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Jul 11 2016

How To Get Product Reviews

CHuntly

Are you ready to introduce your incredible product to the world? A great way to get the word out is via product reviews. While similar to an influencer strategy, there are few added audience tactics as well as a bit of a different approach in some cases.

Product reviews help you generate brand awareness, but they also help with SEO through the link back to your site included within the review. Links back to your site also help with general website traffic. If someone is interested in what they see, they will investigate more.

Here are 6 steps to a great product review strategy:

Step 1: Set a realistic timeline

It is unrealistic to throw together an outreach strategy like this in a day or two. It takes preparation and research. If you are launching a new business entirely, you will want to include this in your planning a few months in advance. If you get product reviews pre-launch, it can even drive interest for the official launch.

Step 2: Identify your target audience

If you are in business, whether you sell to other businesses (B2B) or consumers (B2C), you should know who your target audience is. You should be able to articulate who your ideal customer is according to purchase behaviour and demographics (age, gender, income, etc).

Step 3: Build your list of product reviewers

Once you know who will buy your product, you can start creating a list of product reviewers. While you could find general product review sites, these might not reach your intended target audience. To get the most return on your efforts, find niche review blogs and other businesses who might be interested in promoting your product.

You can either use a database like Cision to point you in the right direction or you can do your own research. In many cases, great blogs aren’t listed on databases because it can be hard for them to keep up with new bloggers. To search on Google you would enter terms like [Product X] review, [Product X] blog, product reviews, etc. (replace [Product X] with your type of product). You will have to do research for either option because you should get to know each product reviewer on your list before asking them for a review. You need to make sure it’s a good fit for your audience.

Step 4: Develop your pitch

Keep it short and to the point. In most cases, one short paragraph is all you need. You should identify yourself, identify your product, and ask if you can send them one to try out and review. Keep it personable – remember you are speaking to another person.

Step 5: Execute

You are ready to reach out! Make sure you have product in stock! When contacting each individual on your list, be sure to tailor the pitch to them. Don’t just insert their name and send the same thing to everyone. Mention a review of a similar product, or one that you really liked. Something to show you are genuinely interested in what they have to say.

Once a reviewer has agree to do a review, make sure you provide the information they will need:

  • Relevant links – social, website, product page, etc
  • Pricing info
  • Information on where to get the product
  • Hashtags

Track and share each product review on your social and other digital channels (ie. Set up an “in the media” page on your website).

Step 6: Involve your customers

The last aspect of your product review strategy is your customers! Start a loyalty program or run a contest that allows them to be your brand ambassadors. A happy customer will gladly talk about your product for you.

It takes a little bit of elbow grease, but with work you can make a product review strategy work for you.

Candace Huntly is the Founder and Principal at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

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Written by Dwania Peele · Categorized: Candace Huntly · Tagged: Candace Huntly, hashtags, influencer strategy, link back, pitch, pricing, product review, realistic timeline, relevant link, SEO, Songbird Marketing Communications, target audience

Mar 16 2015

Why small businesses NEED to tweet at events

Evelyn

I recently attended a networking event for small business owners in Toronto. The theme of the evening was digital marketing. Overall the event was well organized with informative speakers, good raffle prizes and a nice mix of marketers and small business owners.

But what surprised me was how few people were tweeting at the event. Perhaps it’s just that I’m used to going to events packed with social media managers and non-profit communicators, but I was a little disappointed by the lack of networking being done online.

For me, events are always played out on two fields: the action happening live in front of me and the commentary on that action online. Often I find this commentary as interesting, if not more so, then the speakers I’m there to see.

Live-tweeting events is a great way to give your business a boost online. Hashtags organize the conversations taking place, making it easy to follow the action. Plugging into hashtags makes new followers, mentions and retweets much more likely than your average day-to-day Twitter activity, especially if the event becomes popular and trends.

But there are a few things you need to do before you even arrive at the event to make sure that you get the most out of your live-tweeting experience.

Know the hashtag. This seems obvious to those more seasoned tweeters, but it’s important to mention anyways. The day of the event the organizers are probably promoting the event online. Visit their Twitter account to find out both the proper hashtag and their Twitter handle. Once you have that information do a search on Twitter and save the search so that you can access it easily later.

Follow the speakers. Find out who the speakers are going to be (event emails and websites usually have this information) and then find out if they are online. Make a note of their Twitter handles and be sure to follow them. Then at event time you won’t have to scramble to find them or worry about misspelling their names.

Prepare some tweets ahead of time. This is a great way to let people know that you will be at the event and gives them the opportunity to follow you. It also increases your visibility once the event starts. Tweet about your attendance on the day and days leading up to the event. Shout out to the speakers how much you are looking forward to their talks. On the day of you can prepare some tweets to be sent out during the event so that you have more time to actually enjoy it.

Know when to put the phone down. You need to balance the benefits of tweeting with real world networking. Send enough tweets and retweets to gain visibility and make a meaningful contribution to the conversation, but make sure that you also talk to people face-to-face. That’s the reason why you’re there!

Evelyn Senyi is the owner and chief marketer for Recurve Marketing, a Toronto-based digital marketing agency that offers creative, effective and affordable marketing strategies for Canadian small businesses and non-profit organizations. Follow Recurve on Twitter @recurve_ca and on Facebook www.facebook.com/recurvemarketing.ca.

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Written by Dwania Peele · Categorized: Evelyn Senyi · Tagged: business development, Business Woman, Canadian Small Business Women, comunicators, conversations, digital marketing, entrepreneur, Evelyn Senyi, follow, hashtags, live tweet, marketers, networking, online, raffle, Recurve Marketing, retweets, small business owners, social media, speakers, Toronto, trends, tweet, Twitter, Twitter handle, website

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