Amazon’s Problem With Fake Reviews Doesn’t Just Hurt Them
It’s not secret–Amazon wins over ecommerce customers at nearly every step–from the initial product search to the repeat purchase. But even with it’s accolades, the ecommerce giant has its pitfalls. One area Amazon continues to feel pressure is with its rising number of fraudulent reviews.
Products flooded with fake reviews get pushed to the top of search, which has burner brands abusing consumer trust with flawless feedback. Unfortunately, Amazon’s fraudulent review content doesn’t just impact its own customers, but the entire ratings and reviews industry.
Download our eBook for insights into:
Amazon’s increasing number of fake reviews
The importance of trust and authentic customer feedback
How to spot fake reviews and moderate content
How PowerReviews moderates fake reviews and promotes authenticity
As ecommerce spending explodes year-over-year, it’s clear that consumers today aren’t shy about buying from new brands online. And for those same consumers, the path to purchase is paved with visual content.
Heck, just do a quick Google search and see for yourself. What will you find?
Visual content is front-and-center in today’s search results before users even have time to think about sifting through a laundry list of links. That’s because seeing is believing.
Brands need to operate under the principle of “show, don’t tell” if they want to convert modern customers. Perhaps this is why creating and curating visual content remains a top priority for businesses in 2019.
The good news? Harnessing the power of visual content doesn’t require you to be a creative genius. In this guide, we’ll break down the fine details of visual content in the path to purchase. You’ll see firsthand the specific visual strategies top brands are using to convert customers and how to roll them out yourself.
With that, let’s dive right in.
What is the Path to Purchase?
The path to purchase represents the various channels that business rely on to transform leads and prospects into customers. From search engines and social media to email and paid ads, there is no “right” channel for converting customers.
Likewise, there is no single path to purchase in the customer journey. Visual content plays a vital role in the path to purchase for a couple of key reasons. For starters, visual content is easy to digest at a glance.
A video or image can show off a product in action in a fraction of the time that a blog post or lengthy email. This spells good news for appealing to today’s customers and their microscopic attention spans.
Consider also that people typically retain and recall visuals much better than the written word. Consumers today are hit with more marketing messages on a day-to-day basis than we can count. The more often someone sees your brand’s imagery including product photos and logos, the more likely you are to stand out over time.
Think about the marketing rule of seven that states people need to see what you’re offering at least seven times before they’re ready to buy. Paving your path to purchase with visual content means creating meaningful, memorable touch points that’ll result in sales.
And if nothing else, Brandwagon Digital Media wants you to bear in mind businesses boasting unique visuals see conversion rates seven times higher than those that don’t.
What Does a Visual Path to Purchase Look Like in Action?
We’re glad you asked!
Let’s look at a real-world example of how visual content can impact the path to purchase. For example, say you’re taking a Disney vacation with your family and you’ve been tasked with one of life’s greatest challenges: picking a spot for dinner.
More than likely, you’ll start with a simple Google query–and in this case, you’d likely search “places to eat at Disney Springs.” While you’re obviously spoiled for choice, the Google ratings and restaurant snapshots help you narrow down your decision.
As part of your journey through Google results, you find some listicles like this one that shows off pictures of the author’s favorite fare.
Or ever better, you come across a video or two that breaks down the best restaurants in the area.
Based on your research, you pick out a spot with some confidence. Scrolling through customer photos, you see your potential menu firsthand and get a better idea of the restaurant’s vibe. Customer reviews then clue you on what you should expect and which menu items to check out (or avoid).
And if you’re socially savvy, you might even take to social media to which local spots have customers buzzing in real time.
See how that works?
We often hear the notion that effective selling online is all about creating a good customer experience. Through visual content, and especially through user-generated content, businesses create authentic experiences that eventually convert customers. This is just a snapshot of all the various avenues to make those experiences happen.
This is why we created Journey IQ, a completely scalable tool to provide you insights into what happens online and in store. This tools helps incentivize buyers who already love you to go on special missions to help you improve sales and understand the complete shopping experience.
