Welcome to another View on Reviews interview!
Today, we’re chatting with the “Queen of Themed Review Campaigns,” Alexie Glover (or the Queen’s collaborator, if you ask her.)
She’s one of the most helpful customer marketing and advocacy professionals in answering her peers’ questions in communities like CMA Weekly.
She’s earned some impressive accolades—Top 100 in CMA for 2023 and 2024 and a 2023 Influitive Fearless Finalist.
As the Co-Founder and Marketing Consultant at Frank Advocacy, and a Customer Marketing & Advocacy Consultant at Porter Consulting, Alexie knows how to deliver.
Whether you’re looking to kickstart a new program, prove your current one’s worth, or juggle a growing workload, Alexie can be your go-to.
Here are her views on reviews 🤩:
My Interview with Frank Advocacy Co-Founder, Alexie Glover
As a consultant, you work with a number of companies on customer marketing and review generation campaigns. Can you tell us a little about the types of companies you’ve typically worked with?
Alexie: I’ve had the pleasure of supporting a number of different companies in my capacity as a customer marketing consultant.
Primarily, we support B2B technology companies (big and small). Those companies offer diverse products and services, such as contact center as a service (CCaaS), software as a service (SaaS), and content management service (CMS).
From a customer marketing perspective, these teams can be robust, with a full team supporting the customer marketing function, or they can be smaller or emerging, with only one or two team members or just a consultant carrying the function.
The one constant in my work as a consultant is that there are no constants 🙃
What are some of your favourite themed review campaigns? It looks like you’ve run some of the most interesting ones around!
Alexie: I love a themed campaign! I need to give credit to my colleague Brittany Busa, who truly is the queen of themed review campaigns. She’s been very inspiring with her creativity and it’s a pleasure to riff off of new ideas with her!
I’ve had the amazing opportunity to support a number of clients who are creative and open to experimenting with their review campaigns. I’ve only been able to succeed in the campaigns I’ve created because of their trust in me and my team.
Together, with our clients, we’ve recently run a few very fun campaigns:
Ugly Holiday Sweater:
This campaign relies on a fun holiday swag offering. In this instance, a branded ugly holiday sweater. We invited customers to leave a review on our chosen platforms, in this instance G2 and TrustRadius. Customers were asked to provide “proof” of their review submission by sending us a screenshot of the confirmation message from the review site. Those customers were then entered into a giveaway to win one of a few sweaters. This was in addition to any reward from the vendor themself, so a customer could cash in on both the gift card and the grand prize—an added bonus considering how tight cash can be around the holidays.
Valentine’s Day:
This campaign theme feels pretty self-explanatory. It’s a holiday celebrating love and we’re asking our customers to spread the love in a review! The great thing about Valentine’s Day is that it opens up a lot of fun rewards. For this campaign, we ran with the classic gift card (but used messaging that invited people to purchase a sweet treat for themselves). Had our client had a gifting platform I would have looked at something like a Sugarwish or cookie option.
Since launching the Valentine’s Day campaign, we’ve sourced 60+ new G2 reviews and 75+ new reviews across our other priority platforms.
It was also a great opportunity to use this GIF in a corporate email campaign. 🥰
What theme did you go for in this review gen campaign? Sounds like you were taking a fun and creative approach!
Alexie: Terrible news: we actually did not end up moving ahead with this campaign. The account we are supporting in this instance has had a lot of thrash with their review program, caused by personnel changes and layoffs. Leadership was very fearful of bad reviews and ended up asking us to keep things more “traditional” and prove results before diving into something creative.
How did your customer appreciation review campaign go? i.e. this “continue to share the love" giveaway where folks are entered for a larger prize after reviewing us!”
Alexie: This is the most recent campaign I’m working on. Reviews are one lever within a larger campaign to drive increased advocacy and improve account sentiment with our client’s brand overall. For the entire month of May, we’re celebrating Customer Appreciation Month. Customer Appreciation Day is May 17th this year, but the client is in the customer experience industry and they sell to other customer experience/customer service organizations … so we’re celebrating customers who love their customers.
