Both reviews and images play the most crucial role in convincing the customer to make a purchase. Not just on Amazon but for any e-commerce, everything comes down to these 2 factors. To achieve the maximum share of the market especially on Amazon, these 2 important items need to be professional and engaging at the same time.
While reviews are relatively hard to manage since they aren’t completely on your hand, the case for product images is quite the opposite. However, I have noticed a lot of retailers with cheesy infographics and dull images that eventually stops them from getting decent sales.
So how do we achieve a great listing?
If this is all you got, change your ways. Product price is the last thing to be considered when all the other things don’t work.
Things that make a great listing are your reviews and productimages.
Why Good Reviews matters?
Product reviews on Amazon are more than just comments. They directly reflect your product credibility and thereby persuades a customer to either make a purchase or pass on to another listing.
1) They act as the ‘word of mouth’ recommendation to your sellers.
2) They decide the CONVERSIONS.
3) Good Reviews give you a competitive edge on other sellers in your niche and thereby helps you to withstand the tough competition while acquiring maximum sales.
4) What else is a better way to enhance brand reputation than achieving it with few honest reviews?
If you’re thinking of earning fake reviews, Nah Mate, BACK OFF! They aren’t worth the risk at all. A slight indication will result in your account in permanent banishment on Amazon that will lead years of your hard work in complete vain.
So how do we achieve Good Reviews?
Keeping aside the old-fashioned ways of achieving positive reviews and ratings, here are few renowned ways that can be used to earn positive reviews.
1) Reach out to popular bloggers
You need the TRUSTED VOICES to reach the UNTAPPED AUDIENCE; bloggers are the living example of it with the power to market your product to a greater audience.
AND REVIEWS FROM BLOGGERS AREN’T JUST REVIEWS.
- You’re pretty much guaranteed of getting a powerful 5-star review that can really turn your customers into buyers.
- Those reviews on the bloggers’ profile can help you expose your brand to a larger and unfiltered audience.
- Bloggers have fans – By getting reviews from the bloggers, you’re actually getting unofficial ratings from their fans because they take their words for it. In short, it’s just a simple and easy way of getting good shoppers on your listing.
- The crucial step is to find the ‘right’ blogger. Reaching out to sports enthusiasts to market your kitchen utensils would only make your brand look stupid even if they agree to feature your product. Soits quite important to find the right match.
Follow these steps to reach bloggers for your Amazon reviews
- Take help of the online tools like HypeAuditor, FollowerWank, and Alltop to find the popular bloggers in your niche. These tools not only display the most relevant bloggers but also tell their engagement rate, this way you can filter out the best ones easily.
- The next step is to filter out the best bloggers. Just like a domain has DA, social channels have SA (Social Authority) to define their social authority. So you need to get those bloggers on board who hold a high social authority.
- Before reaching them directly, it is important to make yourself visible by liking and following their recent posts. It is always a plus point if the influencer you’re reaching out already knows about your brand.
- Hit their message button and let them know about your need. Most of the time, the influencers ask time to come up with a plan that could help market your product better. Once agreed, ship them the product or the gift (whatever is agreed) prior to their video.
Good luck to your blogger outreach!
2) Encourage Customers to write review through email
Every seller expects his customer to leave him a good review. But, not every buyer considers it important.
Outreaching customers via email is indeed a great way to earn postitive reviews. However, directly mailing the customer for a review isn’t what you should do.
You need to do 3 emails for increasing your chances of getting a good review.
- At the time of order: reach out to your customer and let them know that the product is on its way.
- Once the expected delivery date is passed: reach out to your customer again in order to ensure that they have received the product. You can even ask them about the product as whether is upto their expectation or not.
- Request them to leave you a honest review.
This strategy works greatly since it develops a sense of confidence between you and your customer.
3) Get your hands on to AMAZON EARLY REVIEWER PROGRAM
After the last Amazon update, you can’t incentivize customers with free or discounted products in exchange of a review.
Amazon Early Reviewer Program can still do the trick for you.
Under this program, Amazon reach out to the buyers who have shopped similar items before, to leave a review in exchange for a gift card. This is only between Amazon and buyer and not to the seller so you can’t really brag anyone.
The sad part is, there is no guarantee that the review you receive by paying $60 for a product is 1 star or 5 stars. Although, Amazon doesn’t include buyers with a history of bad and negative reviews.
