Prep Your Product Pages for Black Friday and Cyber Monday Traffic
Gift givers are increasingly turning to user-generated content such as ratings and reviews to inform their holiday purchases. How can you ensure you have plenty of this content available for your key products so you can boost traffic and conversion this holiday season?
Read on to learn five things you should do now so you have plenty of reviews for plenty of your products by the time Black Friday and Cyber Monday roll around.
1. Send Collect Emails
If you’re an existing PowerReviews customer, you’ve heard this tip time and again…but it’s worth mentioning again. Make sure you’re sending an email to your shoppers asking them to write reviews for recent purchases. Your post-purchase emails should be mobile-friendly, include a short subject line, and a clear call to action. We’ve found that more than 60% of reviews are written as the result of a Collect email.
[bctt tweet=”More than 60% of reviews are written as the result of a Collect email.” username=”powerofreviews”]
2. Launch a Product Sampling Campaign for New Products
If you’re like many brands and retailers, you’re likely introducing new products in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping. Be sure you’re launching these products with plenty of reviews in place in order to build confidence for your shoppers — if you don’t, you risk losing shoppers to a site that provides the content they crave. PowerReviews research on the path to purchase found that 45% of shoppers will turn to a search engine if there aren’t reviews (or aren’t enough reviews) for a product on a brand or retailer site.
How can you generate reviews for products you haven’t yet launched? With a product sampling program. Work with your ratings and reviews provider to send samples to your own list of consumers or an on-demand community of reviewers. Then, collect reviews from those who received a free sample. Vornado, a leader in airflow products, found that 97% of consumers who received a sample as part of their most recent product sampling campaign with PowerReviews went on to write a product review. Read more about how Vornado uses product sampling to generate and syndicate reviews.
3. Streamline the Process for Collecting Reviews for Multiple Items
You’re shopping for a pair of shoes, and you end up with socks, too. You put a dress shirt in your shopping cart, and at the last minute, you add a tie. Sound familiar? You’re not alone. We’ve found that about 60% of orders coming through the PowerReviews network include more than one item.
[bctt tweet=”60% of orders coming through the PowerReviews network include more than one item.” username=”powerofreviews”]
So, make it easy for shoppers to write multiple reviews in one sitting. PowerReviews offers a product feature called Review Your Purchases that allows consumers to quickly review all purchases within a single, mobile-friendly page, rather than requiring them to navigate to a different page to write each review. We’ve found that our clients who use Review Your Purchases have increased review volume by 92% year over year, compared to just using a standard, single product review form.
4. Collect Reviews from In-Store Shoppers
The National Retail Federation predicts that online retail will grow 8-12% in 2017 — three times the growth rate of total retail sales. And while ecommerce continues to grow, the fact remains that today, the majority of retail transactions still happen within the four walls of a brick and mortar store.
If you’re not currently collecting reviews from your in-store shoppers, you’re missing out on an opportunity to generate a ton of content. How can you start collecting reviews from in-store shoppers? Leverage your existing rewards or loyalty program to send emails to consumers who shop in your stores, asking them to submit reviews. Consider rewarding these shoppers with loyalty points for contributing content, and once they accrue a certain amount of points, send them a coupon for a percentage off a future purchase.
If you don’t have a rewards or loyalty program, print a call to action on all of your store receipts, asking shoppers to write reviews for the products they purchase.
5. Ask Your Staff Members to Write Reviews
Chances are, some of your biggest brand advocates are the folks who work in your corporate office and your stores. For example, if you’re a retailer that sells snowboards, I’m willing to bet there are a good number of your employees who own one of your snowboards.
So, ask your staff members to write reviews for products they own. In order to maintain transparency — and the trust you’ve work hard to earn, be sure to add a badge to all reviews that were written by a member of your team.
Want to learn even more ways to generate more ratings and reviews? Download The Ultimate Guide to Generating More Product Reviews.