We kicked things off with some surprise and delight gifting accompanied by a message from ELT members sharing their appreciation for their customers. We included a larger review giveaway as part of the campaign (and an opportunity to share the love). We are also running a complimentary social campaign that is platforming some of our customer stories—it’s already been very successful!
The review part of this campaign is pretty simple. We’ve invited customers to leave a review on 3 of our priority sites to be entered to win a giveaway, which includes an Away suitcase and Northface jacket. In a perfect world, I would prefer to run this campaign with a gift card to one of our retail customers (to really hammer home our appreciation of the customers we work with). This wasn’t possible this year, but the potential for next year is very exciting!
The thing I love about this campaign is that reviews are only one option. Strategically, this is a holistic customer marketing and advocacy campaign, designed to drive increased engagement with the customer marketing program while also improving customer sentiment and showing our customers we love them. The reviews are just an added bonus!
Early response has been very positive! I’m excited to see the results of the entire month.
Here are some snippets from the emails we sent with review requests:
Can you share some of your key learnings on how you executed review generation at user conferences? (The breadth and depth of your review gen experience are remarkable!)
Alexie: My key learning from events/conferences is that they’re a great place to learn. 😅
Conferences and events are fast-paced and stressful. There are normally multiple business objectives that are not always aligned with one another. With many stakeholders’ eyes on the execution and outcome of these events, it can be a difficult environment to feel comfortable trying something new (or something old, to be frank). Each organization, conference, and event will present something different. As a Customer Marketer, you have to be ready to iterate, experiment, and potentially fail. The best advice I can offer to anyone conducting reviews at an event is to try and maintain reasonable expectations with your stakeholders and collaborators, and to become comfortable with SWOT reporting.
In terms of planning for success, there isn’t one answer for how to best engage your audience at these events. Each event is unique, each audience is unique, etc. I always recommend not to be afraid to try something new—especially for engaging customers.
Reviews can be a great leverage for gathering passive feedback on a busy event floor. Having an iPad set up for people to interact with on their own is a great way to engage customers who might be overstimulated on the expo floor, or simply be looking for something that doesn’t include a full-length conversation with an SDR or account representative.
I was at RSAC in 2023 and saw a lot of companies doing interesting things for review generation: QR codes attached to business cards or swag items, iPads in “chill zones” (Snyk did a great job of this – shout out to Ciana and Brian for both being amazing CMA-ers. I often look to what these guys are doing for inspiration!), having booth workers armed with an iPad or iPhone that they can quickly share with customers they’re speaking with, etc.
The one thing I haven’t had the chance to try out myself is actually bringing the third-party review vendor to the event to help with review generation, but I understand from my friend Katlin Hess at G2 that this is a very successful avenue for a lot of teams.
What’s your take on how to track when advocates submit anonymous reviews?
Alexie: Honestly, this is my least favourite part of running creative review campaigns.
Unlike some folks, when I’m tracking anonymous reviews, it’s not because I care about the content of the review. It’s more often because I’m trying to share a creative incentive with the reviewer. While, of course, the content of their review is important (especially if it’s negative), the third-party review vendors are continuing to do good work to help us connect with reviewers who need additional support with their products/services.
Where I think the system is lacking is in tracking reviews for incentives. The platforms are incentivized to have us continue to run our incentives through their platform. There are just too many occasions where I’m interested in doing something more than a gift card and right now, the platforms aren’t doing a great job of enabling customer marketers to be creative with connecting to their reviewers.
Truthfully, I’m forever working in spreadsheets and with screenshots. I wish there was a better answer … and maybe there will be one soon!
Follow-up question: Is it fair to say that the manual tracking needed for creative incentives is a consideration review requesters should make before deciding whether to go with the standard gift card or creative incentive?
Alexie: 1000% – so many people do not have time for the manual tracking. I think the onus is on the platforms to expand their capabilities to enable us to be more creative without having to take on all of this extra work
That said, there are some super creative ways to market the $25 gift card – helping with groceries, lunch is on us, school supplies, etc.
