Buying and selling B2B tech is both global and local.
As G2 has expanded into EMEA and APAC over the past year, we have experienced this first-hand with the buyers and sellers we work with. While we’ve broadened our global footprint, we’ve also been updating our product and research offerings to help buyers find reviews from their nearby peers and help sellers market themselves more effectively to regional buyers.
With more options available, buyers need guidance to help find the best fit and vendors need a boost in branding and differentiation to stand out from the crowd. As G2 grows its international user base, we’re now able to offer new insights based on thousands of reviews gathered from outside the US.
We’re excited to announce the pilot release of Regional Grid Reports as part of our Summer 2020 report cycle.
Regional reports bring software selection closer to home
Every quarter, we publish seven types of reports that offer different slices of data based on our detailed and comprehensive user reviews.
This summer, we’ve published 36 Regional Grid reports that rank products based on customer satisfaction reported by users in Europe, Southeast Asia, ANZ and India, combined with our proprietary Market Presence algorithm, to offer a comprehensive perspective of the software category landscapes in these regional markets.
“The introduction of Regional Grids to G2's platform is an exciting addition to our research, bringing the authentic voice of the customer even closer to buyers and users of B2B software.”
Tom Pringle
VP of Market Research at G2
Tom goes on to say that "Regional Grids are powered by reviews from the community within that region, helping empower G2's users with insights that include local perspective."
Let’s take a look at one Regional Grid report, the Europe Regional Grid report for Marketing Automation. It features over 3,000 reviews of 39 marketing automation products submitted by users located in Europe.
“We've seen the Marketing Automation category YoY review growth by 19%, 59%, and 49% over 2018, 2019, and 2020 YTD respectively," says Emily Malis, Manager, Market Research for G2.
Of the 39 vendors featured in the report, 22 are US-headquartered companies (including established players HubSpot, Marketo, Oracle, Eloqua, and Pardot) and 14 are EMEA-based companies, highlighting the diverse range of offerings currently in use by European marketers.
"The Europe Regional Grid Report for Marketing Automation includes rankings that are based on data provided by real users. We are excited to share the achievements of the products ranked on our site because they represent the voice of the user and offer terrific insights to potential buyers in Europe,” adds Malis.
Benefits for buyers
As discussed above, B2B buyers have more options than ever before. While that can be exciting, it can also be overwhelming. We know that buyers look to their peers for recommendations on tech purchases, and we’ve developed our product and research offerings to help facilitate this transfer of knowledge.
On G2.com, buyers can filter reviews to read only those from others in similar roles or who work for similar companies. Our quarterly reports highlight various product ratings and selection criteria that allow buyers to narrow in on the factors that matter to them most. The Regional Grid reports add a new layer of context and peer perspective that buyers can use as they evaluate different products.
Although the bigger, more established names might earn early consideration, the Regional Grid reports can help introduce buyers to smaller or newer tools that are widely used and rated highly by their in-region peers.
With each data point G2 presents to buyers, we seek to answer not just which product is best, but instead, which product is best for me. Local ratings are one more meaningful input into a software selection process that can help buyers feel more confident in their decisions.
For sellers
The global nature of B2B tech is providing more opportunities than ever for new entrants to get in front of buyers, regardless of where either side calls home. But that doesn’t mean that buyers want to be sold to in the same way in every market.
“Each market is different, so teams have to be adaptive to certain customer needs and consumer trends,” says Mark Jervis, Marketing Director at dotdigital, which is featured as a Leader on the Europe Grid for Marketing Automation.
Empowering those teams to sell effectively is key to regional success, and compelling content is a bedrock of generating demand and converting buyers, according to Jervis. He runs a global team, and one strategy he swears by is building up a library of content that’s shared with local teams, who adapt the assets to fit their local strategy and audience.
“For us, it’s always important to give the in-region marketers the ability to adapt the narrative to target local prospects more effectively. We act global, but also think local with our content strategy.”
Hear more from Mark Jervis from his conversation with G2's Henrique Aragao, GM for EMEA.
Savvy marketing teams use different content types to target buyers in different markets based on their position in the market. In our example report, the Europe Regional Grid for Marketing Automation, 12 vendors earned Leader recognition, and five of those are EMEA-based companies.
For the US companies, this is a chance to draw attention to the customer satisfaction they’re already delivering to international customers. For the EMEA companies – some of which are already operating outside of EMEA and others of which might be considering international expansion – their Grid positioning reflects their strong performance with their home base of customers that they can build upon as they expand.
Regional Grid reports are a highly targeted and contextual addition to a marketing toolkit for in-region teams.
What’s next?
So where do we go from here? This first round of reports was an initial beta release, and we expect to expand on these offerings in future report release cycles.
You can see the full list of current Regional Grid Reports here. If you are a software vendor featured in one of the reports, or if you’re interested in learning more about how to be featured in a Regional Grid Report, our Regional Content page has more information.
by Godard Abel
by Rachel Gianfredi