The benefits of a positive endorsement by the media can hardly be understated. Customers turn to the media to learn about solutions, and to help choose between potential offerings. Many prospective customers do not look beyond these endorsements and buy on the basis of their credibility. There is little question that “Two Thumbs Up” sells movies and a “5-star” rating sells hotel rooms. One PC-clone manufacturer told the author that their PC Magazine Editors Choice Award added about $5-million to their bottom line.
10 Tactics for Winning Product Reviews
1. Be selective about the publications and reviews you choose to enter. While the term “free publicity” is often used to describe editorial coverage, this term is a little misleading. Preparing and tracking product used for review purposes is often quite time consuming. Also, if you have an expensive product, you may not be able to afford to have units circulating for review. This is especially the case where reviewers do not return the product or damage it. So before you get started, consider your ability to do the job right. Sometimes no review is better than a poor review.
Some reviews give you publicity but not an endorsement. Many publications do not express an opinion, so their reviews tend to be bland, listing product features and a few pros and cons.
Consider also, the medium’s ability to generate sales of your offering. If you have to choose which media to work with, evaluate them as if you were about to advertise. For example, a full feature in a small-audience newsletter may not be as valuable as a paragraph in a major publication. Also, people buy only when they have an interest in your product, so a small circulation publication that directly addresses your target audience may produce more sales than a large circulation publication that does not. Refer to The Mathematics of Effective Media selection in Marketing Promotion Planning and Strategy for more information and a useful calculator.
2. Before you enter a review, know what the reviewers are looking for. Know what excites them and what irritates them about the products they review. While many reviews are highly structured and pseudo-scientific, reviewers are people and they have perceptions that will affect the review. Learn who the reviewers or product testers are and who the writers are. If the review is technical in nature, it is possible that the tester and the writer will not be the same person.
If the reviewer and the writer’s names are not published, the PR manager can ask for this information. The advertising manager may, however, be more successful getting the information from her contacts. You should also read both previous reviews in the publication, and previous articles by the writers. This will give you a flavor of what the hot buttons are.
3. Appoint a cross-functional review team. This team typically includes a product manager, a PR manager and a technical expert. It might also include the product designers. Because reviews can be so valuable and damaging, this team should not only have a plan, but also the ability to execute it. They need to be able to short-circuit any internal bureaucracy that would make the company appear unresponsive to the press.
4. Choose the right product for the review criteria. Knowing what the reviewers are looking for, helps you choose the product that is most likely to do well in the particular review. For example, a Porsche is not likely to do well in a review of compact cars even though it is a physically small car. It could lose on price and the number of passengers it can carry if these were criteria for the review. It may win on performance, but not many people buy compact cars for performance.
Remember to choose a product you wish to sell at the time the review is published. Some reviews can take months from the time you submit your product to the time the story hits the streets. Creating demand for a product that will be obsolete on the publication date will not be very useful.
5. Test the exact product or service you plan to submit before you submit it. Even if your failure rate is one per 10,000, this is not the time for that one faulty unit to show up. If you offer a service, make sure it is being delivered well. You don’t want the reviewer to test your responsiveness at a time when you are short staffed or the rookie is manning the phones.
Have a back-up product tested and ready to ship immediately if a problem occurs or if the original one gets damaged in transit.
6. Provide all the components the reviewer needs to properly set up your product for testing. Don’t frustrate the reviewer by making them hunt for connecting cables, screws and tools. Also, you want to make sure all these components work as expected. If a customer would not normally get all these components, you can package them in an identifiable “Reviewer’s Pack”.
7. Provide all the instructions and benchmark data the reviewer needs to set up and satisfactorily test the product. Point out the key features of your product. The benchmarks tell them what they should expect. If they don’t see the expected results they can call for help, or at least make sure they configured the test correctly. If a customer would not normally get all this information, you can package it in an identifiable “Reviewer’s Pack” along with the product and other components. You might also want to include a special reviewer support telephone number so they get fast competent help if they need it.
Many reviews have been lost because the reviewer set up the product incorrectly so it performed poorly. The reviewer did not know what the product was capable of and therefore accepted the results without question.