What do you think are the main strengths and weaknesses of each team who you’ve seen own reviews (Analyst Relations, Product Marketing, Customer Marketing & Advocacy)?
Alexie: This is a tricky question to answer. I think the answer to where reviews should live is: it depends on your organization, but it should live with someone who has time and energy to dedicate to it. Reviews are not a “set it and forget it” or “rinse and repeat” thing. They are creative, require thoughtful attention, and someone who is open to experimenting.
Where I’ve seen reviews living in Analyst Relations, I’ve seen third-party sites not receive the attention they require. In this particular instance, AR was heavily focused on driving references for their analyst reports and much less focused on driving results for the third-party sites. I do think there needs to be alignment between AR and reviews to ensure a company isn’t just drawing from the same handful of customers for every request.
With Product Marketing there was wonderful attention paid to the strategy behind which reports we were targeting and which customers were power users of the particular products. Aligning with Product Marketing allowed us to leverage their expertise to inform our strategy, while we orchestrated the outreach to customers, designed the messaging, and owned the reporting.
In my dream world, AR, PM, and CMA are in lockstep with each other, diversifying where the asks are going, and ensuring customers are not overburdened by multiple requests.
Can you elaborate on how you’ve seen a quote deck that takes quotes from reviews, existing assets, etc. be a “quick” win for someone in a new CMA role? That sounds like a great idea, would love to hear more!
Alexie: People who step into new roles and are looking for “quick wins” are usually facing an organization or stakeholders within the organization who do not understand the value of CMA. One of the best ways to build trust is to immediately provide content or services that are valuable to those who don’t trust you or your work.
Quote decks are one of my favourite things to create. Normally, sales and CSMs are creating decks to pitch solutions to customers and prospects. They usually include a logo slide, sometimes a case study slide, and information about review rankings, etc. By creating a deck of only customer quotes, pulled from all customer-approved content, CMA makes the job easier for their counterparts.
I like to pull quotes from: case studies, blog posts, review sites, videos, webinars, recorded events, etc. I also like to add information about the customer being quoted, their use case, products/services—and other information relevant to selling—and include that info in the speaker notes. This makes the deck “filterable” and allows other teams to easily grab social proof to support their work.
For a specifically reviews related quick win, pull together your badges, review metrics, and report rankings from your priority sites. Putting those together with some impactful review quotes creates a slam-dunk slide for your sales organization.
What’s your view of how to structure a review site strategy? What are the key considerations that one should consider when making one?
Alexie: Structuring a review strategy is about understanding the role reviews play in your organization.
I like to begin by interrogating the why of the review program. This normally involves asking some tough questions of those above and around you. For example, I often see the C-suite dictating which review platforms a company should appear on and what the ideal scores are. The problem here is that it is rare for C-suite to have the time to understand the focus of each platform, what kind of buyer they are appealing to, and which reports we should be targeting.
Once I’m clear on the why of a review program, I start to dig into goal setting and designing the calendar of campaigns to support achieving those goals. This looks different with every program I support, but there are a few levers I like to return to: designing always-on options, lifecycle touchpoints, and themed campaigns.
Once the levers are decided upon, that’s where the real fun begins: designing, executing, and testing.
How do you adjust your review gen approach based on the review site (i.e. G2, GPI, etc.)?
Alexie: The sites I most often support programs for are: G2, GPI, TrustRadius, and Trustpilot.
GPI is a bit of a different game, with more in-depth questions that are better targeted at a decision-maker or senior product admin. To build a pool of reviewers for this site, I like to segment the audience based on persona and product usage information. These invitations are highly personalized and appeal to the reviewer’s industry thought leadership and expertise.
G2, TrustRadius, and Trustpilot tend to be more of a numbers game. Which is a terrible way to look at reviews, but is a necessary perspective when supporting a program that targets multiple platforms. These are the sites that I like to drive lifecycle touchpoints, always-on, and themed campaigns to. You can send your everyday product users to these sites.
