How to create a successful review marketing strategy
Customers who want to find out about a product or service will start by reading online reviews. Our free guide explains how to use feedback to optimize your review marketing.
Customer feedback and the desire for transparency
If you go online to look for a new smartphone or antivirus software, you’ll be spoiled for choice. Rather than taking the time to read through product descriptions or long blog posts, most users prefer to use customer reviews as a shortcut to real-life experiences and information.
A survey conducted by Trusted Shops in March 2021 showed that almost 90% of all customers are influenced by online feedback when deciding whether and what to purchase.
In other words, customer feedback is worth its weight in gold for companies. But how can you leverage feedback for your company and make review marketing work for you? And what’s the best way to deal with negative feedback? Our guide is packed with useful tips!
Why customer reviews are so valuable
Whether you’re buying a car, making a restaurant reservation, or booking a hotel room, recommendations from other people are always an important source of information. In the past, family and friends were our primary source of info, but these days we turn to online reviews from other customers. And the large quantity of feedback available actually gives a better and more detailed overview than simply asking someone you know for a recommendation.
Positive reviews are not only the equivalent of an effective, free campaign, they also tend to be perceived as more authentic than corporate advertising.
Reviews are also a valuable source of direct feedback for companies. Negative experiences, product difficulties, or suggestions for improvements can become opportunities for your review marketing, as well as for optimizing the product or customer experience.
On the other hand, poor reviews can also fatally damage a company’s reputation and revenue. It’s essential that you check that reviews are genuine. When it comes to fake reviews, you can often spot whether they relate to real customer experiences, or whether fake profiles have been set up to deliberately damage your reputation. Our free guide explains how to design the ideal review marketing strategy and what to look for in your reviews.
Feedback systems: Google, websites, and the rest
As well as full customer reviews, users can also turn to feedback systems – for example, star ratings or likes.
Google, Amazon, and many online stores allow customers to leave star ratings as well as comments, ranging from one star for the worst experience through to five stars for the best. All of the individual star ratings are aggregated and used to generate an overall average, although users can still click through to read individual reviews if they want to.
Purchasers can also give a “thumbs up” to indicate a positive experience, or a “thumbs down” for a negative one, as a fast and convenient way to express an opinion. On the other hand, however, this system offers very little information about why something is or isn’t recommended. This somewhat superficial feedback is therefore not likely to be helpful enough for many potential purchasers.
Optimize your strategy and dive into review marketing
If you’d like to know how to use customer reviews as an easy way to boost your revenue and take your company to the next level, then download our free guide to review marketing now and read our step-by-step instructions on how to use feedback to effectively boost your success.
