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10 pro tips to get more product reviews for your CPG brand

May 9, 2022
  ●  
Cynthia Nakad

Consumer feedback has long been a great way to learn what aspects of your product did (and didn't) resonate with shoppers. In the era of online reviews, it's become the single biggest key to building confidence with those who might be considering purchasing your product. For every genuine and positive product review a consumer sees about your products, another stamp of approval nudges them closer to conversion and lifetime loyalty. 

As consumers continue to do more product research prior to purchase, reviews have become a more crucial piece of the buyer journey—acting as a form of social proofing. For example, 83% of shoppers will access in-store reviews before considering a new product, and nearly 80% of shoppers will buy an unknown product based on consumer feedback reviews.

Reviews from shoppers that boast positive experiences and recommend the product will build your overall authenticity, trustworthiness, and digital visibility for those that are just discovering your brand. For CPG brands, building this positive and credible online presence through reviews is critical to the brand's future success. Yet sometimes, getting those product reviews and opinions from the masses may be a challenge, so let's review some of the ways to build up your overall consumer feedback.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Ask for it

It sounds simple, but this first step is often overlooked. The best way to collect product reviews and start growing your consumer feedback is to take a critical look at your buyer journey and ensure that there are plenty of opportunities for shoppers to reach you. That means whenever someone makes a purchase, online or offline, ensure that you have some form of mechanism to prompt a review. 

Whether it's in the email purchase order, via SMS text, or a card in a bag at retail locations, make sure that every touchpoint includes a no-fuss feedback loop for consumers. Most importantly? Make it as easy and seamless as possible to increase the odds that they'll share their experience with your product. 

Incentivize

Consumers get asked to review many types of products and brands on a daily basis, which can make it difficult to cut through all of the noise and connect with them. A great way to stand out from the crowd and increase the volume of consumer feedback you receive is to provide an incentivize with a reward. 

Whether it's a discount on their next purchase or a free sample of a product (or products) they might be interested in, rewarding them for taking the time to give feedback will drastically increase the number of respondents who will complete the review.

Use QR codes

From direct advertising to product packaging, there are plenty of places that brands can add a QR code that consumers can easily scan on-the-go, and be redirected to a place to leave product reviews. QR codes ensure two of the most important factors when it comes to collecting product feedback: ease and traceability. Brands can directly measure the impact of their activation, while also creating an experience where shoppers can quickly scan and submit feedback in real time as they're consuming the product.

Socialize your reviews

Social media channels are an incredibly useful tool when it comes to product reviews, as these platforms tend to appear more impartial than a brand's website. It has been and continues to be an integral hub for consumers to get authentic and trustworthy feedback on products they're interested in.

With this in mind, social proofing has made it more important than ever to include your hard-earned product reviews on all social media business channels. By doing so, you'll allow those that come across your brand to see the what their peers are saying, and efficiently syndicate word-of-mouth marketing for your products. 

Consider a digital sampling program

As digital marketing trends shift, digital product sampling has become a powerful tool for getting product reviews. By getting samples into the hands of consumers and asking them to provide feedback in the way of an online review, you're able to combine the power of multiple tactics into one effective strategy. On average, 30% of consumers who are part of a digital product sampling program leave a review.  

Digital sampling allows you to build a seamless, incentive-based journey for consumers that builds brand loyalty and engagement. It gives brands the ability to reach their target market, receive candid and valuable reviews for products, increase consumer feedback collection, and get your brand physically into the hands of high-value shoppers. It’s a powerful fusion of word-of-mouth, incentives and experiential marketing—coming together to build authenticity and credibility for your brand.

Best of all? It also allows you to collect more profound insights about your target consumers. Learn more about their thoughts on the product, whether they plan on purchasing it in the future, and if they would recommend it to a friend. Ask comparative questions relative to other CPG brands, and whether there's anything specific they'd change about the product. 

Combined, these insights not only give you a full-picture view into how your product resonates with consumers today, but also helps you understand where to take your brand in the future.

Actively engage with reviews

Consumer engagement, especially in the digital marketing arena, is critical for brands who are looking to build strong reviews. Brands who value product feedback ensure that every review gets a response, whether it was a five star rave review or a disgruntled one star.

Engaging with reviews in a genuine way helps build the authenticity of brands who hear their consumers, and goes a long way to show that you value the consumers who took the time to share their experiences. 

Provide superior customer support

When consumers leave product reviews, it's often about more than just the product—it's about the brand behind it. Many superior products fall victim to getting rave reviews on the quality of their products but low rating scores due to poor customer support. 

With our globalized and interconnected lifestyles, the average consumer wants to be able to reach a company quickly and get their questions or issues resolved in a timely manner. Don't let something that can be easily managed affect the ratings on those product reviews that come your way. 

Remember that every consumer touchpoint, from a thank you email to digital product sampling, is another way to engage and receive consumer feedback.

Keep the process simple

While it can be tempting to try and get as much information out of consumers as possible, it's always best to avoid long-form surveys. Consumers are busy—asking them to complete a 15-page questionnaire can be overwhelming, requires a high level of effort on their part, and will likely result in lower engagement. Even with an incentive, extremely cumbersome survey experiences can make consumers feel like giving feedback isn't worthwhile.

Whether it’s a quick thumbs up or down, a one sentence review, or giving a simple star rating, keep it as simple as possible to increase your chances of getting real feedback. 

Build lasting relationships

Product reviews are a great indicator of which consumers (for better or worse) are the most engaged with your brand. Brands who win at loyalty are those that see product reviews as the beginning of a longterm consumer relationship. Based on the feedback given, brands can create highly-personalized marketing touchpoints for consumers based on product attributes that resonated with them most, star rating, lifestyle indicators, and so much more.

For consumers who have given high ratings and shown engagement, this is a great opportunity to nurture them further with special offers, loyalty programs, and VIP incentives. And for those that gave a less than desirable rating? Create a win-back campaign using the trending feedback given in their reviews to help them re-engage with your brand.

Track everything in one place

Once the product reviews start to roll in, it can be challenging to sift through thousands of ratings and find actionable takeaways. Using a centralized platform to collect, analyze consumer sentiment and identify trends can help brands scale word-of-mouth marketing efforts fast. Platforms like Sampler can help brands gather impactful insights, such as: 

  • Where did the product reviews come from (emails, call to actions, social media, direct)?
  • What are the consumers saying about your product?
  • Are the reviews negative? And if so, are they about a specific area that you can improve upon? 
  • Are the reviews referring to a specific SKU or the brand as a whole?
  • Based on the feedback, can we build an updated target audience or consumer profile? 
  • How can I build these insights into my business objectives?

Having a centralized tool to not only store this information but take the appropriate action can take the guesswork out of product review analysis. Even better, using Sampler brands can now compare their results to industry benchmarks to assess their rating score and see if they're receiving a good volume of product reviews.

Find the right long-term strategy for your brand

Collecting, syndicating and amplifying product reviews can be a hefty task for any brand. With all of the work that goes into building brand loyalty, it's important to arm yourself with the the tools that help you sort and understand exactly what your consumers are saying at scale.

Sampler's platform and team of experts does all of the work for you, creating a hassle-free solution to peer recommendation. Our platform helps get CPG brands get products into the hands of their ideal consumer, collect high-quality reviews, and gather deep consumer insights.

Get fresh product reviews on the regular, and maintain review recency using Sampler today.

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