How do you see reviews in software and review gen campaigns evolving? Any trends, predictions, or other thoughts on where things seem to be headed?
Alexie: I concur with a lot of what others you’ve interviewed have said. I think reviews are trending down as a resource for making buying decisions. Increasingly, I see buyers looking to their network peers for a reference or recommendation. I think buyers now use reviews to confirm or refute their inklings about a product/service, but they’re not making or breaking any deals.
Is this you, and what’s the story behind this photo?
Alexie: This is me! This is a photo from 2014 or 2015 when I was studying for my undergraduate degree. In my final year of my degree I was the recipient of a scholarship and was interviewed by the Student Awards and Financial Aid office to help put a face to the name for scholarship donors. During the interview, they asked me for a photo that showed who I was … which is an incredibly tricky thing to find. I selected this photo of myself on an abandoned railway trestle just outside of my city. I’m terrified of heights so this is as far onto the trestle as I could brave!
But—I still live in this city and often visit the park where this trestle is. Living in the Pacific Northwest is truly so special, even if it does rain 6 months of the year 😅
What’s the best way for someone interested in working with you on a review gen campaign, or other customer advocacy initiative, to learn more about what you can offer and how they can get in touch with you?
Alexie: First of all, my team and I would be thrilled to support anyone in the Customer Marketing and Advocacy world. My elevator pitch is pretty simple: Frank Advocacy brings frank advice to the world of Customer Marketing and Advocacy. We’re here to help you make the most of your work, whether that’s aiding in strategy or adding extra arms to your team. We do it all!
The best way to get in touch with me is via LinkedIn or email (hello@frankadvocacy.com). You can also follow Frank Advocacy on LinkedIn if you’re a fan of CMA memes.
Joe’s note: Alexie works for both Porter Consulting and Frank Advocacy, but Frank Advocacy is her own brand and the only place where she is bringing on new clients at the moment. She’s only supporting existing clients with Porter right now.
She’s in transition to eventually be only with Frank, but she says it’s hard to say goodbye to the amazing teams she supports through Porter.
Any Closing Thoughts?
I just want to say thank you for taking the time to research my previous posts and conversations on the topic. I really appreciate being considered to stand alongside your other experts! There are so many amazing practitioners among your past interviewees and it’s a pleasure to be in their company. And—thank you for everything you do to create a space for thought leadership on this important (and often confusing and overlooked) topic.
My Key Takeaways
I think there are a lot of great examples from this interview, especially on themed review collection campaigns, that marketers can action.
Here’s a recap of the key takeaways from my interview with Alexie on her views on reviews:
- Themed Campaigns Drive Engagement: Implement themed review campaigns to stand out. For instance, Ugly Holiday Sweater or Valentine’s Day campaigns can creatively engage customers and incentivize them to leave reviews.
- Customer Appreciation Month: Leverage special occasions like Customer Appreciation Month to run campaigns that not only gather reviews but also improve overall customer sentiment. Offer attractive giveaways and make the campaign part of a broader customer engagement strategy.
- Event-Based Review Generation: Utilize conferences and events for review generation. Set up iPads or QR codes at your booth, or consider bringing in third-party review vendors to assist with capturing reviews on the spot.
- Holistic Campaigns: Integrate review generation into larger customer advocacy and engagement campaigns. This approach ensures reviews are part of a continuous effort to connect with and appreciate your customers.
- Adapt Incentives for Review Sites: Understand the differences between review platforms. For example, GPI requires more in-depth responses and is better suited for decision-makers, while G2, TrustRadius, and Trustpilot can target everyday users with more general incentives.
- Manage Anonymous Reviews: Develop strategies to track anonymous reviews effectively. While platforms may not always facilitate this easily, consider creative ways to connect with reviewers for incentive distribution, potentially using manual tracking methods.
These takeaways provide actionable strategies for B2B software companies to enhance their review generation efforts and overall customer engagement.