And on a related note, remember that the path to purchase isn’t a straight line. Any combination of these channels are fair game both before and after purchasing (specifically sharing hashtags or leaving reviews).
How to Pave Your Own Path to Purchase via Visual Content
No two paths of purchase are the same for two different businesses. And hey, that’s a good thing.
This gives your business a much-needed sense of freedom when it comes to the types of visual content necessary to make those meaningful touch points. Below are some tips for brands looking to to put their visual content on display regardless of your industry or budget:
Make Sure Your Product Pages Pack a Punch
Product pages are a prime place to step up your visual game. Chances are you couple each of your product listings with some form of imagery, right?
But why stop there?
Vornado includes some still photos as well as action shots of their products to help shoppers visualize them in-person. Additionally, Vornado integrates ratings and reviews to build trust with shoppers.
The star-ratings themselves work to catch the eye of potential buyers, encouraging them to spend longer on the page and eventually make a purchase. Given that Northwestern University data shows 95% of shoppers read online reviews before buying, providing a place for buyers to sound-off is a no-brainer.
Star ratings and customer photos provide shoppers an authentic look at a product while also making the page more aesthetically pleasing. In fact, the PowerReviews Growing Power of Reviews report found 63% of shoppers look for user-generated content and visuals from real customers before making a purchase.
So why not put your biggest fans’ visual content front and center on your product pages? Well, you can do just that with the PowerReviews Visual and Social Suite.
We provide more avenues to collect and display user-generated content directly from your customers and their social channels. Whether your customers share an image from their phone or social media channel like Instagram, we provide the integration tools to make this easy on brands and retailers, but a quick and painless experience for your shoppers.
But what if your customers aren’t uploading visual content for your products? It’s not easy asking for content, but there’s definitely a great place to start looking.
Curate High-Converting Imagery from Social Media
To say that social media is a staple of the path to purchase would be a massive understatement.
The beauty of user-generated content is that it’s, well, user-generated. Rather than worry about coming up with new imagery, you simply let your customers do the legwork for you.
Of course, that involves encouraging those customers to start creatin’.
The first step to making that happen is by asking. For example, brands like Ulta encourage fans to use the hashtag #UltaBeauty for a chance to be featured on their feed.
This results in a slew of new content for that’s a far cry from a typical product photo. Hashtags and opportunities to create user-generated content are smart ways to encourage more engagement from your customers.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BsWmfV6gP3r/
User-generated content is likewise great marketing firepower for your website or email list. For example, Ulta features its user-generated photos on-site in the form of a lookbook. Many brands likewise feature similar photos in their email campaigns to encourage more social shoppers.
And to bring the power of user-generated content full-circle with our first tip, customer photos are fantastic for product pages. Brands like Black Milk Clothing promote item-specific hashtags to share for individual products. This is yet another opportunity to build trust and convert buyers through visual content.
Reel Customers in via Video Marketing
We can’t talk about visual content without talking about video.
As you might already know, video content is taking over the internet itself as the majority of all web traffic will be video-based in the coming years. To drive this point home, YouTube is now second only to Google in terms of today’s most-visited websites (recently passing Facebook).
And speaking o Facebook, video is often cited as the most popular type of content across the major social media platforms.
The specifics of why video works so well to reel in customers is no surprise.
Easy to digest? Check.
More entertaining than a traditional blog post or listicle? Most of the time, yes.
But most importantly, videos quite literally show off your products in action. There’s a reason why unboxings and video reviews are so popular: they’re unfiltered, and well, real.
From raising awareness to serving as an ad itself, video is a powerful medium on the path to purchase. For example, BeardBrand regularly publishes tutorials and how-to’s which subtly highlight their own products.
GoPro might be the best example of a brand killing it with video, mostly due to the fact that they’re, you know, a camera company that has heavily invested in action sports. Their eye-popping clips and user-generated content quite literally show what their products can do.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BteXYiXHuEV/
Some brands might shy away from video because they think they lack the budget or production value. That said, not everything you produce needs to be a mind-blowing production.
