Imagine this: you get into work one morning, open up your email inbox, and find an offer of $25 for 10 minutes of your time from a company that is unfamiliar to you. You know you use the product offered, but how do you know if it’s not spam? 

With today’s vastly growing security concerns and issues, it can sometimes be hard to tell what is spam and not when someone is talking about offering money.

That’s why at TrustRadius, we recommend sending out an email (or a message if you have a community, log-in, or forum) that gives your customers a heads up that this email is coming and valid.

There are two core reasons why you would want to do this (and 3 and 4 are definitely great reasons as well!): 

1. Builds Trust and Credibility: By proactively notifying your customers, you create transparency, which helps build trust. They’ll be more likely to engage with the offer if they know it’s legitimate and coming directly from you, rather than dismissing it as potential spam.
2. Increases Participation Rates: A heads-up message primes your customers, making them more likely to respond. When they anticipate the invitation, it doesn’t catch them off guard, resulting in higher engagement and more reviews.
3. Enhances Customer Experience: Sending a heads-up message shows that you respect your customers’ time and inbox space. It helps set expectations, so they aren’t surprised or confused by an unexpected email asking for a review.
4. Reinforces Brand Consistency: By notifying customers in advance, you keep the communication within your brand’s trusted channels. This reinforces the consistency of your messaging, which can help customers feel more connected to your brand.

So with that in mind, below you will find an email example and a community message example to quickly use and send out to your customers ahead of a TrustRadius-sent review campaign. Feel free to copy and paste to use or edit it to match your brand voice a bit better.

Email Copy:

Note: There is a link to get started review sourcing early within this email. Reach out to your TrustRadius contact to get this link or leave it out.

Subject line: Care to share your {Product or Vendor Name} experience?

Body: 

Hi {first name},

Thank you so much for being an active {Product or Vendor Name} customer.

We value your perspective and welcome transparency, so we are working with TrustRadius to collect your feedback. TrustRadius is like TripAdvisor or GlassDoor, but with a focus on expert user reviews of business software.

Kayla Hutchinson, the TrustRadius Community Manager, will be reaching out to you directly within the next few days. For your time and effort, TrustRadius will offer a gift card as a small thank-you. We hope that you will participate!

If you have time right now to write a TrustRadius review of {Product Name}, you can click here to get started. Otherwise, you can wait until you get all the details from TrustRadius.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me.

Thank you for your time and for considering this invitation.

SIGNOFF

Community Message Copy:

Attention: Within the next week, you should receive an email from TrustRadius with an offer to leave a review in exchange for a $25 digital gift card. This email is valid.

We value your perspective and welcome transparency, so we are working with TrustRadius to collect your feedback. TrustRadius is like TripAdvisor or GlassDoor, but with a focus on expert user reviews of business software.

If you have any questions on this, please reach out to us at {insert support email address here}.