At this point, you probably know all of the statistics about web reviews. More than 80% of all consumers say that they read online reviews before making a purchase decision or visiting a company.
In fact, as a savvy business owner, you’ve undoubtedly heeded the advice about claiming your listings, optimizing your profiles on review sites, and using negative reviews to your advantage. That’s good – but is it enough to do the job?
Claiming your profiles is only a tiny part of the game when it comes to utilizing online reviews to grow your business. If you rely on your laurels and don’t take action to attract new and positive reviews, you risk having people view your company as outdated or unpopular.
With that in mind, here are a few ways that you can obtain more positive online reviews of your business to boost your visibility and acquire new customers.
When was the last time you bought something from Amazon? Every product they list on their site has a review option so you can submit a review. They distinguish between verified purchases and stand-alone reviews. There’s no question that the accessibility of reviews helps Amazon’s customers to make more informed buying decisions.
Think about adding review forms to your site. You can encourage customers who have tried your products to rate them using a star system (or whatever symbol you prefer) and leave a written review as well. It’s an easy and relatively low-key way to build up reviews.
Another way to encourage reviews is to send an automated email to customers after they buy something from you. The email can include a link to a review form on your website.
If you choose to use this method, make sure not to send the email until after the customer has the product. That means if you’re emailing people who made an online purchase, you’ll need to wait until several days have passed to send the email.
You have a couple of options. One is to embed the review form in the email itself, and the other is to link back to the review form on your website. Whichever option you decide to go with, make sure that the review is just as easy to complete on a mobile device as it is on a computer.
It’s not a smart idea to pay for reviews (or to order reviews from people who have never tried your products), but you can find subtle ways to encourage customers to leave reviews on your website.
One thing that a lot of businesses do is offer a points system. You might have a points program that rewards points for purchases made. Then, you can award bonus points each time a customer reviews a product that they purchased.
Another technique is to provide additional points for customers who review a product and then share their review on social media. This tactic provides you with a way to amplify the effectiveness of each review you get by introducing it to new people.
If a points system doesn’t strike your interest, then you could try offering a free download to people who review a product on your site. The freebie could be a template, an image, a short eBook, or even just a list of resources. For example, a clothing boutique might offer a downloadable infographic that reveals ways to tie a scarf, or how to accessorize a plain white blouse.
Whichever option you choose, the goal is to provide some customer appreciation for the people who take the time to post reviews of your products.
Every company has products that get reviewed often as well as products that get little to no attention. As a general rule of thumb, more expensive products tend to get the most reviews while basic or inexpensive products get ignored.
There are some things you can try to incentivize more reviews of specific products. For example:
- Use follow-up emails to advertise those products and then, when you capture a sale, ask for a review as you would with any other product.
- Create unique packages that pair a frequently-reviewed product with one that doesn’t get many reviews, and then ask for a review for the package.
- Instead of asking for individual reviews, design a survey about a particular product and post it on social media. You can tally the results and post them as part of your review page.
These techniques can help you garner some positive reviews for products that typically don’t get many – while boosting your sales at the same time.
The last thing you can do is to take your existing reviews and leverage them into even more reviews. When a customer completes a review on your website, send them a thank you email. In the email, you may want to:
- Upsell them on additional products (which you can then ask them to review); or
- Ask them to review other items they have bought
Customers want to feel and know that you care about them. Even the act of sending a random thank you email can be enough to encourage them to review more products.
It’s not hard to get customers to review your products, but you can’t expect them to do it without a bit of encouragement from you. The tactics outlined here can help you get positive reviews for your online domain or review pages – and bring in new customers as a result.