Hi there. It's Sue. And thanks for joining me for tips and talk day. These are bite-sized topics that I pull from community questions and things that I'm observing in the world of handmade small business. If you'd like to submit a topic, DME, over on Instagram at gift biz, unwrapped customer testimonials can honestly be the difference between somebody clicking that buy button or just moving on and continuing to search for a product elsewhere.
Amazon's the one who started with all the five-star ratings and you see when you buy on Amazon and then you get that email back that says, Hey, rate this product, review it for us. My guess is that Amazon knows a thing or two about having people do reviews and how that affects the ability for them to sell their products. Not only is it social proof because you're seeing that a lot of people are purchasing, but you're also getting a lot of good feedback. How did an item fit?
How did it work in terms of providing a solution to whatever the product is that you purchased? How quickly did it get delivered? All of those types of things, you can use the power of these reviews to help people make the decision that they're going to buy from you. Two words through what customers have to say about your product is so much more valued by someone who's looking at buying. Then you talking about your product.
So getting those words from your customers is like gold, but here's what often happens. People know the power of the reviews, or they've just put up their website or a social media platform. And they go after reviews right in the beginning. So you'll see a lot of sites that have what, maybe three or five customer reviews, but they're from four years ago. And there's been nothing since then. So you can totally see that there was this onslaught and then nothing.
I get why this happens because it's not on the top of our mind. We have so much to do in our businesses, that reviews where we may understand the power that they provide. Isn't something that we're thinking about with the day to day, the way to do this is to incorporate it into your system, to have some type of a routinized plan within your sales and checkout processes. That includes the request for review. Now, are you going to get reviews from everybody?
No. Relatively small percentage of people will probably review, but this is what we're going to talk about. How you can put the odds in your favor that people will actually do a review for you. And then what you do with those reviews afterwards, let's go ahead and move on. And let's talk about how to get reviews. There are a couple of places within your sales process that make it easiest to get reviews. And of course the very first one is right after someone
purchases. Here's a couple of ways that you can do that in a followup. So if someone purchases online, this is after the receipt, you know, all the regular things that are part of your sales system, but a regular email that says, Hey, thrilled that you purchased something from our shop. It would be wonderful. If you could share with us your experience with our product, I don't know if you've had this happen to you, but I've had requests like that. And it's hard to write reviews, isn't it?
Because you're like, okay, I would love to do the review them, but what do I say? One of the ways to help a customer overcome this is to ask them some questions. So in that email, you could say, what made you choose the color of candle that you purchased or something like that. So you're giving them ideas of what they could talk about, why they purchased, if it was for a gift who was it for and how did they respond?
Or how did you choose what size color scent flavor of your purchase or the overall experience. This is one way, right after a purchase. This would be in a follow-up email. Another way you could do this is if you do monthly emails to your customer base, you could also put something in there about if you purchase something from us lately would love for you to leave a quick review and then how to do it with some prompting questions is really helpful.
Another thing that you can do after a purchase is to include something in your packaging, having a card in there, or a message gives them directions again on how to leave a review. We'd love for you to take a picture, wearing your new necklace when you do make sure to post on social and tag me, I've seen a lot of people do contests that motivate someone to leave a review. You might say, well then am I paying for that review in a way? Yeah, you are. Yes you are.
But you're paying for them to take the action, to write the review. You're not paying them to give you a good review, right? When I mean pain, some people will put a contest together. Like they'll say on a note that goes into a package, take a photo posted on Instagram, tag me in the picture. And when you do, you'll be entered into a monthly contest and your monthly contest could be a drawing for a discount on product, a free product, whatever it might be.
So they're motivated to go out of their way to take a little bit of time to leave a review for you. So they get something for their efforts. I'm sure you've seen people doing this before, but it motivates them to do so. Another great place to get testimonials is when you're out at craft shows face to face shows, how do you do it? Well, when people come up to your booth and they talk about, oh my gosh, I have to get more of those lemon scented candles. They were so fabulous.
The last time I had them, I'm here specifically to replenish my stock. This is a great time for you to say, wait a minute. Oh my gosh, would it be okay if I turned on my camera and you told me exactly what you just said, and if they aren't then say, is it okay if I just record the audio, prompt them with the question and then let them talk and then get their approval that you can use their audio, or if they aren't even comfortable with that, say, can I just use the words that you just said?
And then put those up just as a quote. Okay. So super easy ways in person to get testimonials. The other thing that you can do, and any of you who have been out at shows with me know that I do this. When anybody buys a ribbon printer, we're so happy with them being a customer. Usually I give them a hug. I wonder if it will be able to do that. Nowadays, our first live shows are coming back up. I wonder if I can still do that, but we'll take pictures in the booth are brand new customers.
They're joining the ribbon print family. And so we take pictures. Also customers who come by the booth just regularly. We always say that we're like your home base. If you want to leave your coat, all your stuff behind the curtains of our booth, go for it. And we'll take pictures with existing customers. So these are ways then at a live show that you're able to number one, just bond, even deeper with your customers, but also capture testimonials.
