3,718 sellers join Amazon every day. The one guaranteed way to stand out from the competition? Tons of real reviews.
Controversial opinion: generating good reviews for your business doesn’t need to be hard work.
If you’ve read through the sea of “how to get reviews on Amazon” content that lists generic and vague advice like “provide a great consumer experience,” you might think it is.
It’s why this isn’t a listicle with best practices. (We’re also not going to waste any time listing out the many benefits of reviews.)
Instead, these are the actual steps you can take to generate 100s of Amazon reviews. All you need is $25 and a tiny bit of elbow grease.
When you strip back getting customer reviews to its core, you’re left with a simple question: how do you best ask for a review?
Countless great products on Amazon never receive a review simply because they botch the ask or, worse still, never ask in the first place.
The common wisdom is to send a follow-up message separate from the generic review request email that Amazon automatically sends.
To do this, you need a third-party responder that taps into Amazon’s seller messaging system.
Not only will this set you back $69 a month, but the average open rate of an email is also between 15-25%.
Instead, put a product insert in your packaging with a keyword. (A keyword is a word or phrase that customers can text to a phone number to subscribe to future messages.)
For example, “Give Your Two Cents and Receive a Free Item. Text “GIFT” to +1 (888) 123-4567 Now.”
When someone texts “GIFT,” they receive a message like this.
Depending on how someone responds, you can send them a link to leave a review on your product page. If they give you a lower score you can send them a form to fill out with feedback or reach out directly to find out what went wrong.
The best part is this can all be automated.
Using product inserts to ask for reviews is not a game-changing strategy. Combining them with texting and a discount/free item is.
It’s how Matykos Beauty used this strategy to generate over 2,000 reviews on its Jade Roller product, you also:
Build an SMS Marketing List
Since you can’t build any marketing database through Amazon, you end up in a vulnerable position. If you were kicked off of it tomorrow, a text list would at least mean you have a way to contact past customers.
Otherwise, you’d find yourself in a situation with no way to generate sales, no reviews, and no clients.
Catch Negative Reviews
You can gauge someone’s experience with your product before asking them for a review. That way you prevent negative reviews ending up on your Amazon listing.
Create a Customer Feedback Loop
No one is going to type out a URL you provide. Texting a keyword requires next to no effort–especially if there is a payoff.
Not only is this a surefire way to gather reviews, but it also provides a powerful customer feedback loop that allows you to make improvements to both your products and your product details page.
To set up this workflow, all you need is a:
If you haven’t guessed by now we’re a text messaging service. You can sign up for a 14-day free trial and test out the process below. (When you’re ready to upgrade, our plans start at $25 for 500 SMS and you get a complimentary text-enabled toll-free number.)
The first thing you need to do when you log in is create a keyword. This two-minute video explains how to do it.
There’s one additional step to automate the entire process. Add triggers to your keywords. Go to keywords and then click on the keyword you created above. Under the Triggers section, click Add trigger. If you want to send a message like this:
You’ll need to add the following three triggers (think of them as sub-keywords).
Here’s how the fully automated workflow works.
💡 If you’d like to create a different workflow, we offer three additional ways you can send review requests via SMS here.
There you have it, the two steps you need to take to get more online reviews for your business. You’ll reap the benefits of higher visibility and conversion rates when you’re generating a steady stream of reviews.
The next step is to sign up for a 14-day free trial of SimpleTexting and take us for a test ride. We’ll set you up with a text-enabled number and 50 free messages. If you have any questions email us at [email protected]
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