Customer reviews are a marketing goldmine. By curating and repurposing positive customer feedback, you can enhance your messaging, reach new audiences, and build trust and credibility for your brand. This insightful, real-world perspective provides invaluable social proof.
In today's digital landscape, review culture dominates. 93% of customers say online reviews impact their purchasing decisions. When done right, leveraging customer content lets you tap into user-generated marketing at its most authentic and persuasive.
Why Customer Reviews Are Valuable for Marketing
Reviews offer customers a platform to share their experiences and opinions about your product or service. This unfiltered feedback provides unique marketing advantages:
- Reviews build trust and social proof. Customer testimonials are more believable than claims from brands themselves. Highlighting positive experiences shows you deliver on promises.
- Reviews showcase you listen and respond. Engaging with reviews—especially critical ones—demonstrates you value customer perspectives and are committed to improving.
- Reviews give an insider’s view. Direct from the source, reviews provide authentic detail on what customers enjoy most about your offering.
Effectively using this customer content can pay dividends. 92% of consumers read reviews before making purchases. Expertly curated reviews influence buyers and drive conversions.
Strategies for Repurposing Great Reviews
Customer reviews typically live on your website, social channels, or third-party review platforms. But their value extends far beyond these origins. Get creative with ways to redistribute top reviews for maximum marketing mileage.
Use Standout Quotes and Stories
Pulling specific details from longer-form reviews lets you highlight exactly what your brand delivers.
- Feature compelling quotes. Choose sentences or passages that succinctly capture outstanding aspects of your product/service. Use these word-for-word as testimonials on your site and in ads.
- Share detailed reviewer stories. For example, tell a story about how a customer’s chronic back pain was relieved through your ergonomic office chairs. Use their whole journey in your marketing content.
- Anchor claims with evidence. Back up key messaging claims by quoting or paraphrasing reviewers. For instance, “Our mattresses are ‘like sleeping on a cloud’ (Jane, verified buyer).”
Specificity and real examples like these resonate more than general platitudes.
Turn Reviews into Multimedia Content
Customer reviews don’t have to stay as written feedback. Get creative by adapting reviews into engaging multimedia.
- Create social media videos. Compile positive soundbites from video reviews into snackable social media spots. These feel more authentic than stock testimonials.
- Repurpose video reviews as commercials. Ask satisfied customers if you can reuse segments of their videos in your own promotional materials.
- Develop infographics, brochures, etc. Visually represent data and themes from positive reviews through illustrations, charts and other engaging formats.
- Feature on your website. Testimonials pages with curated reviews in many formats make a convincing case to visitors.
Multimedia content helps reviews reach broader audiences while showcasing authenticity.
Syndicate Reviews to Expand Your Reach
Your own website and social channels provide a start, but don’t miss opportunities to share great feedback far and wide.
- Serve ads on relevant third-party platforms using curated reviews. For example, excerpt traveler reviews on sites about your destination city.
- Share top reviews on social media. Don’t just post on your own pages—proactively reach out to happy customers asking to feature their feedback. Tag them in your posts.
- Include reviews in email newsletters. Spotlight a recent “review of the month” to showcase social proof and engagement with your audience.
Getting reviews in front of new eyeballs builds awareness and trust for potential new customers.
Optimize Marketing Messaging
Customer reviews offer a trove of insights to analyze and act on. Use feedback to optimize and refine messaging.
- Identify common themes. Use reviews to pick out words, ideas, and pain points that come up repeatedly. Incorporate these topics into content and copy.
- Weave specific keywords into marketing materials. Reviews surface how real people describe your offering in their own words. Adopt these authentic phrases in your messaging.
- Double down on what customers love. If reviews consistently praise a certain product feature or service, make sure your marketing emphasizes these positives.
Reviews provide a free focus group on what resonates. Let customer perspectives shape and enhance your communications.
Best Practices for Curating Customer Content
To leverage reviews effectively, incorporate these standards into your process of soliciting, curating, and repurposing feedback:
Solicit Expanded Feedback
Don’t just collect reviews—encourage detailed responses that offer rich marketing material.