The third way is more of what I'm going to call intended outreach, remembering that you always want to be collecting reviews and testimonials. You're talking with a customer and they say something nice about your company. You could say, oh my gosh, that was so sweet of you to say, would you mind giving a testimonial along those lines? Just email me something. And if it's okay, I'll attach your name to it.
And it'll be a testimonial, all different places along a normal path of how you interact with customers is a great way to get testimonials. We weren't doing this for quite a while, and now we've incorporated this into our system, Laurie, once a month or so, we'll reach out to two or three or four brand new ribbon printing customers and ask them if they haven't already replied with a testimonial through another system that I'm going to talk about in a minute, we'll ask them through email.
Would you be so kind as to leave a review for us and guess what? This is no different than what Amazon does and some will and some won't, but you know what? As long as you don't stay on their back asking and asking and asking, even if only a quarter of them do, that's more testimonials than you had before, right? Another place most people won't think about would be to, oh, there are people that you interact with in relation to your products.
The first people that you always think of are your customers, of course. But what about vendors? People that you're doing business with, you can ask them for reviews of your company. They may not have tried your product, but they know what it's like working with you, that your responsive, that you're professional, you work with integrity. Same way. If your part of any types of shows, how about the organizer of the show?
I know a lot of people who put on shows, craft shows, virtual shows, and there are people who are always get their things in on time. They come prepared. They, they don't moan or complain.
They get solutions to problems that inevitably come up in any show organizers, we'd be more than happy if you're that type of person to say, I so enjoy having insert your company, name, exhibit at our shows because, and then for whatever those reasons are, that's another way they get to talk about their shows too. But really they're highlighting you as a great exhibitor. And then also, how about other exhibitors?
If you get to be friends with someone who's a booth mate of yours at a show, and you've talked a lot because you've probably spent hours and hours. If not days with that person, depending on how long the show is, ask them. If they do a review so-and-so was so personable and fun to hang out with this past weekend, their spice dip mixtures are beyond fabulous to this.
I probably had a few too many of them over the weekend, but I wanted to share with you this wonderful company, and then that's a review right there. Right? Okay. So then once you get the reviews, then what do you do with them? It's no good. If you put them in a little box on your desk and don't share them out, the idea is that other people will see them because the whole point of getting testimonials and reviews is to share third-party information about your product.
They get someone to also decide to be a customer of yours. So put it on social media, put it on your way, cite, intersperse it with all the content that you put out on social. Very that already anyway, right? You want to talk a little bit behind the scenes. Maybe you put then a testimonial, then maybe you show a product. Then you talk about how you got into your business.
Do you, don't just put all of a sudden five testimonials on your Instagram account, all in a row reviews and testimonials are hard. So any barriers that you can overcome are going to put the odds in your favor that they'll actually follow through and do it for you. I, an app called R E P USO. This is not a sale for this. There are others out there. I've tried a couple, but this is the one we're currently using. And I really love I'll include a link in the show
notes. It also provides a link to our customers. So when I was mentioning earlier that Laurie sent an email out in that email is a link. And when they follow that link, they can choose where they'd like to post the review. So it could be a Google review. It can be a Facebook review. It can just be a message too. So that's a message. Then back to us that isn't showing up in either Google or Facebook, but guess what happens?
We get that review and then it automatically also gets added to our website. And of course, then it's on Facebook or Google already. So we don't have to place it there. It's just already there fact is. I mean, we've often gotten emails from people that say, thank you so much. You helped out so much yesterday or one of the people in our support group, like Anita was a godsend over the weekend by helping me, blah, blah, blah, do whatever it is. We'll just ask them.
Could we take the words that you just wrote in this email and use it as a testimonial now that then isn't connected with their name, but you can certainly put it in quotes and put it up on social. So we've just covered three ways that you can attract testimonials. One is right after the sale. Second is when you're in person and the third is intentional outreach. And I just gave you a bunch of different types of categories of people that you might not have ever thought
of. And of course, another way to do this bonus is lead by example, think of a couple of people that you have loved the product that you've purchased, or you love working with them because they provide the best service or gosh, maybe they're just friendly. It's the way you feel interacting with them. Every single time you're left, ending a conversation in a great mood. They're so personable. They're so friendly.
They're so helpful that in and of itself is a testimonial because remember testimonials, aren't always just about the product. It's about the brand. Overall, give us some thought today. The key to getting testimonials is to make it as easy as possible to actually ask incorporated into your system. And when you do, you're going to be using this really powerful capability of having testimonials, transition people from being just lookers, to being a buyer. That's a wrap.
I'm a get to the point kind of girl. And this is what you can expect from these quick midweek sessions. Now it's your turn go out and fulfill that dream of yours, share your handmade products with us. We want them and they bring us both so much happiness.