8. Follow up with the tester shortly after the deadline for receipt of products. Your objectives are to:
– Make sure the product was delivered – Make sure the product gets configured correctly – Highlight key features – Find out when the product will be written up for the article.
If it is a technical test, have the support expert and the product manager call, not the PR manager.
9. Follow up with the writer when she is writing the article. Remember the writer is looking for a story, not a set of benchmarks. Offer a list of reference customers who the writer can interview for the story. Of course, you should pre-screen these references. You can also offer photos and to set up executive interviews. Talking with the writer allows you to put test results into perspective for them and allows you to highlight key features that may not be part of the standard test criteria. You may even suggest a “side bar” article on the technology, customers or trends.
A word to the wise on pricing tactics: The writer may ask about your price or you may have to provide a price as part of a qualifying questionnaire. A product can have many prices including the manufacturers recommended list price, the “street price” (what consumers pay) and discounted/sale prices. Which price should you use in the review? If your list price is relatively high and you submit this price for review, you could lose the review based on a perception of poor value for money. If you submit a discounted price or any price at the lowest end of your range, you increase the perception of good value for money. However if the consumer cannot find the product at that price, they may continue to shop around without making a purchase. The best price to quote is close to street price, but erring on the high side. Customers will either find the price they read about, or a lower price that exceeds their expectations. They will feel they found a bargain.
10. Thank everyone involved. A simple note or phone call is enough. It is inappropriate to send gifts to the reviewers.
If you do not win, and no mismanagement was involved by the publication, don’t get mad at the publication and don’t threaten to “pull your advertisements”. Remember there will likely be another review soon. If you have a legitimate beef and the publication wants to make amends, suggest they write an independent story about your offering, not necessarily a retraction. A new positive story that you can use as a sales tool is far more valuable than a “correction” in the small print of some future issue. Summary Positive reviews by the media can dramatically boost your promotion results. There are however, circumstances when they can hurt your business.
Do
Do have a marketing plan and strategy. Do understand the resources required and be selective. Do understand the review criteria. Do appoint a cross-functional review team to manage the review. Do choose the right product for review. Do test the exact product or service before you submit it for review. Do provide all the necessary instructions and performance benchmarks. Do follow up with the tester. Do follow up with the writer. Do thank everyone involved.
Don’t
Don’t offer products that will not be available at the time of publication. Don’t take unnecessary chances. Reviews must be managed. Don’t undermine your street price. Don’t threaten to “pull your advertising.” Don’t offer gifts to the reviewers.
We hope you found this edition of Words To The Wise(tm) to be valuable. These tactics, like all tactics, should be based on a strategic plan. Considering the criticality of marketing to your business success and the size of your investment in marketing promotions, shouldn’t you invest a little in ensuring you have a profit-centric plan and strategy? Marketing Promotion Planning and Strategy This ebook is a no-nonsense resource that empowers you to generate profitable sales for your business. It includes the strategic marketing know-how as well as tools to get the job done. Our ebook and Internet combination allows you to adopt this know-how, and the timesaving tools, to your own unique business situation. While marketing advice is plentiful, almost all of it is tactical and provides little or no strategic insight. Most of this “do more” advice results in expensive and fruitless activity that hurts profitability instead of enhancing it.
Strategy is the science of mapping future success. Tactics are the means by which a strategy is carried out. If your tactics are to result in profitable sales and a sustainable competitive advantage, they must be based on a strategy that takes account of your business’s specific situation, its goals, resources, and competitive environment. You can create your own business success with the strategic marketing know-how and tools provided by MarketingSage.net.
David X Lamont, MarketingSage.net, Silicon Valley, California http://marketingsage.net/resources.htm
A free mini-course in marketing tactics is offered by the author. David is a Professional Certified Marketer and 20-year veteran who develops and implements marketing strategies for generating profitable sales. To sign-up for the free course and to learn more about MarketingSage’s DIY resources and David’s book, Marketing Promotion Planning and Strategy, visit http://marketingsage.net/resources.htm
