Kirill Ougarov
If you're a B2B SaaS company, there's a good chance you're leveraging Capterra as a way to promote your business and acquire leads. You may even be using Captera's PPC advertising service. But do you have enough reviews for your Capterra listing to work for you?
Potential customers use Capterra to evaluate software products and compare them against other options. While compelling copy, high-quality screenshots, and descriptive videos can get your listing noticed, customer reviews ultimately determine if that visitor converts into a lead.
Why Reviews Matter
Capterra reviews tell shoppers not only how users feel about your product but also how they feel about your company - whether you provide great service, are responsive to their needs, etc. Without reviews – recent and positive reviews, specifically – prospects will be less likely to visit your website and submit your lead form and are more likely to go to a competitor with a better review profile.
How to Get Reviews on Capterra
Fortunately, getting reviews is not difficult – especially if you have happy customers. All you have to do is ask nicely. That said, there are several steps to take before you send out that review request email to ensure you get the results you want.
Curate Your Send List
Your first step should be to go through your list of customers and determine which ones are the most likely to leave a positive review for your business – and which are likely to leave a negative one.
Your support and sales teams will have the best idea of who is a good fit for a review request and who isn't. Don't be afraid to include customers you're not sure about – while having all five-star reviews is great, some people expect to see at least some three- and four-star reviews, or they’ll think the review profile is not organic.
Leverage Capterra’s Review Collection Service
Your customers are substantially more likely to respond to your review campaign if there’s an incentive offered. Capterra knows this and, conveniently, makes it easy to provide an incentive with your campaign through its Review Collection Service.
At no cost to you, Capterra provides a custom link to your review page and automatically gives out incentives to qualifying reviewers. While the value of the incentive and how many are offered per campaign vary based on Capterra’s internal calculations, expect the offer to be about $15 for roughly 30 reviews, with the possibility of earning additional incentivized reviews if your campaign performs well. Specific details will come through when you create the link.
Write Your Outreach Emails
Once you have your curated customer list and your Capterra review link, it's time to write your outreach emails. We recommend using three emails for every review solicitation campaign as, much like with sales outreach, people may be too busy/get distracted/don’t see the initial email/etc.
These emails don’t have to be complex or clever - remember, your sending them to people you already have a relationship with. Instead, be polite but also get straight to the point. Here’s an example of an initial email:
Hi Contact: First name
Thank you for being a valued customer of [your company name]! Your opinion is very important to us, and we'd love to hear your feedback on how we're doing.
Please take a few minutes to write a short review of your experience with us and our product on Capterra.
We appreciate your honest feedback, and as a thank you, Capterra is offering $XX to the first XX users who write a qualifying review for [your company name].
Get started by visiting Capterra’s Review Page for [your company name]!
Best,
Your second and third emails should be similar but modified to use follow-up-type messaging.
Send With HubSpot Automation
We recommend using HubSpot sequences instead of marketing emails because they’ll look like they’re coming from a specific member of your organization and are less likely to get caught by spam filters.
Use someone in your organization that your customers are likely to recognize (i.e., head of support, head of sales, customer success manager, etc.) as the sender. You can use a workflow to enroll your list into your sequence as this person when you’re ready to send.
Solicit Reviews Regularly
Even if your review solicitation campaign goes well, don't consider this a one-and-done effort. Shoppers want reviews to be current, and not all customers you solicit will reply, so be sure to run campaigns regularly. Additionally, you'll have new clients that you haven't asked for review before.
Depending on how fast you acquire new customers and how many you have, consider running review campaigns every 3-6 months. You may even want to consider setting up ongoing automation that enrolls new customers in the sequence sometime after a deal is closed. However, that approach is more likely to result in negative reviews as the recipients will not be curated.
Adding new reviews to your Capterra profile is the best way to get the most out of your listing, especially if you're investing budget into getting more leads via their PPC offering. It’s also a great way to continually get honest customer feedback that you can leverage to improve your product and processes.
Case Studies as Reviews
Third-party recommendations, such as customer reviews, rule in marketing over traditional website and sales copy. And case studies are no different. Case studies are a tremendous opportunity to have your customers share their real-life experiences with you to your prospects. They work as good downloadables on landing pages, and as collateral your sales teams can send to relevant prospects.
We have produced hundreds of case studies and know how time-consuming they can be. Use our Ultimate Case Study Bundle to lighten the load! The bundle includes an easy-to-follow case study workflow, how to prepare for customer interviews, questions to ask, and more.
