Lessons

Lesson Info

What to Do After the Review

So now what do you do after the review? So this is something that I love to do as soon as my review goes up, I'll email them and I'll say thank you so much for featuring my products taking the time to write a review and that again go such a long way because they did put a lot of time into writing your product review anyone acknowledge them for that and then go ahead and add the review to your site I have on both of my website a page just with press mentions and this could be considered a press mention where any review that I get I'll put up there for other people to see who are coming to my website again it increases your social proof it sent some traffic back to their site everybody wins and share it on social media, so any time I get a review I'll go ahead and post it on facebook and I'll tag them um a post on twitter maybe take a photo of it and do it on instagram or maybe take a screenshot of the review posted on pinterest I mean there's so many things you can do to share their con...

tent with your audience as well and again they really love this they love to know that they're supporting you you're supporting them in return and you're helping them to get traffic again you're adding value to them after they're adding value to you as well and who doesn't love more traffic to their site? More subscribers, you know, more thumbs up. This was great, thank you, we all of that, so sure in social media and lastly, we were just talking about this before interact with the comments. So if you see the review and people are saying, oh my god, I love the purple soap it's, my favorite, take a second to write thank you so much. I'm glad you like it or any time. Sometimes they have questions and they might say, you know, do is your palm oil die uses it's sustainable and that's something that maybe the blogger might not know how to answer that, you know, because you've made the product so you can go in there, answer their ocean and again, everyone's happy you're providing them value. They're taking the time to write a question. You should be mindful of that and take the time to write something back again. A thoughtful response. So now let's talk about what happens if you get a bad review because we were just talking about this before, and you really have no control over the kind of review that you get, and it could happen that you get a bad review and even if it's something like you look at their site and all of their other reviews were glowing reviews and it's your favorite blogger, and they're always super positive, but maybe they couldn't figure out how to use your product, or maybe they took it to their kids school and it got damaged, and they didn't like that for whatever reason, they might give you a batter of you. So why don't we deal? We don't take it personally, it's not that you're a bad person or your product is that is that they couldn't figure out how to use it properly, or they didn't like it. Which is more great feedback for you to take into account as you're designing your product, so incorporate their feedback into your overall business strategy, just like you would be incorporating your customers feedback and to your business strategy when you're asking them and at once a year survey. And also don't go ahead and bash them on social media don't say things like I can't believe this blogger just wrote this review about me doesn't this suck or something like that where you know you're just making them look bad you're complaining that they did a bad review just let it go it's fine it was a bad review I'm sure you know other worse things have happened it's not that big of a deal you might just not get their customers to become or their readers to become your customers but that's fine because there's other people that are going to love your products for exactly for the reason that they should so don't go ahead and say how terrible they were because your review was bad or you didn't like and don't send them a mean email I know aa lot of times I've had clients who I've worked with them goddamn ana blogged the review wasn't so great and they wrote to me and they said I'm totally not happy with this can I write them back and tell her that I'm not happy with it? So no, you definitely shouldn't do that it's really not a very nice thing to do because when you are signing up for this, you're signing up to hear their opinion and if you don't like their opinion that's not their problem right that's their opinion that's what you're getting yourself into so don't send them an email and say how could you do this? This totally destroyed my brand and I'm so unhappy with you I'm going to tell all my friends never to visit your site which right? I could imagine that would happen but don't don't send the money and we'll just send them an email and say thank you so much for the review you don't have to say I didn't love it or I loved it or just send them a thank you and you're still saying them your thank you note and they're going to appreciate that so be professional here um and don't go just don't go there um so a couple more things to keep in mind as we're going to wrap this up so with a blogger review it doesn't necessarily result in sales right away in the same way that a magazine mentioned would just like with celebrities it takes a long time for that celebrity this is our celebrity gifting to turn into a sale and blogging is definitely the same way now I have had cases where I send the product they do a review a ton of sales come in and usually that's on lee the case if it's a huge block like something like daily candy or babble dot com or something like that or they have a huge audience that obviously the numbers are so huge that it's inevitable that some some of those people are going to come to their site and buy right away but that's usually not going to be the case of the blogger and it doesn't mean that you should give up doing blog's because there are a lot of great things about working with bloggers like we were talking about before so it couldn't and bacon leads to an increase in newsletter sign ups and that's great because your newsletter it should really be