Reviews, referrals, and testimonials. All strong candidates that fall under the umbrella of “User Generated [marketing] Content.”
UGC is an absolutely wonderful asset to any marketer, as it packs a huge marketing punch and saves your business the time and money of creating fresh content.
When it comes to reviews and such, we at Rivio are of the mind: ‘If you’ve got it, flaunt it.’ And flaunt it right. So we’ve put together a little guide for all you busy e-retailers to make sure you’re hard-earned reviews definitely meet your customers eyeballs.
Why do I care?
It’s Summer. What’s more it’s the last week inAugust. That means you’ve either got a couple of weddings on your horizon, perhaps a camping or road trip, or maybe even one or two last music festivals.
Bottom line is, you have to be prepared for everything.
At these times it’s good to have ‘a person for everything.’ What I mean about that is, a guy who knows the A-Z of camping gear, a girlfriend who can tip you off on the most stylish and comfortable brand of heels, and that crazy someone who will glam you up David Bowie style without a problem.
You just know that whatever they recommend will be awesome and save you hours of research on your own, and chances are pretty damn good that what they recommend, you’re going to buy.
In fact, chances are that:
70% of consumers place peer recommendations above professionally written content
And this is why you care about referrals, reviews and testimonials to your business.
Tell me about marketing with UGC
What’s interesting about the latest trends in marketing, is that the noisier the internet gets with PPC ads, sponsored posts, video ads, etc., the more audiences are attracted to authentic reviews and endorsements by users.
And once you up the ante and connect users with reviews written by their direct peers and friends on social media and on your webshop, your millennial audience really starts to perk up.
As it turns out,
65% percent of social media users from ages 18 to 24 consider information that’s shared on social networks when making a purchasing decision -(eMarketer)
Absolute Value authors Itamar Simonson and Emanuel Rosen explore the importance of UGC, including audience written reviews. They conclude that consumers are increasingly making decisions based on “O sources,” that is “Other” sources of information like user reviews and opinions from friend and experts.
Marry that with a thriving review aggregation strategy and you’ve got a killer source of low-cost high-value content for the top of your sales funnel. This is the most uncertain point, where good social proof can make or break your sale.
We’ve talked about optimizing your review requests to get more elaborate reviews, and also how to work your reviews so that they shine with Google stars.
Now, we’d like to share with you some tips on how to take the reviews you’ve painstakingly earned and make sure they stand out the right way on your website.
Let’s do this!
Tip #1: Use visual cues to bring attention to best-reviewed products right away
Best deal! Most reviewed product! Crowd favorite! Draw attention to items on your product page and items page by placing colorful badges, hearts or shapes at the very top of the page. This will immediately indicate positive reviews to your customer if they’re in too big of a hurry to look through the page.
If you’re using Rivio to handle all of your product review needs, adding a badge to your favorite product is mega-easy! Just switch it on in your shop’s Rivio Dashboard and watch your products shine.
Tip #2: Stay above the fold
Place product reviews and testimonials towards the top, above the fold so that viewers catch sight of them at once without having to scroll. Before we get ahead of ourselves, you don’t have to cram all reviews into the immediate screen space, but there are some clever tricks to show encourage customers to easily click through to reviews.
If you’re using a 5-star rating system follow a simple design tweak that will guide your viewers to the right place — use a simple, clean design without any flashing bells and whistles, and use colorful buttons only on your reviews and buttons that move customers along to the shopping cart.
Amazon, the world-famous ‘accidental’ review site puts their product’s star-rating and review link right below the product name each time. Everything else colorful on the page immediately ‘Adds to cart.’
Tip #3: When should you shoot for a separate testimonials page?
It’s not always worth it to relegate your testimonials to a different planet (aka a separate testimonials page). You need to put them on pages where people will find them even after a cursory glance.
While testimonial pages are a nice-to-have, experiment with adding your best testimonials to landing pages and near call-to-action buttons, to boost customer confidence right before a purchase or next step.
If you’re working with video reviews, the game changes. There’s two ways to go about this either you use a tool like Rivio to showcase video reviews beneath the product (and link it below the product name) or you can go the extra mile and create a customer stories testimonials page.
Codecademy makes excellent use of their career changer stories with a separate page dedicated to high quality personal videos.
Check out Rivio’s YouTube integration feature if you’d like to see more video reviews on your webshop.
Tip #4: Use slideshow galleries
If you’ve decided to put your reviews and testimonials front-and-center, consider using a timed gallery that will optimize the amount of reviews a customer sees at-a-glance. Adding pictures of customers also enhances credibility and is more attractive to the eye.
Big bold pictures are a major factor in web design these days, so make use of it with an optimized, attractive review gallery.
Tip #5: Make it easy to share on social
If a review is written on a product page but no one is directed to read it, does the review exist at all?
Making it easy for both your company and your customers to share user reviews on social media is a completely achievable way to encourage distribution of UGC and increased social credibility.
Rivio allows users to share a review on social media channels with the click of a button for better distribution to friends and family. Webshop owners can also share reviews on their own channels with the click of a button, making use of low-cost, unique content.
Have you implemented any (or all) of these features on your reviews? We’d love to hear about your experience, and try our hand at boosting your review aggregation process!
Catch Mike the Review Master at mike@getrivio.com and help us feel great about ourselves when we look in the mirror today by clicking the 💚.
