This interview was originally conducted by @Joe and can be found at B2BSaaSReviews.com. iews on Reviews is a new series of interviews with B2B SaaS professionals who will…
iews 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 tenth interview is with Scott K. Wilder, VP: Customer Engagement and Community at Base.ai (Formerly Crowdvocate).
1. You've led customer engagement, growth marketing, and online communities for the who's who of SaaS: HubSpot, Marketo, Adobe, Intuit, Google, Udacity, and Coursera. In these roles, how have you approached user reviews?
2. When you were at HubSpot, you presented how to sell community to management. Do you see these selling points working for selling reviews to management, too?
3. A recurring theme in Views on Reviews is a rise in buyers turning to the community for B2B SaaS buying decisions. What's your take on this trend? How do you think communities can better serve buyers seeking information from their peers using the software they're considering?
4. You tweeted, "Social proofs like any review or testimonial adds a human element to your brand experience." Why is it important to add this human element to a brand experience?
5. You also tweeted, "Potential consumers are more inclined to choose your business for their requirements if they see that you have a high rating, favourable reviews, and respond professionally to any concerns." What advice would you give to a B2B SaaS customer marketer looking to run a successful online reputation management campaign?
6. You mentioned that you're seeing a shift in responsibility for generating reviews from a cross-functional effort to one consolidated in the Customer Marketing function. What do you think is driving this shift?
7. You also mentioned that Customer-led functions don't speak with one another as much as they should, and that part of the reason is that it's tough to move organizations and share metrics cross-functionally. Can you elaborate on how customer-led functions could work more together on something like review generation?
8. I found a 2014 Marketo Nation post on reviews from when you were at Marketo (or just before you joined). The post asked the Marketo community to write G2 reviews to help surpass HubSpot and other competitors in the G2 standings for marketing automation. Any tips on how to get reviews through community posts like this? (E.g. share how your user's review will help grow the community (by surpassing HubSpot in the G2 rankings).
9. One of your 10 Rules for Successful Communities is that only 5-10% of your users will sign up for your community. Have you found that it's similar to reviews? (I.e. only 5-10% of users will give a review)
10. What have you found works—and what doesn't—in review generation (when asking for reviews)?
11. On your list of objectives for your customer marketing programs, where do reviews rank on your list? Is it a top priority? If it varies, what causes your prioritization to vary?
12. What was your favorite review request campaign?
13. Have you used buyer intent data from review sites? If so, how?
14. How do you decide which review sites to ask your users to review on?
15. Do you have goals or OKRs on or related to reviews? If so, what are they?
16. Have you looked at reviews on a business software review site before purchasing? If yes, tell us how you got to the site, what you looked at, etc.
17. Why do you think reviews matter to a B2B SaaS vendor?
18. How do you get internal buy-in to spend resources on review generation?
19. Measurement can be a tricky part of customer marketing, particularly how to measure the value of reviews. Can you share an example of how you've measured the value of reviews?
20. What would you change if you worked for one of the business software review sites?
21. You're now at Base (formerly Crowdvocate), leading customer, partner and community engagement. Where do you see reviews in your work managing Base's CARE initiatives: Community, Advocacy, Resources, and Education / Enablement?
22. What words of wisdom do you have for B2B SaaS professionals looking to make the most of (peer and user) communities?
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