The Future of G2 from G2’s Godard Abel and Sara Rossio

Back in 2012, founder and CEO of G2, Godard Abel, was frustrated about the state of the software industry.

Why was it so hard for businesses to find information about software for their company? Why was it easier to get reviews about a $100 hotel room on TripAdvisor than it was on a $100,000 piece of customer retention management (CRM) software? 

10 years later, G2 has changed the playing field by becoming the place that makes buying and selling software easy. We set out to give the power to the customer – those who are actually using products – which is exactly what we’re still doing a decade later. 80 million business software buyers come to us to discover apps and do their due diligence by reading insightful peer reviews.

Of those 80 million software buyers, every single one of Fortune 500 companies comes to G2 to do their research for all of their software buying decisions. And 3,300 software companies partner with G2 to build trust and grow revenue, including 60% of Forbes Cloud 100. 

In the 10 years since our inception, we’ve grown beyond G2 Dot Com. We now have 15 leading marketplaces powering G2 reviews. Over 500,000 reviews are syndicated across 100,000+ marketplaces. All this has led to 13% higher buyer conversions with G2 reviews.

But why stop here? At our third virtual conference, Reach 2022, Godard Abel and G2’s Chief Product Officer Sara Rossio wrapped up the day by pulling back the curtain to share G2’s latest growth, evolution, and plans for the future.

What's next for G2?

We built G2 on the importance of user reviews, but we’re so much more to us than that. In fact, reviews are just the tip of the iceberg for us. Consider G2 Data Solutions, a place to find more data and insights below the surface.

The world’s most influential investors and consulting firms rely on G2 data, and we’re taking things to the next level. With our deep dataset, informed by verified market feedback, we take a deep dive into 43 data points captured in every user review.

It’s all part of the G2 Data Cloud, which encompasses three major components. We have G2 Reviews Data with feedback and insights from verified buyers. Next up is G2 Buyer Traffic and Intent, which boasts real-time data on in-market buyer and software trends from traffic on G2. And finally, G2 Taxonomy Data looks at the landscape of the B2B world.

Powering your go-to-market strategy through tough times begins with generating reviews to build brand credibility and differentiation among the competition, all based on the customer's voice. From there, businesses can grow buyer traffic and visibility on G2, which, at the end of the day, builds revenue and growth.

And yes, we could have stopped there, but we’re going even further with G2 Data to inform your go-to-market strategy.

Taking things up a notch with G2 Market Intelligence

Introducing G2 Market Intelligence, a new tool for marketing and strategy teams that will unlock never-before-seen insights into customer feedback.

G2 has captured the voice of the customer with more than 1.9 million reviews, and we’ve listened. From there, we’ve extracted everything that will help our customers understand their place in the market, while also improving messaging and building better products. Ultimately, we’ve surpassed your competitors and won the hearts and minds of your customers.

Sara Rossio broke it down into three core areas.

1. Product Satisfaction

First up is the Product Satisfaction dashboard, which explores how the market resonates with products against the competition.

Using the dashboard, our customers select five competitors they want insights into. We also have dashboards that focus on net promoter score and product perception momentum to answer if your product is moving in the right direction.

All this data is built from G2 review forms, where product health metrics are tracked against direct competitors – metrics like the ease of setup, quality of support, and clarity of partnership. You can easily see data surrounding your company, its trends, and its competition.

2. Win / Loss

Next is the Win / Loss dashboard, which shows users who is winning and taking up market share.

It’s important to note that there aren’t competitor filters here because we have automatically populated your competitors based on what users say they’ve switched to in their G2 review forms. We’ve done the heavy lifting for you, revealing the most-sighted competitors against your product.

This uncovers competitors you may not think are traditional in this space, so you have a more authentic and transparent look into market share. That’s the power of G2 Market Intelligence. 

Best of all, you can filter by industry, company size, and location to better understand your wins and losses.

3. Pricing and Contracts

Lastly is Pricing and Contracts, designed to let you uncover market perceptions based on price and value relative to the five competitors you’ve chosen in the Product Satisfaction dashboard.

You’ll be able to investigate whether discounts are paired with contract length, which of your competitors are doing pricing well, and what you can learn over time to price and package your product.

The future looks bright

G2 is always collecting more data sets to ensure our customers have the best insights to run their businesses better. We’re ambitious, and we’re striving to be a core partner within your go-to-market strategies and campaigns.

Book a demo here to start turning millions of data points collected on G2 into actionable insights about your product, competitors, and customers with G2 Market Intelligence.