In a world of celebrity and social media influencers, sometimes the most powerful endorsement for your products comes from an anonymous reviewer with a death metal profile picture who goes by the handle Caveworm.
The incredible power of the internet gives every single one of your customers access to an impossibly large audience and makes those customers’ reviews and feedback an increasingly important aspect of your marketing efforts. Here’s how customer reviews can impact your brand loyalty in the consumer packaged goods industry.
The Basics
Consumer packaged goods, or CPG, is a term for products that consumers buy and replace often. Things like food, drinks, cosmetics, and cleaning products are all examples of CPG. Since all of these products are bought frequently and then quickly replaced, success in the industry is not just about creating customers, it’s about retaining them. That’s what makes brand loyalty so important. Brand loyalty turns one-time buyers into life-long users.
That loyalty is earned in many ways—quality, cost, exposure—but more and more we are seeing audiences make these purchasing decisions based on the input of others, through customer reviews.
Customer reviews are growing in popularity, especially with Millenials, Gen Xers, and younger Boomers, and can play a major role in buying behavior. Reviews can also be used by a brand to update product descriptions and messaging.
Examples
Business Listings
When a customer searches your business or product online, often a listing will appear. Most search engines will also include comments and aggregate review scores automatically. Because of this, often the first interaction a potential customer has with your product online is a customer review. That’s why it’s important to make sure your reviews are positive through customer service and community management.
Third Party
But Google isn’t the only place where you’re going to find reviews. Many third-party sites like Amazon and Influenster allow customers to share their thoughts on products. These sites are often category-specific for electronics, beauty, home products and more. Third-party sites aren’t always affiliated with brands, which can make these customer reviews much more authentic, for better and for worse.
Step Up Your Review Game
The organic and honest nature of customer reviews is one of the things that makes them so appealing to an audience, but that doesn’t mean your brand has no control. Here are a few ways to make sure your customer reviews are working for your business.
Sending an email to a satisfied customer inviting a review a few days after they purchase your product is a great way to increase your reviews. Not only will their review help create new buyers, but turning them into an advocate for your business will increase their brand loyalty and the chance of future purchases.
Testimonials
A positive review by itself is great for your brand but using positive reviews in your brand marketing gets that unbiased third-party messaging in front of a whole new audience. Turning a positive review into a customer testimonial also shows that you listen to what your customers have to say and can help improve brand loyalty.
Affiliates
Applying your newfound knowledge of organic customer reviews can also help your brand in your affiliate marketing ventures, and your affiliate marketing can help strengthen your customer reviews. Capturing the organic and authentic feel of a customer review will bolster the success of your affiliate content. And using affiliates and influencers to review products will not only drive traffic and brand awareness for your business but also prompt customers to leave positive reviews themselves.
How MKR Can Help
If you’re looking to build brand loyalty in your consumer audience, look no further than MKR. Our team of digital experts can develop a strategy to generate reviews from satisfied customers, structure and deploy a review-based campaign, and help with community management, affiliate marketing, brand awareness, and more. And we’ve got the reviews to prove it. Contact us right here.