the backbone of your business that should be the place that you used to build relationships with your audience the place or you provide them more value than you would on your website so it's really important to you get people to sign up for your newsletter so you can provide them or value so they can trust you and in turn they could buy from me so it's a long process but it really does work if you have all of these steps in place, you can also get more social media followers like I said before, I mean pretty much instantly, especially for doing ah give away where they're asking people to like you as a way to enter the giveaway right someone's going to take a second and click the like button to enter that give away and some people say well, isn't that sending me people that are not qualified because they're doing this to get free products and the answer to that is yes and no sometimes there are blog's that on ly focus on doing product reviews and giveaways where the on ly reason their readers air there is to win free stuff and you don't want to work with those blocks so your products probably shouldn't be there anyway I'm not saying there's anything wrong with those blocks because some of them have crazy number of followers and people that like them so if you want people to come to you on ly people like free stuff, then that's a good strategy but if you want people who are actually buying stuff you know goto a block that doesn't only have people that like free stuff, but you'll know that what do you do your research and when you read through their block post to know if it's going to make sense for you let me just jump in there with a question because you got it's not quite related but I understand exactly where mary is coming from mary saying I consistently received requests from bloggers who site to the specific project they wish to review, which always seems to be one of the highest price products that she offers she tactfully suggests an alternative products, but they've declined, which makes me question whether they were just looking for a free gift I think that probably does happen is there another way you'd recommend handling this yeah, I have to say that definitely that's happen some people start blog's just to get free stuff, unfortunately, so you will get you will come across that and what happens sometimes, too is that if you're featured on a blogged and there's bloggers that look for the main popular blocks to see what products they feature and then they'll contact those brands because they know those brands do product reviews and give away so it's sort of really easy for them to find products or companies that say yes. So if that's the case, if we feel like it's not a good fit and you don't want to send your most expensive product, you can politely decline, and sometimes I'll say thank you so much for your interest, but I don't have any more products to give away right now, and a lot of times they understand that sometimes it's true, because I'll allocate let's say, you know, fifty bars of soap to do for product reviews, but I'll do all of the outreach get rid of my fifty bars and then I really don't have any more bars for product reviews because my supply I still have bars of soap, but not the ones that I've allocated for product reviews, so you could do that as well and set aside, you could say, I'm on lee going to give away ten products for this purpose and then when someone comes to you could say I don't have any more product to do to do reviews or give away so that's a polite way of the client and getting you're not lying because you don't want to you don't have an unlimited supply of products to give away so you're being honest there but yeah, you couldn't politely say no but you will see that once you do a product review that day or a couple of these later you're going to get a lot of requests from bloggers who are looking to revere product as well because they know you do product reviews and you have products to give away but feel free to say no especially if you feel like it's not a good fit for your products sometimes I've had bloggers that were definitely a great fit and I had no idea their block even existed in which case I said yes if I still had bars for for that purpose but otherwise you can say no because honestly, robin you're very much involved in the jewelry what has that happened to you sent product for review but really you found out that it's maybe just it hasn't really helped you but they've got a good free gift out of its about research you know I would never send something out if I didn't know and really do my research on the blogged um so it's and it's it's a toss up sometimes sometimes you can do that and you have to I think if you allocate the product and say I'm going to do those fifty reviews or those ten reviews then you have to also look at it as an investment and that your you know that's that's money out the door you might not get anything back but at least you've planned for it and you can do that but yeah, I mean there are a lot of people out there wanting things for free that's for sure yeah when you have a question from sketch we have a follow up question that I think robin you probably have some insight on this kita also works in the jewelry industry and says it would be hard to send diamond jewelry out as a sample so he was thinking of making silver and cubic zirconia reproductions as a sample and sending those out instead of the rial diamond samples is that a good idea or is that something you know typically you want to send your product you don't want to confuse people but in this case would that work for you? Yeah um you know, you definitely want to send the product that you're promoting right because if you work in diamonds and you don't do see z's but you're going to do it's easy for this review it's kind of a toss up you know again it's about the reputation of the blogger and in that situation I would say you know, work out something about it to be returned I mean certainly there's the price point limitation on that that's quite an investment um I don't know if you've had experience with more on the high end things but under a suggestion about video