Why Are Product Reviews More Important Than Any Other Marketing Tactic?
If you sell online, product reviews are one of your most important marketing tools, find out why and learn how to get them to drive sales.
Are you looking to get more product reviews for your online marketing? You should be! Reviews have some of the top benefits to drive sales online.
Product reviews as a marketing tool simply can NOT be beat. They are relatively easy to get, they are essentially free and the they drive conversion more effectively than any message coming direct from your business. We will talk about more conversions, customer loyalty, and better product awareness. We will also touch on how product reviews can be used to improve search engine appearance and boost exposure.
So, how do product reviews boost your store’s performance?
1: Your Customers will be Sure to Buy
It’s a simple fact — customers are motivated to buy based on other customers positive reviews.
Experts believe that 9 out of 10 customers view reviews before buying. Here are some stats that back it up.
- 97% of people read reviews of local businesses.
- 90% of buyers read online reviews to decide on a product’s purchase.
- Almost half (49%) of users think the quantity of reviews matters. Back in 2016, that figure was 35%.
- When searching for a local business, 60% of customers check Google My Business for reviews.
- 78% of people trust online reviews as much as a recommendation from a friend or a family member.
- A study shows that online reviews influence 67.7% of purchasing decisions.
- 92% of B2B customers are more likely to buy after reading a trusted review.
- 85% of consumers believe online reviews older than three months are irrelevant.
You should ask for a review when your customer is happiest to get more positive reviews.
2: Help with a New Perspective
Other peoples’ perspectives are a much bigger motivator than a company’s sales tools. Product reviews are the best marketing tool at your disposal. I’m sure you’ve shopped on Amazon, but have you payed attention to the customer reviews? You’ll notice that many of the product reviews are quite detailed offering deeper insight into how the product is used, how easy it is to put together, etc. With more details, you can attract more people to see your products and buy them. So, to have reviewed is a win-win situation for you and your audience.
However, it is important to note: you need to stay on top of reviews. Make sure to respond when appropriate and make sure that your customer service is impeccable, because negative reviews can sway potential buyers the other way.
3: Helps Improve Brand Loyalty
Brand loyalty is a metric that shows how many people actually like your products. When people keep coming back to buy your products, they are loyal.
Brand loyalty typically is associated with high quality product reviews. These are the reviews you’re after! Check out this post to learn how to get them.
It’s also important to note that high quality reviews provide a good boost in rankings for both Google search and on platforms like Amazon.
4: People Do not buy from Brands with too Many Bad Reviews
Another thing that you should know when looking for reviews is to avoid bad ones. The best way to achieve that is to have the best available products. If you’re product suck — you’re in trouble. That begin said, every business encounters a few bad reviews, so it’s important that you come up with a strategy on how to deal with them.
5: Better Product Awareness
Customer reviews bear a lot of weight in the success of any online store. For example; Product reviews on Amazon mean everything.
There are many factors that may go into how well your product is displayed on Amazon such as; price, description, and keywords, but aside from the price point, people are more influenced by product reviews than anything else. Amazon knows this and that’s why highly reviewed products get displayed higher than non-reviewed products.
Increasing your customer reviews on Amazon is a necessary and it’s also necessary on your eCommerce store in order to gain a competitive advantage.
6: Search Engine Appearance
For quite some time now, Google has been improving their perimeters and criterion based on which it allows different websites to progress on the SERP. And since it is no secret that Google favors original content, and it comes as no surprise that Google actually likes businesses with a lot of online reviews. Not only can online reviews improve your SEO in this sense, but the fact is that a staggering number of 90% of online customers are more likely to first check online reviews regarding a certain business before they actually decide to check the business itself.
Some experts believe that reviews are the fifth biggest ranking factor in search. So, if you have amazing reviews on your online store, you can get a real boost.
7: Better Click-Through Rate
One study showed that,
Review stars in the search engine results page (or “SERP”) helped traffic uplift by 35% in the Western market and in the large European market, the same test yielded a 13% traffic uplift.
8: Help Improve Services and Products
Getting negative reviews can be a blessing in disguise. Look at it as an opportunity to improve your product. When you get negative reviews, you understand what people want from you. At the same time, you can improve the problems that you have.
There can be problems like some issues in manufacturing, customer support or even marketing – look for areas to improve.
9: Better Exposure
You can get more exposure on social media like Instagram with good reviews.
And, of course, the more people who know or hear about your business, i.e. the greater the exposure and the more likely you are to build your audience. Simply put, let’s say that you sell motorbike gear. If your company is featured on a website selling motorbikes, chances are that people interested in buying them will want to visit your website next, if the things they’ve heard about your brand are generally positive.
10: More Conversions
As stated by research drawn from the industry leading review app, Power Reviews:
- 99.9% of consumers read reviews, and 98% consider them an essential step on the consumer path to purchase.
- The more reviews a brand has, the better. Shoppers who visit a product page with 1-10 reviews are 52.2% more likely to convert than those who visit pages without any reviews.
Conversions can be the generation of leads, sales, email subscriptions, or any other. In the instances above they are specifically sales conversions.
11: Make Your Business more Trustworthy
The experts believe that you can have more credibility when your reviews are positive.
Enter: social proof. The phenomenon that combines simple human nature with our access to overwhelming amounts of information online. Simply put, when it’s time to invest our time and money into a purchase, we want to choose a tried and tested brand. We’ll go online to check for reviews (one form of social proof), ratings (another one), and check for security seals (you’ve figured it out by now, it’s all social proof).
Growth Services
Social media is where billions of people globally spend their priceless few hours daily be it Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube or any other.
There were only one of the top 3 activities of the internet users that was missing from social media but Instagram has brought that to its platform as well i.e. Online Shopping or Social Shopping.
You can try to buy Instagram Followers to get more sales and better results for your marketing. Instagram should be one of the main selling channels you should use for marketing. Instead of trying to buy followers, you can also take advantage of shoppable posts to drive traffic and reviews to you online store. Shoppable Posts by Instagram has provided your customers with a whole new way of buying products. Find out more in this post:
Final Thoughts
We discussed some of the top advantages of online reviews for your brand. Reviews can help your brand grow online with more exposure and reach. At the same time, it would help you with more trustworthiness, improvement, and conversions.
Reviews can help you gain more exposure, click-through rate, and improvements. So, you should always encourage your audience to give you good reviews after purchase.
If you’re looking for additional way to attract product reviews, take a look at these two posts:
Use product reviews as a marketing tool to build credibility and trustworthiness. Start today.
