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 sixth interview is with Anna Nørager Deigaard, Senior Campaign Executive at Reachdesk.
Anna Nørager Deigaard is the Senior Campaign Executive at Reachdesk, a leading B2B SaaS gifting platform.
Reachdesk is one of the fastest growing B2B SaaS products on G2. On the annual G2 Best of Software lists, Reachdesk was the 5th fastest-growing product* in 2021 and 18th on the 2022 list.
To put that in perspective, every three months, G2 releases their quarterly reports, ranking the 100,000+ software sellers and products listed on G2.com. Of those 100,000+ software sellers and products, there were 12,335 products included in the G2 Summer 2022 Reports**. That means Reachdesk is in the top 0.018% of all products on G2 or 0.1% of all products that made a Grid® Report in terms of fastest growing products according to G2. Put another way, Reachdesk has more momentum on G2 than around 100,000 software sellers and products.
Suffice to say, if you’re looking to climb the ranks of G2, you can likely learn a thing or two from Anna, who leads the generation of Reachdesk reviews.
She has been a digital marketer on both sides of the house: agency and client (vendor), running campaigns in both B2C and B2B settings.
Let’s see Anna’s views on reviews.
*The “Fastest Growing Products” list is based on G2’s Momentum algorithm, normalized across categories.
**To understand why there are fewer products in Grid® reports than listed in category pages across the G2 site, see G2’s Grid® Report Inclusion Criteria.
1. We both have had the good fortune to have been on an international exchange: you went from Denmark to the US, and I went from Canada to Denmark. How was your experience? What did you learn on your exchange that you have applied in your career?
Answer: First of all, it always warms my heart when someone has been to Denmark. Hope you got to enjoy both smørrebrød and salty liquorice! I loved my time in the US, and would generally highly recommend spending time in another country if possible. I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity and means to live in other countries for a longer period of time, and even though Denmark is quite similar to both the US and the UK in many ways, there are also very clear differences. Living in other countries has provided me with a greater understanding of other cultures and an appreciation of differences in both the workplace and life in general. I’ve also been able to use this experience in my work: understanding how important it is to know your audience and the people you’re interacting with, and tailor the strategy to them.
2. You studied Media at uni and your career has led to B2B SaaS marketing. How did you get into it (B2B SaaS Marketing)? And what do you like and dislike about it?
Answer: I actually went to uni thinking I was going to become a movie director so B2B SaaS marketing was never my original plan. But after doing an internship with 20th Century Studios, I fell in love with the marketing aspect of it and from there went on to different jobs within marketing (both B2B and B2C, and agency and client side), and B2B SaaS has my heart at the moment. B2B marketing has a reputation for being a bit dry but that’s a big part of why I like it: the challenge of making it fun while marketing a product I truly believe in - I’ve done countless manual direct mail campaigns and I can honestly say I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Working for a younger SaaS company also usually means a culture where we learn as we go and aren’t afraid to try out new ideas. I’m still only at the beginning of my career, and being able to grow my knowledge and skills are what keeps it exciting. On the downside, as a huge perfectionist at heart (hello fellow Virgos), I have a love-hate relationship with the pace of B2B SaaS marketing. We move fast, get things done and always juggle multiple projects at once which I find exciting and motivating, but it can also be challenging. I enjoy single-tasking and fully emerging myself in one project.
3. Before moving into the vendor side, you worked at a Digital Marketing agency (Heyday). By working on so many different campaigns for different companies, did you notice any best practices or pitfalls that marketers make?
Answer: I’ve made many mistakes along the way but I’m a big believer in learning by doing so I’d say staying curious is one of the most important things. What worked today might not work tomorrow, and becoming too comfortable with the status quo is a major no-go. This doesn’t mean you have to reinvent the wheel with every new campaign, but challenging yourself to test out new ideas is key (even if they fail…) Also, listen to your data! We all want to show those impressive numbers to our boss, clients, investors, peers, you name it, but reporting should first and foremost be used to drive decisions. Having proper reporting in place and, more importantly, utilising that reporting will help you improve and make it possible to test out those new ideas.
4. Let’s talk about reviews. Reachdesk has been one of the fastest growing products on G2, ranked the 5th fastest-growing product in 2021 on G2’s Best of Software list and 18th on the 2022 list. Can you tell us a little bit about the overall review strategy at Reachdesk?
Answer: As a fairly new company, our initial strategy was making a name for ourselves on G2 by getting a steady (and large) stream of reviews in. We collaborated closely with our Customer Success team to ensure we encouraged clients to leave their reviews, and ran campaigns both directly through G2 and by ourselves, and on different platforms to test out what worked best. As we’ve grown as a company and on G2, our strategy has shifted to keeping a consistent stream of high ratings to up our overall rating, while maintaining our leader placement in all of our respective categories.
5. G2 seems to be the primary review site for Reachdesk. Can you share why?
Answer: G2 is an important tool for us, not only to ensure that companies looking into direct mail and corporate gifting will know we’re top of our class, but also to understand what makes our customers happy and where we need to improve. When we joined G2, we had to be realistic about both resources and number of clients. We decided we’d rather focus our time and resources as a smaller team on properly growing our presence on one review site rather than half-arse a handful. We didn’t want to spread our customers too thin by requesting numerous reviews from the same people. With a growing team and client base, we’ve now reached a place where we can begin to grow our presence on other review sites as well - more to come there!
