Automate Amazon Product Reviews the Easy Way
This post was written by our friends at FeedbackWhiz for the TurnKey Success Blog
Getting product reviews doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. With effective automated email marketing, you can make the emails do the hard work for you.
To succeed on Amazon, you need to have a decent number of product reviews. Unfortunately, these are not easy to come by. In fact, most buyers will not leave a product review on their own, they often need a little prompting.
This is what makes automated email marketing such an important part of your seller’s toolkit. As simple as this sounds, it can be a challenge to get it right.
Here are some tips to help you automate Amazon product review requests:
About email marketing
Amazon allows you to contact buyers by email as part of the selling process. They have, however, very strict rules about the ways in which you can and cannot contact people.
The messages that you send must be related specifically to the product you are selling and you must never ask for a positive product review or offer incentives in exchange for one.
With the recently introduced buyer opt-outs, you must be careful to never communicate with a buyer who has opted out of receiving emails from you and limit all communication to urgent messages pertaining only to their specific order.
Having said all that, email marketing is still an effective way to build engagement with your customers and increase the chances that you receive a product review.
Emails are worth sending for all sorts of reasons – aside from the fact that email engagement makes it more likely that you’ll receive feedback, it simply makes good sense to keep the lines of communication open.
The key to successful emails
The most successful automated email sequences are friendly, helpful, and direct.
Using FeedbackWhiz, you can create automated email templates to make your life easier. By using an email template builder, you can quickly and easily design eye-catching and effective emails. You can create different emails for different purposes and schedule them to go out when you want them to.
It’s a simple way to design the perfect email sequence and boost customer engagement.
The perfect email sequence
So, what does that perfect email sequence look like?
Well, as with so many things in life, timing is everything. Every situation will be different and you may find your own schedules which work better for you, but generally speaking, we’d suggest a strategy using three separate emails.
The first email goes out as soon as you have sent the order. This is the order confirmation and reassures the customer that their purchase is on its way. This first email is also a useful way to build anticipation in advance of the package dropping through their mailbox.
Include a friendly note to say the product is on its way and include a link to tracking information. It might also be worth it to include contact details so that if the buyer has any questions, he or she can reach out to you for answers.
The second email in the sequence should go out shortly after the product has been delivered to the buyer. The timing of this email will depend on the product you are selling. Remember, some products require time before someone has a real sense of it. Most people need at least a week with the product before they are ready to leave a product review.
This email should contain a message checking in to make sure that everything is okay with the product as well as a brief prompt to leave a product review. Remind the buyer that Amazon depends on people like them leaving reviews so other people can make a more informed decision.
After this second email, you may want to stop. However, some sellers like to send a third email. This is basically a final follow-up that goes to anyone who has yet to leave a product review. Perhaps they have simply forgotten or maybe one more nudge may persuade them to spend a few minutes writing something.
Different strategies work for different sellers so it’s a good idea to mix, match and choose the approach that works best for you. The content of your emails will be crucial. You want it to be urgent and compelling, but also not sales oriented as this can put off the reader. It’s a fine balancing act and is not an easy one to get right.
FeedbackWhiz’s automated Amazon email templates allow you can track metrics about the performance of your emails. You can track open rates and use A/B testing to ensure you are delivering the right message, at the right time. Try out different variables in your email marketing to find the exact right approach.
FeedbackWhiz makes it easier to design and send out emails, but it also gives you metrics on how those emails are being received. Once you understand that you can design better and more impactful emails, you can elicit more product reviews and, in turn, boost your sales numbers.
Need a bit more help generating the reviews you need to gain sales? Check out our Review Generation Accelerator for step-by-step strategies to increase your review numbers!