- Follow up with happy customers. Reach out for additional thoughts, photos, or anecdotes you can use. Offer prompts to stimulate their thinking.
- Run reviews-for-rewards promotions. Incentivize customers to share in-depth evaluations with discounts or perks.
- Ask targeted questions. Go beyond general star ratings to elicit feedback on specific aspects of your brand.
Thoughtful, substantial reviews provide far more marketing fodder than simple 5-star ratings. Put effort into generating these.
Respond Publicly to Reviews
Don’t just bask in the positives—thoughtfully engage with criticism too.
- Reply professionally to negative feedback. Thank the customer for the perspective and offer to make it right. This models responsiveness for onlookers.
- Take critiques seriously. Demonstrate you value feedback—even difficult hear—and will improve based on it.
- Point to your responses. Feature curated reviews with your public replies. This reassures customers you are listening.
Responsiveness and transparency around less-than-stellar reviews enhances your credibility and trustworthiness.
Reward and Republish New Reviews
Customer content marketing requires continually fresh fodder. Keep reviews flowing.
- Prompt for updated feedback. Re-solicit evaluations from past reviewers after launches, changes, or milestones.
- Run monthly review giveaways. Offer incentives for new testimonials you can feature.
- Vary which reviews you spotlight. Rotate different voices into your website testimonials, social posts, and ads.
Refreshing your featured reviews demonstrates active engagement with the latest customer perspectives.
Get Permission to Reuse Content
Ethically reuse reviews by confirming usage rights.
- Verify if you can repurpose feedback. Some review platforms grant license for reuse automatically; otherwise, request explicit permission.
- Credit and tag. Mention reviewers by name and link to their profiles. Follow them on social media and express thanks.
Proper permissions and attribution ensure you stay on the right side of both ethics and copyright law when repurposing reviews.
Turning Feedback into Marketing Fuel
Leveraging authentic customer content amplifies your brand’s reach and resonance. Yet reviews left in their raw form represent untapped potential. With the right strategies, you can curate and repurpose feedback for maximum marketing impact.
Consumer reviews offer invaluable customer perspectives to inform branding, content, and experiences. Convert this marketing goldmine into assets that build trust, social proof, and connections with your audience. Put insights from customer voices to work for your business.
Making the Most of Reviews
Here are some key takeaways for harnessing the power of customer reviews:
- Carefully curate standout reviews instead of just posting everything. Look for specific, relevant details and stories.
- Get creative repurposing reviews into multimedia such as social videos, infographics, and website testimonials.
- Syndicate top reviews beyond just your own channels to expand reach. Share, tag, and serve ads with them.
- Let authentic customer vocabulary and feedback shape your messaging and content strategy.
- Continuously generate new reviews with prompts and incentives. Feature a rotating cast of voices.
- Engage thoughtfully with all feedback—positive and negative alike. Demonstrate responsiveness.
- Secure permissions, credit reviewers, and follow guidelines when reusing reviews.
With a strategic approach, your customers’ voices can become one of your most powerful marketing assets. Let their unique perspectives and stories shine.
Q&A
Here are some common questions and answers about using customer reviews for marketing:
Q: How often should we ask for customer reviews?
A: Aim to solicit reviews 2-3 times per year per customer. Time requests around key events like purchases, new releases, or service milestones.
Q: What’s the best way to get customers to leave reviews?
A: Offer incentives like discounts on future purchases or contest entries. Make it easy by sending direct review links. Follow up personally.
Q: Is it ethical to only publish positive reviews?
A: No, you should post negative feedback too. Curation is fine, but never misrepresent overall sentiment. Respond professionally to critiques.
Q: How can we integrate reviews on our website?
A: On product/service pages, add Ratings & Reviews sections featuring curated testimonials. Create a dedicated Reviews page.
Q: What precautions should we take when reusing customer content?
A: Get explicit permission, credit reviewers, link to original review, and follow platform guidelines for republishing reviews.