Brands like Blue Apron put together simple, 15-second clips to feature through their website and social media to give a glimpse of what they have to offer.
And with that, we wrap up our guide!
Learn From What Your Customers Are Already Telling You
It might not surprise you, but there’s a lot to learn from your previous customers. And to take it one step further, there’s even more to learn from the review content they provide on your products.
Try to find the commonalities with your products and how consumers truly feel about them. What this means is brands have to pay attention to small details that might be causing some concern on a product.
For example, if a few customers are having problems with the zipper on your new coat–it might be time to take these product insights to the manufacturer. The only problem is you might have hundreds of products and even more reviews.
That’s why we created Product Pulse in our Intelligence Suite–so brands and retailers can find, analyze and uncover real product insights within review content. The hours it would take your team to review every single rating would take far too much time–and good luck finding someone to dig through the mess to find insights.
Instead, we do the heavy lifting and analyze sentiment through common adjectives and review analysis from more than 40 million consumer reviews already put through our Intelligence Engine. Your consumers are talking about your products and providing feedback, it’s just a matter if you’re listening to everything they’re saying.
Is Visual Content Part of Your Path to Purchase?
The final takeaway here is that visual content in any shape or form is integral to the path to purchase. Not just because it helps catch the eye of customers but because it builds the trust that results in conversions.
By supplementing your path to purchase with visual experiences for customers, you win more sales.
We want to hear from you, though. Which types of visual content do you find most compelling? Let us know on Twitter!
If you’re looking for a trusted partner to take your visual content to the next level, request a demo of PowerReviews today to see how we can integrate user-generated content onto your product pages.
Let’s get serious–we know the average sales increases by as much as 2 times when the product goes from zero reviews to at least one review. The thing is most businesses know the value of getting more reviews, but they simply struggle on how to ask for reviews.
Retailers have to adopt the mentality of the more, the merrier because positive reviews are not just an ego boost–they represent serious positioning power. According to multiple online shopping statistics and studies, well over 90% of consumers look at online reviews before making a purchase.
Translation? The more reviews you have to show off your satisfied customers, the easier it is to convince prospects your products are the real deal. If nothing else, customer feedback clues you in on what your current and future customers want to see you offer.
Here’s the problem, though–reviews don’t happen by accident.
If you want customers to leave meaningful feedback, you have to learn how to ask for reviews. That’s why we put together this guide on how to ask for reviews without chasing them down one by one.
The Art of Asking for Customer Reviews
Food for thought: 70% of people are willing to write a review if prompted to do so. In other words, you shouldn’t be shy about asking for reviews. But the question isn’t whether or not you should ask for reviews, but rather how to ask for ‘em.
Your parents probably taught you to say “please” and “thank you,” right? Well, figuring out how to ask for reviews is a bit more complicated than that.
For example, how do you avoid coming off as clingy or desperate? Is there an ideal time to pitch your customers for reviews? What the heck do you even say? All great questions!
Before we dive into specific strategies, let’s talk about the art of asking. The following tips are around language, framing and timing so you understand what makes a review pitch pack a punch. These tips are fair game for emails, review-specific promotions and even scripts for your customer service team!
Give Your Customers a ‘Why’
Writing reviews might seem like a simple, straightforward task for your satisfied customers. The reality is reviews represent an exchange. After all, you’re asking them to do something before their initial transaction.
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Chances are your customers are crazy busy. Ask yourself: what would compel you to take time from your schedule to write a review? Offering an awesome product or service is a start, but you should strive to give your customers an answer to “Why bother?”
“We want to make sure that we’re delivering top-tier products and to understand if there’s anything we can do to improve in the future!”
These sorts of statements provide subtle yet significant context to your review questions and make them seem less obtrusive.
Frame Your Reviews as Quick & Painless
Reviews shouldn’t be seen as something to tack on your customers’ to-do list. Ideally, they should be empowered to leave feedback quickly and without having to jump through too many hoops.
