David vs. Goliath - awork proves how tools from the DACH region can compete with large international companies
How awork competes on OMR Reviews against Big Players like Asana and Trello
- Local Hero vs. Overpowering Global Players
- Three Tips for Other Companies: How OMR Reviews Helps Tackle Challenges
awork, a leading provider of project management software from Hamburg, has been using OMR Reviews since 2021 to strengthen its online presence and customer loyalty.
The local hero focused on a targeted review generation strategy, aiming to be visible as a leading tool in the most important categories on OMR Reviews, thereby increasing the trust of software decision-makers.
This strategy helped awork to establish itself as the leading tool in the German-speaking region in categories like project management, workflow management, and agency software, successfully competing against major competitors such as Asana and Trello. The use of OMR Reviews, PPC campaigns, and buyer-intent data further helps awork efficiently and continuously generate sign-ups.
The awork tool is primarily aimed at agencies in the DACH region. With features such as project planning, resource management, and time tracking, it enables teams within companies to collaborate effectively.
Local Hero vs. Overpowering Global Players
In a market dominated by large international companies, it was a significant challenge for awork to gain visibility and trust within its target audience.
“We knew we had a strong product, but it was difficult to establish that trust in the market,” recalls Julia Glöckner, CMO of awork. “We needed a way to strengthen our position and truly differentiate ourselves.” Competing with established players required a creative strategy to position themselves as a reliable and powerful alternative in the DACH region.
In addition to project management, other categories have been added where the tool has increased its visibility. awork is now also listed under time tracking and task management. Additionally, the tool can be found in the overarching category, under collaboration.
“Full Focus on One Platform”
awork chose to consolidate its reviews on OMR Reviews for several reasons:
- Both OMR Reviews and awork focus on the DACH market.
- OMR is particularly well-known in the marketing industry.
- awork has seen a noticeable development of the platform over the last few years.
“OMR Reviews allows us to target the right audience effectively,” explains Julia. “We were able to focus on a platform that not only provides the reach we need but also has the reputation that is important to our potential customers.”
To consistently gather reviews, awork quickly sought ways to automate the review generation process. One particularly successful initiative was integrating review submission links directly into the NPS query of the software. This significantly increased both the quantity and quality of incoming user feedback. The team continues to test different ways to collect new reviews.
Numerous Awards and High-Quality Leads
The successes from the review efforts didn’t take long to materialize.
- Leader in Key Categories: Since 2021, awork has collected 450 reviews (as of mid-October 2024) with an average of 4.7 out of 5 stars. The tool has become the category leader in highly competitive categories—beating Asana and Trello.
- Increased Visibility and Recognition: awork received several awards, including multiple Leader and Top-Rated badges. The team is particularly proud of its continuous progress within OMR Reviews’ Top 100 guide, which ranks the most used tools in the DACH region each year. In 2023, awork was ranked 35th, and in 2024, it achieved 1st place. The consistent implementation of an automated review generation strategy has played a significant role in making awork the most popular tool among reviewers.
A strong review generation strategy lays the foundation for further success on OMR Reviews as a platform. But in addition to reviews, awork also uses other products from OMR Reviews.
- Buyer-Intent Data for Effective Outreach: After visitors click on awork’s profile page or competitor pages, the company uses the buyer-intent data provided by OMR Reviews. This data allows them to identify the companies that have visited a product page. These are then enriched with additional data in the CRM system HubSpot and used for outreach to find new customers.
- Increased Visibility through Tool Talk and Content Pieces: awork has always relied on addressing interested parties at various touch points. These include, for example, sponsored articles on OMR Reviews, participation in competitions on social media and a presence at Tool Talk Projektmanagement in October 2024.
- High-Quality Sign-Ups through PPC Campaigns: Embedding pay-per-click ads in relevant articles on OMR Reviews was a great success for awork. “Within three months, we were able to generate over 50 sign-ups, with more than 60% being of high quality,” explains Julia.
For more interesting insights on PPC, watch the video interview with Julia.
Three Tips for Other Companies: How OMR Reviews Helps Tackle Challenges
For awork, the collaboration with OMR Reviews has been extremely successful. However, Julia also wants to share tips on how other companies can make the most of software review platforms like OMR Reviews.
Tip 1: Focus your review strategy on one platform that covers your target audience.
Instead of being active on as many review platforms as possible, focusing on one platform like OMR Reviews helps consolidate reviews and maximize impact. This increases visibility and builds trust within relevant target groups.
Tip 2: Use social proof to strengthen credibility and trust.
OMR Reviews allows you to use reviews as a powerful marketing tool. Positive reviews and badges signal quality and reliability to potential customers. Regular updates and strategic use in marketing materials, such as ad creatives, landing pages, or sales pitches, strengthen trust.
Tip 3: Make the relevance of reviews clear across the entire team.
Everyone must understand the role reviews play in the customer journey. Only then can everyone, from marketing to customer success, support review generation across departments.
awork's success story impressively demonstrates how an innovative and holistic approach to valuation marketing can make a decisive contribution to prevailing in a highly competitive market. Focusing on one platform has not only secured the project management tool a strong position in several categories, but has also shown that with clever tactics, even smaller market players can hold their own against the global giants.
If you would like to emulate the company, you are welcome to join OMR Reviews and benefit from all the advantages.
Marvin ist Redakteur bei OMR Reviews. Nach seinem Studium in Englisch und Spanisch an der Uni Augsburg zog der gebürtige Hannoveraner nach Hamburg. Dort ist er im Fitnessstudio, im Kino oder in einem der Sushirestaurants anzutreffen. Neben der Leidenschaft für Sprachen interessiert er sich für digitales Marketing und praktische Onlinetools.
