You know that customer reviews are pivotal to optimise marketing performance. You’ve accumulated many useful reviews from platforms like Seedly. So how can you tap into the potential of these customer reviews?
Your reviews aren’t confined to the walls of these platforms. Turn to other methods to make these readily available marketing resources work for you.
In this post, we discuss:
Section 1: Why embed customer reviews and ratings
Great reviews and ratings are the hallmark of business success and customer validation. By embedding reviews and ratings in your collaterals, you strengthen social proof and grow your credibility. Reviews are often the make-or-break for conversions.
Embedding reviews and ratings allow your prospects better insight into the products and services offered. Reviews and ratings complement each other. Reviews provide qualitative and comprehensive insights, while ratings provide quantitative feedback. Use these two in tandem to validate your business and increase acquisition efficiency.
According to a survey by BrightLocal, 81% of consumers believe that reviews are important in the financial services industry and 84% of consumers read reviews before they purchase insurance products/services. Displaying reviews and ratings assures prospects of the quality of your products and services. Prospects trust other customers. Instead of in-your-face sales and advertisements, give your customers a voice and have them speak for you.
When you put your customers in the spotlight, you seem more authentic and trustworthy. It also keeps your prospects engaged and encourages them to leave a review for you after.
Section 2: What are SeedlyReviews and Badges
SeedlyReviews are honest, unbiased and high-quality reviews that your customers have left on your Seedly Product Page.
SeedlyReviews Badges are a medal of honour that display your official reviews volume and avg. ratings. There are 4 elements of the SeedlyReviews Badge designed to optimise acquisition efficiency.
Rating: At a glance, prospects will know your customers’ sentiment of the product or service
Tier: The tier acts to reaffirm prospects about the value of the rating
Volume: Displaying reviews volume positively corresponds with conversion rates
SeedlyReviews Logo: Prospects better trust reviews hosted on a neutral third-party platform as they can be assured that the user-generated content is carefully managed according to impartial guidelines
You may showcase your achievements by embedding SeedlyReviews and Badges on your landing page, mobile app or marketing creatives. They enable your customers to speak for the brand and act as validation and approval from Seedly’s 2 million-strong community.
Displaying independent and genuine reviews and ratings on your marketing collaterals promotes brand trust. In a competitive financial industry, embedding SeedlyReviews and Badges help differentiate your products and services and build customer confidence.
Section 3: How to qualify for SeedlyReviews and Badges
Both the SeedlyReviews and Badges are part of the Performance-based Benefits that we offer to all financial products and services on Seedly.
To qualify, products/services require:
≥100 reviews
≥3.6 ratings
≥10 reviews growth monthly
SeedlyBusiness Account
The minimum requirements reflect the characteristics of useful reviews:
Large reviews volume
High reviews ratings
Recent reviews
Comprehensive reviews
You can check out the Beginner’s Guide to Customer Reviews to learn more!
Section 4: Four ways to display customer reviews and badges
Now that you’re convinced why you should embed reviews and ratings on your collaterals, we’d like to share some ideas to get you started. There are multiple ways to display your customer reviews, but here are 4 effective approaches, complete with examples:
1. Showcase them across your site’s user journey
Leverage the power of social proof when you sprinkle reviews and ratings along your website’s user journey. You’ll need to make your reviews easily accessible and available on almost every page of your site.
We suggest some key pages:
1. Homepage
The homepage is often a high-intent prospect’s first touchpoint with you. It’s vital to get started on the right foot by establishing a great first impression as trustworthy.
Here’s where you should clearly display your customer reviews and ratings, especially if you’ve got a badge awarded by a reputable and independent reviews platform. A prominent badge immediately draws attention to your achievements at first glance.
Some display variations include a static section, an automatic carousel to display more reviews, a showcase that features the most recent reviews every month or even scrollable sidebars to engage your prospects.
2. About Us Page
The About Us Page helps prospects get to know your brand story and learn more about your business.
Inserting reviews about your brand values and customer service will help to reinforce your message. Embedding a badge also doubles up on fostering brand trust.
3. Products/Services Page
This is a no-brainer. Your prospects are on this page to find out more about the products/services and evaluate its usefulness and reliability. In fact, eMarketer states that buyers trust customer reviewers nearly 12x more than the product descriptions! Showcasing customer reviews and ratings about the product/service reduces consumer doubt and reassures prospects of its value.
It’s not always easy for prospects to grasp the concept of financial products/services and its impact on one’s personal finance. Particularly for financial products/services, reviews help humanise and reconcile these intangible purchases' idea and reality.
4. Sign Up/Checkout
Up to this point, you’ve optimised the user journey for prospects to click on the “Sign Up” button. Don’t let it flop with users abandoning the ultimate action at the final step.
Adding real reviews and ratings on your checkout page can significantly influence a prospect’s purchase decision. It inspires confidence in prospects to commit to their purchase decision and gives that final boost to convert prospects into customers.
Yield the best results when you embed the right review at the right point along the user journey.
2. Share them on your socials
User-generated content (UGC) is king on social media so instead of posting promotional content on them, why not allow UGC to take centre stage?
Regularly updating your socials with the latest reviews and ratings also reminds prospects that you are relevant and improves your legitimacy.
When you post reviews and ratings on your socials, it prompts prospects to interact with you and keeps them engaged. You also empower your customers to be more vocal about their happy experiences. With the power of social sharing, such posts can be catalysts to viral word-of-mouth marketing.
3. Plaster them on your online advertising
Online advertisements still boil down to marketers promoting their own product/service, or in other words, a brand tooting its own horn. But add user-generated content (UGC) to the mix, and now your customers too, are speaking up for you and with you.
Advertisements are more well-received when they include UGC. When you combine reviews and ratings with online advertising, you can expect a higher click-through rate (CTR) and engagement.
4. Paste them on offline collaterals for OOH advertising
Even though you generally collect reviews on online platforms like Seedly, don’t limit distribution to online channels. Consider fixing your reviews and badges on your OOH advertisements as well.
As we emphasised the importance of embedding reviews and ratings at key points along your online user journey, the same applies to the offline user journey. Your prospects can't skip or block the honest customer reviews and ratings exhibited on your OOH advertisements. This consistent reinforcement and association of your brand with high ratings will influence prospects to keep your company at the top of mind.
We live in a social community where reviews and ratings from our peers guide purchase decisions. Maximise all the valuable customer reviews and accolades you’ve accumulated. Optimise marketing performance when you embed reviews and badges along the customer journey.
We’re providing the tools to help you increase acquisition efficiency. Speak with us to get started!