And no, a “good” review doesn’t have to be novel-length (but more on that later). Something as simple as the following phrase can win over a customer who’s on the fence about writing a review:
“Your feedback is invaluable to us and only takes a few seconds!”
In fact, this is the exact sort of approach that Nokia takes for their post-purchase review request emails. See how that works?
Mind Your Words
Figuring out how to ask for reviews might seem simple on the surface. However, writing your first review request pitch can certainly be daunting.
The good news? Asking for a review doesn’t have to be rocket science. As you brainstorm your pitch, just keep the following three principles in mind:
Start with a question. Review requests centered around questions like what did you think of tend get more responses. Questions manage to engage your customers from the word “go” and naturally prompt a response.
Make your pitch about them, not just you. Again, make sure to drive home the point that you’re eager to hear from your customers because you want to provide the best service possible. You’re doing this to help your customers too.
Be straightforward. There’s no point in being vague or coy when asking for a review. Customers are more than happy to write them, but probably see their fair share of requests too. You don’t need more than a couple of sentences to get the job done.
Time Your Reviews Requests to Perfection
This is a crucial piece of how to ask for reviews that’s easy to overlook. Ever been to a restaurant where a waiter or manager asks you how your food was before you’ve even had a chance to take a bite?
Awkward, right?
Likewise, you can’t be too eager when it comes to asking for reviews. You don’t want to ask someone how they’re enjoying your product before they’ve had a chance to do so.
And on the flip side, shoppers order a lot of products online. In fact, an NPR report found 28% of U.S. shoppers order at least one product off Amazon a week!
You shouldn’t wait too long and risk losing the interest and initial buzz behind their purchase. For most products and industries, a week or two is fair game in terms of how long to wait before asking for a review.
For reference, MailChimp’s default trigger settings for a post-purchase message series (hint: where a review request would be) are an hour, 10 days and 20 days after a purchase is made. The latter two times would work for most businesses out there.
If you’re still having trouble asking for reviews and actually getting them, we’ve got you. PowerReviews’ Progressive Collection feature allows you to put the products that need reviews at the top of post-purchase emails.
This is perfect for retailers who often see multi-item orders, but don’t see the reviews for all items. If a shopper bought a toothbrush, hairbrush and hair-dying kit, you’d probably want the customer to write that review for the dye above all.
Our collection features lets your customers see review requests forms showing the most expensive item or lowest review count item first in the review submission. Request a demo to learn how else PowerReviews helps increase review rates!
5 Strategies for Encouraging More Customer Reviews
Now that we’ve broken down the art of asking, let’s talk about how to ask customers to reviews. Like, what are the best ways to actually, you know, ask?
Below are 5 tips on how to encourage customers to write reviews and specific tactics that should be part of your various marketing campaigns:
1. Put Together Your Post-Purchase Autoresponders
Email is perhaps the most popular avenue for asking for reviews. It’s no secret as to why, either.
For starters, you’re able to put review quests can be put on autopilot. Just about any major email marketing software includes a post-purchase series which means all you need to do is put together a pitch email to slot in.
The beauty of automated review emails is that you can perfect and optimize your pitch prior to sending it. No awkward conservations: just a sleek, straightforward message to encourage reviews.
By setting up your post-purchase email requests automatically, you ensure that you hit up all of your customers for reviews. This results in a higher overall volume of reviews and no second-guessing who you’ve already asked.
Of course, email autoresponders sometimes feel robotic or pushy if they aren’t crafted with care. That’s exactly why we believe your messages need to have a personal touch and be sent at an appropriate time so they don’t land in the trash (or worse, the spam folder).
However, the key is making an autoresponder that doesn’t annoy someone. This is where the art of asking comes into play as you ask in a reasonable frame of time and don’t want to come off as aggressive or pushy. Flooding someone’s inbox is a bad look and isn’t going to get you much love.
This is a great example of an effective post-purchase email from Massdrop. Short, sweet and to the point, this messages presents itself as a positive request that isn’t going to eat up the customer’s schedule.