is fantastic that sort of solves that problem yeah definitely and I know a lot of times bloggers want to take their own photos and I know some entrepreneurs don't want other photos that are not their own off their products to be out there so that might be another case where you can say I'd love to work with you but because my product is so expensive I will need it back andan that case if they're on ly looking for free stuff, they're probably not going to want it if they really are serious and it's a product that their audience or their readers would love I think in that case they might understand and they might say okay, I totally get it I know it's expensive I'd be more than happy to return it but you're going to have to pay for the shipping to be to be sent back tio because I don't wanna you know spend spend money on something that I'm helping you promote so that's something that usually you can work out with them and see what what they're comfortable with but if they say absolutely no that's a good sign that they're in it on ly to get free stuff which is unfortunate but it does happen yeah, anything tio is that if you are depending if you're retail or wholesale and depending whether blogger is you can always invite the blogger to your studio you can if you find out if they go to any trade shows and you can say I'll be in new york at you know in case accessory or the new york now show and I would love to invite you to my booth and you can interview me teo flog or you know I can show you the product they're mean to give some alternatives to you would be really nice yeah, definitely yeah, and I think right that's a good point because you wanted you do want to make it easy for them and convenient and you don't want to have to make them jump through all of these hurdles, but if your product this two hundred dollars and they really want to review it, I think they need to understand that you can be sending out, you know, five products a month that are we or two hundred dollars, so I think a lot of times you could work something out with them yeah, but that's a great suggestion about meeting me at a trade show or maybe my cells rob can stop by or something like that? Yeah, I have a question. Is there some way that you can track, which likes come from the blog's? So you know who has signed up for the giveaway? They usually do the tracking, so a lot of times they'll have software and sold under blocks sometimes it's a plug in because a lot of them run in wordpress, where the plug in automatically tracks if they like you on facebook of they sign up for your newsletter, so a lot of times they do the tracking sometimes not all of them are that sophisticated, and sometimes people go ask their readers to leaving the comments what they did so you'll see. Readers say liking on facebook signed up for your newsletter, but there really is no way of tracking that. So we kind of have to trust that they're doing what they're saying even though, you know, and if it's a reputable blawg with an audience that's engaged, I would say, chances are that they can be trusted if it's a block where they're only looking for free stuff and they're doing, they're saying they're doing all these things they might not actually be doing them. But it's really hard to you know so if you want to make sure that it's being tracked make sure that you're working with a blogger that has a plug in that actually tracks all of these I know with something like you guys just did a thing where we're asking people to share on facebook and the programs I use was tracking all of that so you don't need to keep track of it so it just really depends on the software or plug into their using yeah, I'm going to have another follow up question on this as well about somehow you actually get your product in front of people it's mary again issues a very detailed question here and I'm not familiar with this outlet but she's calling haraway charo remember that another outfit she's seen opportunities to send one hundred business cards or postcards featuring your product or even a gift certificate which will be included in gift bags or give barcs gets in lieu of a product if you're probably is expensive is this the option effective of you go spirits of this doesn't work. Yeah, I know we're actually going to start off our next session talking about harrow and what you can do with it and what you can do with it um I have sent a gift bags are really tricky um and I've done them and I've never really received a return um at least an immediate return but I know personally I've gotten stuff from gift bags that maybe I liked but didn't use right away and then a year later I remembered about it and I ended up buying it because I remember here and get so again I think the gift back thing is one of those things where someone has to come across something seven times on average before they actually buy it, so if the gift bag is the first time they're coming across it, um they might need a little bit more time to warm up to you maybe they'll use it and remember it and go to your web site or like young facebook so it's really hard to track because it's not a case where you do a give back and then all of a sudden you have all of the sales at least not in the same way that magazines are but it can result in sales as well they're just take a little longer and they're a little more indirect yeah oh just a tissue please this is a little different from the bloggers, but since we were talking about different giveaways um now a lot of the well not a lot of trim but they have the subscription boxes you know, like birchbox or and I don't know if you're familiar with how popular well, how effective that can be with brands yeah that's a really good question it's something that actually I'm going to be doing to test it out in february for valentine's day with one of the gift subscription boxes I've never personally done it but a lot of people I do get that question so I reached out on harrow to people that have done it and a couple people roll back and they said we love doing this it it's so effective for us we get results right away because they have a lot of things where you could do a coupon and