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Why You Need Ratings & Reviews For Your Online Store: Partner Blog

Rachel Tyers
September 9, 2021 |
partner-blog

A beautiful online storefront, carefully worded product descriptions and stunning photography will only get merchants so far. If you’re looking for a strategy with true persuasive power, nothing beats the shared experience of your customers’ peers. And this is where ratings & reviews come into play.

From enhancing your reputation and trustworthiness to providing shoppers with more contextual product information, social proof of this sort helps to aid purchase decision-making, ultimately increasing your bottom line.

Add Ratings & Reviews to Your Online Store: 5 Reasons

1. They Help You Increase Onsite Conversions

Adding reviews to your store is a tried and tested conversion booster. The conversion rates for product pages that feature reviews are up to 5 times higher than those that don’t.Okendo customer, Freshly Picked, creates products that attract a strong community following. By translating the passion of their customers into glowing reviews, displayed across their online store, they were able to achieve:

  • $11 increase in Average Order Value
  • 5% increase in Conversion Rate

The key takeaway? Make sure reviews are displayed prominently across your site, at all points along the customer journey. Add some reassuring social proof to:

  • Your Homepage
  • Category pages
  • Product pages
  • Upsells & Cross-Sells
  • Check Out

2. They Help You Deliver Personalized Messaging

Reviews create an extra channel of communication between online merchants and shoppers. When leveraged correctly, they have the potential to provide a rich additional source of customer data, which can help fuel deeper personalization of marketing campaigns. WAG used Okendo’s unique Attributes feature to collect both customer and product-related attributes via review request emails. The data they gained was then used to segment their audience and deliver product recommendation-based email campaigns, which delivered hyper-relevant offers and products. The results were outstanding:

  • 64% increase in Review Request Click Rate
  • 300% increase in Placed Order Rate
  • 423% increase in Revenue Per Recipient

Want to see similar success? Carefully consider the attribute-related information that you request from reviewers. Then apply a little creative strategy to your own email list segmentation, based on the insight this gives.

Consider segmenting your email campaign messaging by:

  • Demographic-based customer attributes (e.g. gender)
  • Lifestyle-based customer attributes (e.g. personal goals)
  • Behavior-based customer attributes (e.g. reason for purchase)

3. They Help Enhance Your Google Marketing

Almost half of product searches start on search engines, so it’s important to take every opportunity to stand out on the crowded Google platform. Reviews can do more than help to boost your SEO. From star-based seller ratings through to expanded rich snippets, the ability for review data to be displayed in your Google Shopping Product Listing Ads (PLAs) helps you stand out from the crowd. Especially due to their prominent placement at the top of Google’s search results.When Okendo customer, Muir Way, added social proof to their Google marketing efforts, the results were impressive. In just three months, they achieved:

  • 20% increase in Click-Through Rate
  • 30% increase in Conversion Rate
  • 838% increase in Revenue

If you’re looking to achieve the same kind of uplift in your own marketing efforts, pay attention to the following opportunities:

  • Boost products with the highest star ratings and recent reviews
  • Encourage a wider range of user-generated content – customer images can help product listings stand out in a sea of results
  • Remember, a minimum of 50 on-site product reviews are required before star ratings can be applied to product listings

4. They Help You Improve Your Products & Processes

Reviews are a microphone for what your customers are thinking and feeling about your brand. The insights gained from reviews can help to refine your product offerings. Lifestyle brand LSKD used reviews to assist with product development, via several rounds of attribute-based feedback, collected using Okendo’s review request emails. Want to take a more customer-led approach to the development of your own product lines? Use reviews to help by:

  • Adding context to feedback – collect key personal data points such as body type and height.
  • Showing your community you value their feedback – reward reviews with coupons.
  • Analyzing product feedback at scale – use review report features to identify how your products are performing.

5. They Help You Build Loyalty With Customers

Reviews give your customers a chance to connect with your brand – most importantly of all, they give your customers an opportunity to feel respected and heard. By including review requests within your post-purchase customer experience, you’re demonstrating an interest in their interaction with your brand. You also have an opportunity to show your gratitude by pairing rewards and reviews (i.e. gifting products, discounts, or credit) in exchange for feedback. Mate the Label used this to great effect, by leveraging the Okendo – Rise.ai integration to thank customers for their reviews with store credit. As a result, they saw a 27% increase in reward redemption rate.
If you’re looking to build customer loyalty, consider the ways that reviews:

  • Give you the chance to win back unhappy customers with exceptional service.
  • Build up a sense of community.
  • Help you to identify, acknowledge and reward your brand’s biggest fans.

Ratings & Reviews – Exactly What Your Store’s Been Waiting For

Ratings and reviews hold huge potential for online store’s success – from boosting your conversion rate through to sharpening your marketing efforts and creating an army of loyal customers helping to fine tune your product development. As a trusted Shopify Plus certified app, Okendo can help by offering all the tools you need to capture and showcase customer-generated content including product ratings & reviews, photos, videos, and Q&A.Lean on Okendo’s unique data-collection features, powerful integrations, and optimized review generation to level up your online brand. 

Rachel Tyers

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