer, VP | Director | Marketing | Demand Generation | B2B | SaaS | Cybersecurity | Fractional | 
I Help B2B Tech Companies Grow
3. While there were more lovers than haters on the post, it did bring some haters out of the woodwork. How would you sum up their objection to what you shared, and is there anything you wish the haters knew about the reality of today’s review generation process?
Answer: I would say people don’t understand how reviews work in B2B. They think it’s unethical. They think that you want to “pay” someone for a review. But you still need a great product to get that good review. You want feedback. I actually don’t mind bad reviews every once in a while because you know what you can work on to get better.
4. I gather that you see review sites are one source of information for a B2B SaaS buyer. What other sources do you think today’s B2B SaaS buyers should consider alongside user reviews on sites like G2?
Answer: So, first off, I don’t think someone should solely base their buying decisions on a review site. I think it’s part of it, but you need to do your due diligence. Talk to other customers, and do some back channelling in communities.
5. One of your predictions for 2022 was that Marketers would double down on community and leverage more than they did in 2021. There seems to be a quickly growing group of Marketers that see online business communities as a new source of buying information, such as simply asking the community for their feedback on a software product. What’s your view on the role of communities and getting user feedback to help make a buying decision?
Answer: I think communities play a huge role in how people buy software in today’s world. I would actually put more emphasis on that vs a review site if I am being honest with you. Look at how many communities are out there between Slack, Discord, Facebook, and other sites. The pandemic has accelerated communities and I think people trust their peers that they spend a lot of time interacting with in these communities. I know when I am looking for something, I go to a few key communities before even checking anywhere else or contacting a vendor.
6. As a very well-connected Marketer, when buying B2B software, if and how do you tap into your network to get “user reviews” directly from your network? For example, as a customer marketer at Alyce, let’s say you’re evaluating Influitive vs. Base.ai. It sounds like you turn to review sites and communities. Do you also directly ask people in your contact network what they think about Influitive and Base.ai?
Answer: I would say community for me also means my network. So, yeah, I’ll ask other customer marketers who’s opinions I trust what their thoughts are. 100%.
7. Gift cards are the prevailing choice of incentive for reviews in B2B SaaS. Why offer a gift that’s not a gift card?
Answer: I know people love gift cards, but are gift cards personal, relevant, and thoughtful? I think they might be 2 out of 3 in some cases. I would much rather lead with a personalized gift that I think also hits the rest of those buckets. With our platform, you have the power of choice to exchange or donate to a charity of your choice as well.
8. You’re a well-seasoned field marketer before switching to customer marketing. While you were in field marketing, if and how did you leverage user reviews? For example, did you use G2 Reference Pages? Or did you highlight reviews by your customer advocates in your field marketing in some other way?
Answer: I used reviews to drive middle and bottom-of-the-funnel deals to close. It’s just again, one piece of the larger puzzle, but they were always part of the strategy. I mean it is social proof after all and why listen to me say something when you have customers that are loyal users saying it.
Answer: We always did a huge campaign around G2 announcements. We didn’t do one for the Summer of 2022 and we don’t plan to do one this fall because of other strategic initiatves that are taking place. However, we did them because we wanted to make a splash vs the generic LinkedIn post saying we are G2 winners again. It’s catchy and makes you stop scrolling.
10. Your podcast, Rep Your Brand, is “for B2B marketers who are looking to build their career through a strong personal brand.” After interviewing dozens of experts on personal branding in B2B SaaS, what are your top tips for those looking to get started with personal brand building?
Answer: It really comes down to 3 things. 1) Consistency - You need to show up regularly. 2) Engaging - You can’t just post content. It’s a two-way street and you need to engage with others. 3) No hacks - There are no overnight hacks. It’s going to take months to be able to get traction and you can’t give up during that time.
Key Takeaways:
- Incentives are part of the B2B software review process to get more users to write reviews. That doesn’t mean people are paid to provide fake business software reviews. Unlike reviews on B2C review sites where the reviewers aren’t validated as users of the product they’re reviewing, reviews on the major B2B review sites validate that each reviewer is a product user, which combats fake reviews.
- Set up an always-on campaign to spread your review requests out so that reviews flow throughout the quarter instead of doing quarterly request blasts.
- Don’t base a B2B SaaS buying decision solely on the information you discover on review sites. It would help if you also did some back-channelling to talk to some of their customers and in online peer communities.
- Incentivize reviews with something personal, relevant, and thoughtful — beyond gift cards.
- Use reviews to drive middle and bottom-of-the-funnel deals to close.
Do you have follow-up questions for Nick? You can reach him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
You can listen to the Rep My Brand podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Motion.
To learn more about Alyce’s corporate gifting platform, visit alyce.com.
If you’d like to share your experience generating, leveraging, or measuring B2B SaaS reviews, please email me: joe@b2bsaasreviews.com
