At TrustRadius, our favorite way to source trusted reviews is through email campaigns. We already have a bunch of content on the Review Generation Growth Hub to help your email campaigns be successful. Emails work because you can connect to your customer in an instant. Once that email hits their inbox all they have to do is open it and click the link to start their review. Emails are also cost effective because you can just send them with customer lists you already own. However, when it comes to review sourcing, there are various other methods that you can test and see what works best for you. 

SMS

Considering that people are more than likely to check their phone for texts versus reading every email, SMS is a great way to try and engage with your customers to source new reviews. All you have to do is send a short message and include a direct link to write the review. As with all review campaigns, offering some kind of incentive like a $25 gift card helps catch your customer’s attention and increases the likelihood of them writing a review.

Some things to consider:

• Make sure you have permission
• Keep your message short and to the point
• Make sure the direct link is mobile friendly

If you are interested in trying out SMS to source reviews, EZ Texting has some great examples featured here. 

Social Media

Social media is another way you can source reviews. For social media, consider which platforms you might receive the best engagement on and what is easiest for your customer to utilize. For example, you can’t attach links on Instagram posts but you can on Instagram stories. However, your customers might engage more on Twitter or Facebook. Connect with your social media team to find out which platforms have the best engagement from customers. From there, work on social graphics that align with your brand and will catch the viewer’s attention. In the post include a direct link to the review platform and make sure it is clickable. Then, you just have to pick the best time to post your content. 

With social media you can usually play around more with captions or text by using looser language, emojis, or hashtags. Here are some examples:

1. We LOVE our customers! If you’d like to share some love, please consider leaving a review! ❤️ 
2. We’re all ears! Share your feedback and let us know how we’re doing. Leave a review today! 📝 
3. Don’t leave us hangin’! Your review could be the next big thing on the internet. 🌟 
4. Your review: the secret sauce to our success! 🤫 Write a review now!
5. What would you do for $25? 🤔 How about write us a review!

Of course some of these are more genuine while others play on humor, choose texts that align best with your brand while still getting the viewer’s attention. 

Website

Utilizing your website can help you gain new reviews. There are numerous places you can add to a website to try to get reviews. When it comes to asking for reviews on your website you want to make sure that they are in the right spots so you are asking your customers and not just anyone who clicks on your website. 

One way you can get reviews is by adding a pop up on certain webpages. For example, if your site has a login page for customers only, after a customer logs in add in a pop up or notification. In the pop up use colors that stand out against the web page itself and include a button to click on that will directly take the user to the review platform. Ensure that it opens a new tab if clicked, and also that the pop up “x” button is clearly visible so that customers could also click out of it if they don’t want to leave the review at the button. You don’t want to annoy your customers and make this more of a hassle. If you want to drive more attention with the traffic, include that the first x amount of people will receive an incentive. Just remember to remove this language once you have reached your limit. 

If you do want to include a spot on the main website, add in either a “write a review” button or include it as one of the links in your footer. A lot of people check the footer on websites, so having it in a visible spot but not somewhere where it completely stands out could help. 

Another tactic is if someone uses the help desk feature, when they are finished being helped, add a link at the end asking for a product review. This is something that can be automated and one example for this message is: “Thank you for reaching out today and we hoped that we were able to answer your questions. If you have time, we’d love it if you can take 15 minutes to leave us a product review.” Then just embed the link into the message.

Engage with Current Reviews

While this might not get you several new reviews, commenting on already published reviews has the potential to land you a few new ones. Thanking your customer for their time and honest reviews shows your current reviewers that you actually do care about the feedback and have taken the time to read them and respond to them. If a customer sees that you have responded to others writing reviews it might make them more inclined to write a review as well. 

You can also use this as an opportunity to get some updated reviews. In some of your review responses, you can thank the customer for writing the review, tell them that you value their feedback and would love to know more, asking them to go back in and update and to talk about integration or specific product features they enjoy.

Events

Events are probably one of the most fun ways to source reviews. People already enjoy attending events and you get to meet your customers in person, spark conversation and ask them if they would like to leave a review. In addition, events with TrustRadius support have been shown to drive 5x more reviews. If you are hosting or attending any event in the near future, connect with your CSM to find out how to get TrustRadius support with sourcing reviews at the event. 

With or without TrustRadius support, there are some things you can do to make your event review sourcing successful: 

• In addition to a regular gift card, add an additional incentive. Give away a free branded t-shirt or host a raffle for anyone who writes a review. 
• Have multiple laptops available so you can drive several reviews at the same time.
• Hand out business cards to customers who may want to write a review later.
• If you are at a multi-vendor event, make sure your booth stands out. 

With many of these methods, TrustRadius can help you with your DIY sourcing. Get in contact with your CSM or use this form if you are a digital customer. TrustRadius will then be able to help you by creating product landing pages and incentivized links that can be tracked.