put the coupon in addition to your product in the box and then the coupon any time someone uses that your site you know it came specifically from that gift box so they have a lot of ways that you contract it that way I have talked to a lot of entrepreneurs that have loved doing it and gotten a lot out of it and it is well they don't usually charge you to put your product in there but you have to send free product s o if they have three thousand subscribers or if they have ten thousand subscribers sometimes you can get away with sending a thousand products and you will you only be in one thousand give boxes and not their whole ten thousand they don't usually pay you although sometimes they will help you to cover some of your costs but again it really depends um if you have the budget and if your product is not that expensive then it might be worth it for you to send it to them for free because again it's a super specific audience it's a people who have maybe our moms and they're looking for products for moms or maybe to have a travel gift box you know, those people are looking for travel products so it might be effective to reach them that way because that's exactly what that audiences so I've heard really great things about it I feel like there's a surge and monthly subscription boxes and they're obviously working because there wouldn't be so many companies doing it but also because I know I've spoken to entrepreneurs who have had a really great success with it so I think it's something we're trying and I'll definitely be experimenting with that I was a bit monthly so I was asking yeah and I know you have a quite a different products kill off the virginia with children's clothing said have you got any said relevant experience to how if you tried some of these techniques and have they worked for you with product reviews, bloggers on sounding samples, et cetera yeah, so hopefully this isn't negate everything that because I haven't taken the approach just like with magazines to kind of go out there myself they've kind of come to me with the experiences that I've had so I am glad to have this knowledge now but yeah it's worked pretty well it's it's mainly been like mommy bloggers with them being like hey, we love your infant line we'd love to feature you and sometimes you did to give away sometimes it was just a product review but it's always you know through my analytics have tracked you know whether it led to say I think I've gotten a lot of sales from it but I definitely advocate for for a product reviews because the people that read those blog's air definitely committed and there they love those blocks and so their audience is very receptive when when there's a positive you know response to it yeah that's why I think I'm glad you brought up google analytics because I think any time you're doing something online it's much easier to track that if you're doing something offline on with google analytics it's really important to not only have that set up but to also have your goals set up and there and I don't know if you guys are familiar with that but it's basically a goal can be a newsletter subscriber purchase and if someone comes to your site and you have your goals all set up in google analytics it could tell you how many people actually sign up for newsletter or maybe click on the link to like you and to go to your facebook page or maybe actually bought something s o if you're going to be doing bloggers, blogger reviews and getting out there a lot I highly would recommend and making sure your goals are set up and google analytics and if that doesn't make any sense, teo, you can google how to set up goals in google analytics, and they'll tell you how to do it. And this is really the only way to track how those how that traffic is actually converting into subscribers or sales or some other actually want them to take way are coming toward the end of the session and rather any closing thoughts you'd like on this particular session about blogging and how it all works. Yeah, so my closing thoughts are that it doesn't always this doesn't work for every type of entrepreneur, especially if you have something more expensive, but you really have to do your research and make sure that the site you're doing a review or give away with is a good fit and they have a good audience that's engaged. Sometimes I like tio go for the quality where the audience is engaged over the quantity, so if someone has a smaller audience, but they're always leaving comments and commenting on social media as opposed to someone that has a huge audience, but their block is like a ghost town because no one comments. The quality of the audience sometimes is more important than the quantity, so don't let those number throw you off and I think a lot of times you'll know if you go to a blogged right away is this a good food? Can I see my product here or is this totally not my it doesn't represent my brand, so do your homework a little bit and again thinking if you want to be on daily candy, go ahead and reach out to them and don't feel like you're too small and they only feature big brand so think big and just god there and do it fantastic and if anybody from lamborghini is watching, I'd love to review starting a block this time next week so next we're going to do a little bit of wrap up and I'm going to share with you a couple of other strategies tio get publicity including infographics and how to create them how to get booked on tv and how to use harrow and pitch them correctly so that way your pitch stands out when you actually reaching out to them so we'll be talking all about that when we come back fantastic I'm sorry that's gonna be our last session but thank you all feel quote really appreciate it as always thank you very much from the feedback is an lp is saying this class is really helping me with the details broad strokes of info are followed by the publicity's details. Yes, and then carla cano is saying, my favorite thing is how andre is demonstrating how to put in the work to get the results. There isn't a fast, easy way to be successful. You have to work at it. And I feel she's, very sincere and authentic and it's very refreshing.