From which restaurant to eat at to which car to buy, consumers rely on customer reviews for making critical purchase decisions. The logic is simple – when they read positive reviews (from real customers), they are more likely to trust the product’s value.

Want to know how critical reviews are in the customer buying decision map? Nicereply reports that a whopping 79% trust customer reviews as much as personal recommendations. Therefore, positive customer reviews can help skyrocket your sales.

1.Leverage the reviews on social media

Did you know that the social commerce market in the US is worth over $36 billion? This value can only increase with social media apps like Facebook and Instagram emerging as robust online marketplaces.

In a UK consumer study, 69% of social media users stated that customer reviews are critical in purchasing decisions. Therefore, you should leverage your customer reviews on social media to drive your social commerce.

To showcase reviews on your social media, you can create posts that highlight a positive and thoughtful customer review you have received. For example, you can use a detailed review to highlight the customer experience or the product’s utility.

When potential customers read such posts, they’ll learn something valuable and informative about your brand or what it’s like to purchase from you.

Here’s an example from Sellfy:

Before you mount an ambitious social media campaign, you need to have enough customer reviews to highlight in the first place.

Here are a few ideas on how you can generate customer reviews on social media:

• Create a #hashtag campaign and ask your customers to review your products. You can feature the best reviews on your feed.
• Just like you have a product descriptions template for your socials, make a set template for sharing customer reviews on your social media.
• Encourage user-generated video content that draws attention to your brand.

You can also use social media listening tools to collect reviews. Just make sure that you ask permission from the author before posting them.

2.Use them in your marketing materials

Email marketing has always been a trusted channel for businesses to generate leads and make sales. Considering the median ROI of email marketing campaigns is as high as 122%, it makes complete sense! But, of course, your business will only witness such an ROI if you have an effective email marketing campaign.

One of the best ways to improve email marketing campaigns is by utilizing customer reviews. Why? Well, let’s take a look at the example below.

Imagine you are a recipient of a marketing email from two shoe brands and wish to buy shoes. Brand A sends you a standard marketing email about their products. Brand B sends you a similar email and includes authentic customer reviews with pictures and quotes. Based on what we know about reviews influencing a purchase decision, it’s fair to assume you’re most likely to opt for Brand B, right?

Source

Therefore, it is crucial to leverage the value of customer reviews in both your marketing and cold emails in addition to other materials. Intelligently integrate reviews while showcasing your products and your brand tox and showcase proof of authenticity among your customers.

3.Create Video Testimonials

A picture is worth a thousand words, but a video is worth $33.3 billion! That’s how much the global video marketing industry was valued in 2020, and it is constantly growing. Based on the current online content consumption patterns, video content is the most effective way brands can communicate with their customers.

Therefore, leveraging video testimonials can be a real turning point for your brand reach. The most interesting part? There is simply no limit on how creative you can get with this testimonial campaign.

Take Slack as an example. The popular business communication platform created a hilarious customer testimonial video on YouTube, which cracked people up.

You could also pack an emotional punch based on the nature of your product.

Want further inspiration? Here are three effective customer review videos that you can refer to before curating your next campaign:

• Practical Video – As an accounting business, Freshbooks created a video that explained their product’s utility by focusing on a single customer’s journey with their product.
• High-Quality Animation – The specialty law firm Adam J. Roa Law Office used impressive animation to create a customer review video. It told the story of one of their clients and how the law firm helped the client through a challenging time.
• Competitor Review – If you have provided value to your customers over other competitors, use that to your advantage while filming a video. That is what the business review platform Glassdoor did with their review video. They showcased a customer’s experience with other similar businesses and why the customer chose Glassdoor in the end.

Video testimonials are a powerful audiovisual tool. Using video testimonials to highlight your customer reviews will ensure higher engagements and trigger the spark needed to convert prospects into leads or customers.

4.Turn reviews into infographics

According to 32% of marketers, visual imagery is an essential content format in their business marketing strategy. Infographics are some of those visual content formats businesses can use to present vital data points in a digestible way.

Imagine researching a travel package and coming across an infographic for a travel company. The infographic says that 9 out of 10 customers rated their travel experience four or above stars and would happily travel again with them. Wouldn’t that create a positive impression of the company in your mind? Wouldn’t it weigh strongly on your purchasing decision?

It most definitely would. That’s the power of integrating customer reviews in infographics. Since infographics are also quantitative, you could add some pertinent stats based on the customer reviews of your brand and products.

Just make sure you ask the right questions in your survey so you can get honest and complete customer reviews of your products or services in the first place.

For example, here’s a good Nicereply survey you can use if you want to determine a customer’s feelings about a recent interaction with your company:

Source

Notice that the survey is very easy to answer. All the customer needs to do is choose from any of the three options. If they want to elaborate on their reply, they can do so through the extra field below the three faces.

Here are a few ideas on how you can integrate customer reviews into your brand infographics:

• Rate of customer satisfaction (CSAT) – Conduct a customer survey and publish the satisfaction rate reported among customers.
• Star Ratings – You can publish your average star rating or what percentage of customers have rated you four or above stars.
• Repeat Purchase/Use Rate – This is an exciting metric you can report for customer satisfaction, representing the percentage of customers using your service/product again.
• Customer Testimonials – Although infographics are primarily quantitative, you could also add quotes from customers.

B2B and B2C communications can be enhanced through the use of infographics. So the next time you are putting together a marketing infographic for your brand, make sure to include the customer reviews.

5.Use review badges

When you visit a website and scroll down the landing page, you can often see a carousel of customer reviews. These are usually short snippets of reviews customers have left about a product or service, either on the brand’s website or a third-party platform.

That’s a great way of showing the value of your services and products and building trust in your brand. When potential customers read good reviews on your website that are pulled from a third-party website, they tend to believe the authenticity of those reviews. That increases the likelihood of them converting into customers.

For example, suppose you run a cruise, and your website showcases good reviews that people have left about their experience on TripAdvisor. In that case, a potential patron is more likely to believe the quality of the cruise trip.

Reviews also generate reviews in turn. So the more reviews you showcase, the higher the likelihood of others leaving behind a review for your service.

Here is an example of embedded reviews.

Of course, you want to embed reviews from a third-party website only if the reviews being left are positive. Also, embedded reviews auto-update themselves most of the time, so make sure you aren’t receiving bad reviews on the third-party site.

Wrapping Up

Customer reviews are a powerful asset for businesses and can be strategically leveraged to drive sales. In this article, you learned how to integrate customer reviews into your marketing strategy to boost your sales.

You can leverage the reviews on social media, use them in your marketing emails, turn them into touching video testimonials, or incorporate them into your brand’s infographics. You can also include user reviews on landing pages as social proof.

Doing that will help you build brand trust and convert more prospects into customers. Good luck!

How did you like this blog?

---