Finding the right incentives to boost your online review count

Business

Modern consumers are becoming increasingly budget-conscious and rely on online reviews to help inform their purchasing decisions.

Reading authentic reviews provided by other customers quickly builds trust and ultimately influences whether a customer chooses one brand or moves on to the next.

As a brand, building a positive online reputation with the help of customer reviews is critical. These reviews increase brand visibility, help establish credibility, and help stand out in a crowded marketplace. The challenge is motivating your satisfied customers to share their experiences with others.

Fortunately, there are proven strategies you can use to encourage your customers to provide their feedback.

Challenges associated with building an online presence

Establishing a strong online presence can be an important catalyst for growth, but is rarely an easy process. Some challenges need to be navigated, including:

Increasing Brand Awareness

Trying to get your brand seen takes a lot of time and energy for most marketing teams. Depending on the industry you’re in, competition can be fierce, and bringing in more web traffic can quickly drain your budget. With potential customers bombarded with new information, it’s difficult for brands to stand out.

Unfortunately, creating a good-looking website enough to make a significant difference. Companies need to continuously generate compelling content, implement effective marketing strategies, and gain a deeper understanding of their target audience to capture their attention and build a loyal following.

Prooving Credibility

Gaining visibility is only half the battle. The next crucial step is earning the trust of your audience. The internet is filled with scams and misinformation, and consumers are understandably wary of unknown or unproven online brands.

To overcome this skepticism, businesses need to find ways to create a more trustworthy web presence. This involves establishing a strong track record of success, showcasing positive customer feedback, and leveraging social proof to demonstrate more reliability and legitimacy.

Differentiating Themselves from the Competition

Differentiating your brand in a crowded market is key. Competing for attention in a sea of other businesses can be a costly and demanding endeavor.

To truly stand out, companies need to look for more ways to elevate their position compared to other brands. This may involve creating more unique product offerings, continuously analyzing competitor pricing strategies, and putting in extra effort to exceed customer expectations. However, these efforts require significant resources and can quickly strain internal teams.

Why online customer reviews are so impactful

With most individuals conducting online research before purchasing new products, online reviews have become incredibly valuable. ]Before considering a new purchase with a business they’ve never used, most potential customers will use online reviews as their primary source of information.

Positive online reviews can provide several advantages for businesses, including:

Building Customer Trust

Companies will often invest heavily in their marketing initiatives and website design, looking to provide potential customers with the information they need to feel confident in their purchasing decisions.

However, the most persuasive element in a consumer’s decision-making process often comes from what they hear from fellow shoppers. Learning from real perspectives on the quality of certain products and the overall customer experience has a much different effect when compared to just reading about certain features or benefits provided by the brand itself.

For startups and smaller companies, these customer testimonials can be instrumental in building credibility and creating more trust with their audiences. 

 Helping With SEO

Search engines like Google focus on delivering the most relevant and useful results to their users. This is particularly crucial when suggesting brands or products, which are driven by powerful algorithms that rank websites on their search engine results pages (SERPs).

Many different factors contribute to a website’s visibility in search results. One key element Google considers is the quality and quantity of online reviews a business receives.

A large amount of genuine positive reviews signals trustworthiness to search engine algorithms. Consequently, businesses with a high volume of positive feedback often get more visibility in search engines. This increased visibility translates to more brand exposure, which potentially drives more traffic to the company’s website and helps generate new leads.

Improving Brand Perception

Positive online reviews can create a powerful ripple effect. When customers share their experiences, it acts as a form of organic marketing and word-of-mouth- advertising, which attracts new customers and increases brand loyalty.

Conversely, negative reviews can have the opposite effect, damaging a brand’s image and eroding consumer trust. While negative feedback is sometimes unavoidable, businesses should proactively encourage positive reviews and address any negative feedback constructively as it appears. Knowing how to manage this balance is crucial for creating a strong online reputation and improving brand perception.

Practical ways to incentivize online customer reviews

If you want to see more authentic feedback about your business online, actively encouraging your customers to share their experiences is key. However, this requires a thoughtful approach. Here’s how to effectively incentivize more online reviews:

Discount Next Purchase

A popular way to increase your online reviews is to give customers a little something extra to share their thoughts. This is a win-win situation—your brand gets valuable feedback, and customers feel more appreciated.

There are many ways to incentivize reviews. You can consider offering a percentage discount on their next order, a set dollar amount off, or even providing them with free shipping. A gift card delivered via email after a purchase can also be a nice surprise and often leads to more than one positive review being left later on.

Create Giveaways

A fun way to generate more online reviews is by incorporating contests or giveaways into your marketing strategy. This approach creates more excitement and encourages customers to engage with your brand while sharing the giveaway with others in their circle. This can quickly increase your visibility.

To increase the impact of these promotional efforts, consider leveraging multiple channels. Spread the word through social media campaigns, feature the contest prominently on your website, and include the giveaway details in your email newsletters.

When doing this, it’s also important to ensure transparency and fairness in the giveaway by clearly outlining the contest rules and eligibility criteria. This avoids confusion and minimizes individuals getting frustrated over the process.

Launch a Loyalty Program

Implementing a customer rewards program is an excellent strategy to build a deeper connection with your clientele and gather valuable feedback for your brand.

By offering incentives like redeemable points, businesses can encourage repeat purchases and more review submissions on company review sites. These points could be exchanged for different perks, such as exclusive discounts on products and services, branded merchandise, or even personalized gift cards.

A well-designed rewards program improves customer engagement and provides individuals with added value beyond their initial purchases.

Simplify the Review Process

While customers are generally willing to provide feedback, the complexity of the process can impact participation rates. One of the primary obstacles to gathering customer reviews is having a tedious review process.

Evaluate your feedback mechanism and make sure it’s streamlined for optimal user-friendliness. Begin by providing instructions on how to leave feedback, including direct links to different review platforms.

Recognize that not all customers are inclined to write extensive reviews. To cater to everyone, design your feedback forms to accommodate both a rating scale (e.g., 0-10) and an optional comment section. This allows customers to choose their preferred method of providing feedback.

Create Mutually Beneficial Partnerships

Another way to improve your brand’s visibility is by teaming up with social media influencers who can introduce your products or services to their own audience. This type of promotion can be incredibly effective,. Influencers are often seen as reliable sources of information to those who follow them, which could be anywhere from thousands to millions of subscribers.

Research influencers who align with your brand and can effectively promote your organization or loyalty programs. You can offer them unique opportunities, such as early access to new products or services, invitations to exclusive events or collaborations, or special discount codes to share with their followers.

Improve your customer review count

Customer reviews can be a great way to give your brand more exposure. However, to get more online feedback, you need to understand what makes customers motivated and use strategies that work. By following the tips provided, you’ll be able to gradually increase the number of positive reviews that get posted online and start benefiting from the persuasive power of social proof.

Cindy Mielke is passionate about the incentive industry. In addition to her role as Vice President of Strategic Partners here at Tango, she is a Certified Professional of Incentive Management who proudly serves on two industry boards.

When she’s not working, Cindy enjoys spending time with her family – including three cats, two dogs, and a horse – and sharing her love of nature as a Nebraska Master Naturalist.