G2 ROI

Aubyn - I'm not a G2 rep but a customer. I can answer this for you. G2 isn't meant to be a lead generator, it's a component of a bigger brand, lead gen. and demand gen strategy. For example: people often will see reviews on software through G2 in their buying journey but it rarely happens at the last point in which a lead is generated. So the trick is making sure you have visibility with your data to address middle touches and use those as an influence to measure to the number of leads, pipeline, and revenue. Attribution is important to tie back to these channels. What we found at CloudCherry and what I find with most customers I talk to about G2 is that the touches happen in all 3 phases of the journey. 1st when someone is just looking for software to solve a problem. This would be considered a category view. If you have good reviews and you rank well with G2 this could potentially be the first touch on someone and could result in a lead. 2nd is the middle touch when someone knows what they are looking for have maybe already spoke to a sales rep or engaged with your marketing and they go to G2 to validate what was said or pitched to them. This is a middle touch. 3rd is the last touch. After a demo or something significant takes place with sales they again want more validation and go back to G2 to do comparisons on the top 3-5 vendors they have narrowed down in their decision making. If all you are looking at is the first touch the volume won't be quite what you want. But when you look at influence of all leads, pipeline, and revenue across all 3 touches, then you will see a significant impact on growth and ROI. I hope this helps, always happy to help find me on LinkedIn and reach out with any questions: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jrgilbert1/

Thanks for chiming in here James! CloudCherry/Cisco’s approach to leveraging G2 as part of their holistic marketing mix and strategy’s probably my all-time favorite example of how to leverage G2 the right way. Overall, what CloudCherry did find was: -- 76% of their late-stage deals had at least 2 G2 touchpoints (like visiting profile, running a comparative view, engaging a landing page featuring G2 data or report content) -- They 3Xed their pipeline in the 12mo BEFORE to AFTER using G2's Buyer Intent Signals. All of this led to G2 being their single most influential touchpoint in their 44-layered marketing mix. Even over their webinars. Especially, as James said, because of the touches and influence G2 data, profiles and content had on the rest of their marketing materials. We go deep on these metrics, and the tactics CloudCherry used to get there. Check out our G2 “ROI Masterclass” that James and I held: https://sell.g2.com/roi-masterclass-recording. And feel free to pop back into this discussion board anytime with additional questions on the tactics and playbook CloudCherry used, and what we went over in our COVID consult.