6. What are some of the most effective review generation tactics used by Reachdesk?
Answer: An effective review generation tactic we’ve consistently used is to combine with our quarterly Net Promoter Score survey. Following the NPS results, we collaborate with our Customer Success team to reach out to any high scorers and provide an incentive for them to also leave a G2 review - for example an Amazon voucher or a charity donation. This allows us to reach contacts at a time in their customer journey where they’re happy with us and our product, and are interested in leaving genuine, useful reviews, but also to show our appreciation for their time (we’re all busy and two reviews are quite the ask).
7. Reachdesk ran a G2 Gives review campaign. Can you tell us how it went and what you recommend to others who are considering a G2 Gives review campaign?
Answer: Sustainability is very important to Reachdesk as a company (and to me personally) - we recently became carbon neutral and we want to do our bit to support the planet. As such, working with G2 and One Tree Planted was a perfect fit for us - 10 new trees planted for every new review we bring in. This campaign has very much been a learning process though, and we’re currently reworking how we can utilise it even better. We’ve first used it as part of a one-to-many outreach to customers from our CCO which didn’t perform great to be completely honest. Looking back, I’d say the outreach wasn’t personal enough and we overlooked the fact that our customers weren’t as invested in the initiative as we were. As good as the cause is, we were asking them to take time out of their busy day for something that might not be as exciting for them as it is for us. We’ve recently used it as part of an outreach to clients who had participated in a NPS survey where our CSMs sent out the emails. Reaching people shortly after they’d already shown interest in providing feedback, and ensuring a higher level of personalisation with a one-to-one outreach provided much better results.
8. There seems to be buy-in for reviews right from the top at Reachdesk, with CRO and Founder Alex Olley sharing LinkedIn posts on it. Can you share what the internal message has been from Alex to the Reachdesk team on reviews for Reachdesk?
Answer: Anyone who knows Alex, knows he values each and everyone of our customer’s opinion highly. Reachdesk is here to help people and to solve problems, and customer reviews and feedback are essential to understand whether we’re in fact doing that or need to make changes. Ensuring a steady stream of G2 reviews is an overall company goal that goes beyond marketing. Of course, we want those high ratings and G2 badges for social proof (it’s damn good social proof) and we have other feedback processes in place as well to further help us understand what keeps our customers happy and where to improve - but G2 will always be an essential tool to obtain honest feedback.
9. You use review content, such as Reachdesk’s G2 badges and rank, on the Reachdesk website, social media, and ads. Can you share why you’ve leveraged this social proof in your digital marketing?
Answer: As much as we believe in our product and can rave about why for hours and hours, buyer decisions will almost always be influenced by user reviews (as they should be - allowing users to share public feedback ensures we stay top of our game and helps companies make fair and accurate comparisons between us and our competitors). G2 is a trusted and well-known source, meaning the third-party validation we get from G2 badges essentially allow us to back our claims and show prospects and customers that we believe in our product for a reason - would be a sorely missed opportunity to not leverage that social proof, whether it’s in our digital marketing, during sales calls, or in customer meetings.
10. What’s next for Reachdesk and reviews?
Answer: G2 will always be our first love and an important tool for us to keep improving so we’ll continue growing our presence and rating there. However, as we have grown quite a lot as a company in the last year, we now have the resources to work on our presence on other review sites as well and we’re currently scouting the market and planning our next steps…
Key Takeaways:
- As a relatively new company, one way to make a name for yourself is by getting a steady (and large) stream of reviews on a review site like G2.
- After making a name for yourself by generating lots of reviews, consider adapting your strategy to what it takes to rank highly in your respective software categories.
- An effective review generation tactic is to combine NPS responses, collaborate with the Customer Success team for review request outreach, and provide an incentive to leave a review.
- When starting with reviews, consider focusing your time and resources on properly growing your presence on one review site rather than “half-arse a handful.”
- Timing, personalization, and one-to-one requests from the person who has the best relationship with your user may provide more reviews than a thoughtful one-to-many reviews campaign, even one that supports one of the many worthy causes supported by G2 Gives. Consider combining the two (timely and personalized results with an incentive option for a charitable cause) for the best results.
- Part of the reason Reachdesk has had a steady stream of reviews is that it has an overall company goal (for reviews) that goes beyond the marketing department.
- Review sites like G2 provide third-party validation that allows B2B SaaS vendors to back their claims.
Do you have follow-up questions for Anna? Add and message her on LinkedIn.
To learn more about Reachdesk, visit their site and reach out to their team.
To learn about Reachdesk going carbon neutral, visit their page on sustainability.
Curious to learn more about the G2 Best of Software lists? Check out the FAQs on G2 Best of Software.
If you’d like to share your experience generating, leveraging, or measuring B2B SaaS reviews, please email me: joe@b2bsaasreviews.com
