If you’re looking to increase the amount of reviews you have, then creating a review generation campaign will help get you there. Fortunately, as a TrustRadius customer, we will run campaigns on your behalf to help drive reviews. However, people can be wary of a third party reaching out and asking for reviews in exchange for an incentive. They have more trust when the vendor directly reaches out to them. This guide has a few steps you should take that will ensure you’re building the perfect review generation campaign for TrustRadius.

1. Pick the campaign type

When it comes to sourcing reviews, we recommend email campaigns—this allows you to select your exact audience and get the best metrics. However, there are a couple of other options such as social media or web. While you can target your ads for social media or make a post on your own accounts, this campaign type does lead to more fraud, especially if an incentive is included. A website is also a good option because you can add a pop up or embed after a customer logs in.

2. Check your incentive budget

We recommend checking your incentive budget before sending out a campaign. This will let you know how much budget you have to work with and select an appropriate gift card incentive amount. The average gift card amount is $25, but you can also choose a different amount such as $30, $50, or even $100 if you have a large budget.

3. Request a DIY Campaign Link

A DIY link is one of the most important steps to setting up a successful campaign. You get to choose your incentive amount, a special campaign code, and if you have multiple products, then a landing page can be created to include all subscribed products. It can take up to five days for your landing page or link to be created so make sure to request it in advance. To submit your request, just fill out this form.

4. Get the email copy reviewed 

If you’re creating an email campaign, you can actually have your copy reviewed by the UGC team at TrustRadius. All you have to do is submit a request to this form and include your copy. If you can, we recommend sending your copy in a Google Doc sheet because it’s easy to track changes and add comments for you. 

If you don’t have access to Google Docs, then a Word document will work as well. If you need ideas on what a good email template could look like, we have several options available in the Review Gen Growth Hub—from awards copy to a customer’s one-year anniversary. You can also view the generic template, here.

5. Select your audience

Your audience matters when it comes to review generation. There are several ways to segment an audience, especially in an email campaign. One idea is to set up an automated campaign that will send after a period of time past implementation (i.e. 30 days, 60 days, or 90 days). You can also set up a campaign for a customer’s one-year anniversary. If you are setting up a campaign that may not be automated based on a customer’s journey, then select an audience size that is appropriate for your incentive budget. 

When choosing an audience, the most important thing is not to cherry pick. Cherry picking involves choosing specific people to reach out because you know they will leave a better review than others. Choosing people who have left higher NPS only is an example of cherry picking. Please remember, TrustRadius doesn’t allow cherry picking and it could affect your TR score if you do.

6. Send out the campaign 

Once you have everything else in place, it’s time to send out your campaign! Some best practices here are to review when your customers are most active or when campaigns receive better metrics like open and click rates. Look at prior email campaigns or social posts and then select the best day of the week and time to push send on your campaign. Once your campaign is active all you need to do is wait for the reviews to come in and be published!