2. Sweeten the Deal With Review Incentives
Either as a variation on your autoresponders or as part of a specific promotion, consider providing your customers with incentives as part of your review requests. Remember what we said earlier about giving customers a “Why bother?”
A freebie such as a percentage-off discount or entry into a contest can do the trick. The point here isn’t to break the bank or to come off as fake with your review content. Instead, the right incentive simply helps encourage shoppers to leave a review and possibly even another purchase.
If a discount isn’t doing the trick, consider the power of a product sampling campaign. PowerReviews’ Influencer and Social Suite connects brands to our massive community of everyday influencers who are ready to leave reviews for your products, shout them out on social media and potentially turn them into repeat buyers.
Product sampling is one of the best ways to ask for reviews–especially when you have a new product or low-rated item in need of some reviews.
3. Prompt Your Customers With Review Templates
The more straightforward your review process, the better. That’s exactly why we integrate specific questions and prompts into our review platform.
Think about what it’s like to stare a totally blank page when trying to write, well, anything. Having some form of guidance is enough to get you going.
For example, PowerReviews’ Review Snapshot feature breaks down specific ratings and relevant keywords in addition to providing an open-ended section where reviewers can speak their mind. This gives you the best of both worlds in terms of feedback.
The best part is each brand has the option to select which questions or product details it includes on the Review Snapshot. This means your customers have a tailored experience and the freedom to say what they need to say, all the while you have actionable data points that clue you in on the most important details of your products. In short, a win-win.
4. Monitor Your Social Mentions & Share Customer Content
More customers are taking to social media to shout-out their latest purchases. As a result, it pays to mind your social mentions to see when your buyers are showing you some love.
These represent perfect opportunities to ask for on-site reviews. If someone’s willing to hype you up on social media, they’ll more than likely put in a good word, no questions asked.
We like your style 😉 Can we feature this pic on our social channels, email, in-store displays, or https://t.co/c1lRu6YHuJ? Reply “yes" to us if that sounds good. Thanks!
To encourage more of these types of shout-outs, make a point to share customer photos and user-generated content on a regular basis. If followers and customers know that you frequently promote your fans, they’ll naturally want to get on board.
Hint: PowerReviews makes it a cinch for you to discover and obtain the rights to your user-generated content. In addition to helping you monitor your mentions, our platform taps into customer photos that are perfect to couple with your on-site reviews. Want to see all of our Social Collection capabilities? Request a demo today!
5. Be Transparent By Responding to Reviews & Questions
If you expect your customers to provide feedback and answer questions regarding your products, you should be willing to do the same. Responding to questions and reviews signals that you’re actively listening to your customers and are truly committed to stellar service.
Encouraging customer interactions isn’t just a one-way street. Making your transparent and open, responding to both positive and negative feedback, is a good look for your brand.
Anyone who’s willing to ask a question is likely the same type of person to write a review once they’ve made a purchase.
PowerReviews’ Questions and Answers platform enables prospects to ask questions which you can reply to for the sake of winning more would-be customers.
How Do You Ask Customers for Reviews?
Listen: there is no secret to scoring more reviews.
If you want ‘em, you’re going to have to ask for ‘em.
The tips and tactics in this guide can put you on a path toward consistent positive feedback for your business.
And with the help of platforms like PowerReviews, you know that you’re maximizing the engagement and level of detail from your customer feedback.
At a time when consumers have more trust in customer reviews than the actual brand, the demand to collect and display feedback is at an all time high. While most brands and retailers know the immense value of reviews, generating more of them is a whole other story.
Luckily, there are proven ways to get your customers to leave more reviews–without risking your authenticity or transparency. In this guide, we provide 15 methods for brands and retailers to produce and collect more customer reviews by effectively engaging shoppers before and after the sale.
Some of the topics we cover include:
When to ask for reviews: What’s the appropriate time to ask your customers to write a review?
Functional review forms: Why you need review forms to work across all devices.
Collecting multiple reviews: How to get customers to provide more reviews per purchase.