You can get a maximum of 5 reviews under this program. As a matter of fact, this program works great for new product launches.
4) Take help of Many Chat Reviews
Artificial Intelligence is been on the spotlight for quite a while now. The facebook messenger bot, Many Chat, is one form of AI that pops up whenever there’s a visitor on-page.
The tool is an innovative way of earning positive reviews from buyers without violating the Amazon policies.Setting up Many Chat for Amazon Reviews is a bit technical, but can be very effective in terms of earning lots of reviews in less time.
5) Include Product inserts in your product packaging.
Your email may land in the buyers’ spam box and some may they may not pay for any reason, product insert can do the magic in this case.
According to Forbes, product inserts are the most credible way of building an emotional bond with the customer and thereby earning positive feedback.
So what should the content look like on the product insert?
“ We hope you liked our leather jacket and at the same time, we hope it reached you on time. Above all, we prioritize customer satisfaction and would be eager to hear your concerns.
If you like our product, please take a moment and give us a short feedback. And use this coupon code to earn an exclusive 10% discount on your next purchase. “
There is a difference between bragging and rewarding your customers. Both are entirely different and will give you different results. As long as you value your customer with your words, you’re doing yourself a favor.
6)Reach out to your Friends &Family
From all the ways mentioned above, this is, in fact, the easiest one that guarantees a 5-star rating. All you need to do is to request your friends and family to make a purchase through Amazon and leave you a good review.
Amazon isn’t a fair marketplace. You could be doing everything right and end up getting bad reviews. Whether it’s your competitor playing the trick or your product getting disliked, you should always continue using these techniques for balancing the impact of negative reviews.
The next big thing after reviews is your product images.
Why Compelling Product Images matters?
People trust images more than words. This is in fact very true in the case of Amazon since customers rely on images to judge the credibility of the product because they can’t really touch it.
Product images are your most impactful sales tool. But, if you don’t optimize it the right way, you can’t withstand the tough competition on Amazon.
Amazon product photography is all about taking clicks that can illustrate the unique selling proposition of your product.
After the shots, the retouching is about making images more real than reality.
If you’re an experienced Amazon seller, you don’t need further words to learn about the importance of product images.
Moving swiftly on…
What are the images that sell more?
Everything comes down to this factor. We all know the intense need for lifestyle and info graphic images on Amazon and their impact on conversions. But, there is more you need to focus on except creating images on the same old templates.
In case you do plan to outsource your product photography, AMZ One Step has the right equipment, experience, and experts to do the images for your listings.
We’re a group of copywriting and design experts who’ve been helping Amazon sellers with their listing and photography for now over 10 years. We know the images that can speed up your conversion channel.
Our experts can surely take your business to the new heights!
When creating images for your listings, focus on these key areas.
1) Place the target market in your picture.
Time to test you; what’s being sold here?
I am sure you guessed it right, it’s the hooded baby towel.
The target market ‘mother’ is shown beautifully along with her daughter wearing a hoodie. The badge further adds elegance to the overall image since it is creating extra relevancy and confidence in the mind of the buyer.
If I breakdown the main point, you gotta be in the shoes of the customer before creating a lifestyle image.
You can do this shot through a model shootout or even with the photo composing method. On a cheaper budget, the 2nd option is more suitable.
- Add nature in the background
If your product liesunder the category of travel or animal stuff, then you should definitely look towards adding nature in the background.
This is done to create the need. And that need should perfectly be illustrated through your images.
As a matter of fact, nature can add eccentricity and charm to your product, making it more versatile and useable.
The bottom line is, you need to connect your product with the need and environment. And the best way to do it is through compelling lifestyle images.
- Add Emotions to your images
Emotions greatly influence the buyers’ intent to make a purchase. Various studies that analyzed the viewers’ trend on eCommerce and social platforms have shown that people no longer look for logical reasons instead emotional responses to Ads are more influential to the viewers’ intent because they constitute the foundation of decision making.
It happens that sometimes adding the target market in the image isn’t possible, playing with emotions particularly in these images can do the trick for you.
The above picture does not have the target market incorporated, but emotions are surely there. The target market is being influenced by emotions that could lead them to make a purchase.
The communication is being built between the target market and the seller.
Now imagine this image without the kids!
- Create the need for the product
Let’s say, your product is the produce bag, an alternative to plastic bags. How would you portray the need in your images?