It’s said that goldfish have an attention span of 3 seconds–so how long do you think it is for your customers?
Whether it’s hours of Instagram or binge-listening the newest podcast, we consume a lot of media in various mediums and don’t make a lot of time to hear your business out. So with so many companies competing for attention, it’s no wonder that micro brands are flourishing amount retail giants.
In fact, companies like Nordstrom, Walmart and Amazon shell out a ton of money each year to reach their ideal customer. But with the rise in direct-to-consumer marketing, micro brands are standing out right in front of our faces.
You likely have heard of some of the more popular micro brands like UNTUCKit, Billie and Sugarbearhair. And that’s because these brands have pushed plenty of social ads and mid-roll advertising campaigns on your favorite podcast. Simply put, these companies leverage social commerce in a way that’s completely changing the way we think about online selling.
https://www.instagram.com/p/ByYpANJFw-O/
So much so that big-name companies are feeling the pressure to compete—or acquire the competition. According to RetailDive, one-third of U.S. consumers expect to make at least 40% of their purchases from direct-to-consumer companies within the next five years. Also, 81% claim they’ll make a minimum of one purchase from a direct-to-consumer brand within the next five years.
So, what are these brands doing that’s yielding such success?
We’ll take a look at the successful rise in micro brands and how they’ve impacted social commerce and mobile sales as a whole. But first, what actually is a micro brand?
What Are Micro Brands?
Micro brands use a direct-to-consumer business model, meaning the company foregoes the middleman by selling and shipping products straight to the customer.
Traditionally, the bigger your business (or, the more stores you had), the more successful you were, but that isn’t so much the case in today’s ecommerce world. Companies find that they can generate sales and grow cult-like followings through strategic, hyper-focused content and social media marketing campaigns.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B0E3vuvn-mp/
But the audiences they’re targeting aren’t the typical consumer personas many brands use to identify and resonate with their audience. These are small pools of consumers who are highly engaged with a brand—not a mass audience.
Showing up in places their unique audience frequents, like podcasts, Instagram and streaming services, they capitalize on what Google likes to call micro-moments—or an intent-rich moment–when a person turns to a device to act on a need and generates success.
Micro Brands Stand out From the Crowd by Being Selective
Another significant difference between micro brands and other retailers is their hyper-focused approach to content marketing. Take the woman’s razor brand, Billie, for example. From a bird’s eye view, Billie sells high-quality razors and shaving products for women.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bzbj7angtDP/
But what makes this company so successful is its ability to resonate with its target niche using select visuals, tone and language that appeal to a specific smaller audience. While big brands often fish the whole ocean, micro brands look to the best spots for a particular need.
This is done through personalization marketing instead of trying to appeal to the masses. Billie’s female-first approach is more engaging to women who aren’t necessarily concerned with adhering to societal norms around women and body hair. But it also connects with a specific product need–women who are tired of paying more for their shaving supplies.
In contrast, a company like Gillette’s Venus has built its brand on just the opposite. Because of Billie’s unique targeting, they strike a chord with their audience in a way Venus doesn’t.
However, because of this, Venus is looking for ways to stay competitive, as the launch of their delivered-to-your-door custom razor package confirms.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B0E8WZkgP9v/
Even in the case of their social game, the content looks extremely similar. Micro brands attract a smaller group of customers by appealing to their unique interests, values and priorities instead of being too general.
Changing the Social Proof Landscape
Using influencers as part of a brand’s content strategy is nothing new, but for micro brands, it’s approached a little differently. Instead of racing to work with influencers with the biggest following, it’s more like the opposite.
Rather than seeking out the Kardashian’s approval, scaling micro influencers or everyday influencers helps keep your reach specific with a loyal fan base. These influencers built a relationship with their followers by asking questions, answering DMs and genuinely caring about the products they share with followers.
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For example, Zenni Optical does a great job of making its customers the star of their marketing efforts. While the company isn’t as micro as it used to be, this direct-to-consumer brand successfully uses social to connect with consumers.
Zenni posts photos of everyday customers wearing their glasses. The eyewear company created a reputation for themselves as a relatable brand for creative and budget-friendly shoppers.
Additionally, they promote their shoppers directly on the product pages with user-generated content of the specific frames. This helps shoppers make better purchasing decisions with visual proof.
And your customers want visuals. A PowerReviews survey found 63% of U.S. shoppers specifically look for user-generated content along with verified consumer reviews before buying.
Micro Brand Shoppers Still Rely On Customer Feedback
Influencers aside, how are micro brands impacting the effectiveness of other forms of social proof, like ratings and reviews? Most micro brands work without a physical retail space and have the unique challenge of getting consumers to purchase products without ever seeing it in person.
This type of relationship requires trust. What’s the quickest way to build that trust? By collecting ratings and reviews from reliable sources that customers can identify with.
Direct-to-consumer mattress brand, Casper, faces the ultimate retail challenge—getting people to buy a mattress without ever testing it out first. Sounds daunting, right?
To build that essential trust among customers, Casper injects social proof into a large portion of their content marketing. The company integrates glowing customer testimonials in social posts as well as on the homepage of their website and on their product pages.
Within their product page designs, customers search through reviews broken up into categories that align with top concerns such as comfort, temperature and even reviews from couples. As a result, Casper is positioned to be a trustworthy brand that wants its customers to sleep better at night (literally), knowing they made a great purchase.
What makes micro brand social proof especially powerful is that because customers are making purchases without handling the products in person, it’s all the more important to make customers feel secure, confident and validated in their decision.
Plus, many micro brands make buying and returning products easy, so taking a chance on a new product has never been more low-risk for consumers.
A Lesson in Niche Content Marketing
Micro brands have do an amazing job marketing to their niche audience, but that doesn’t mean it only works because they’re so focused on targeting the right shopper. Instead, large brands need to a page from the micro-brand content marketing playbook to stay relevant.
Here are a few ways to make this approach work for your brand.
Be Intentional With Influencer Relationships
Instead of trying to appeal to a broad audience or picking an influencer with millions of followers, working with influencers with a sizable following with the audience you’re trying to reach is a step in the right direction.
Again, through an effective product sampling campaign, you leverage the voice of people who want to talk about your brand and spread the news through word-of-mouth marketing. Product sampling campaigns significantly help brands collect more reviews that are authentic and trustworthy.
By focusing on a smaller group of customers, your message has a chance to resonate with that group and that group only. The idea is that you’re a brand for them, not for everyone.
Cultivate Trust Through Social Proof
We know that building customer trust is one of the biggest hurdles micro brands face. Social proof adds a human element to any marketing strategy and it’s the difference between a customer making a purchase or moving on to another brand.
Strengthen your product pages with ratings and reviews that are presented in an engaging, easy-to-navigate way.
With the addition of ratings and reviews, adding customer-generated images is a great way to add value to each page.
Provide Value Beyond Your Products
A key differentiator of micro brands is providing more than high-quality products to customers–they also offer immense value elsewhere.
Take skincare company, Curology, for example. In addition to providing customers with totally customized skincare products, they have a series of skincare guides.
Curology covers topics ranging from how diet impacts the skin to which sunscreen is right for different skin types. Not only are these guides valuable and educational, but they’re also free on the Curology website.
This content marketing tactic positions them as skincare experts and helps lay that foundational trust for new customers. After they’ve made a purchase, customers learn about Curology products. Shoppers see what’s happening to their skin with their new skincare routine and more.
Scaling-Up Isn’t Always Synonymous With Success
Small, agile companies are more than capable of keeping up with the big guys—if not outpace them. Micro brands succeed because they relate to their niche audience in a way that speaks to them.
The ecommerce space makes it possible for smaller teams to compete, and the world is taking notice. With the help of PowerReviews, you will improve your brand’s social proof efforts and build more trust with your customers with suite of tools specifically built for these reasons.
Want to see a demo? Contact us today, and we’ll help you find the right solution.
