How can I get reviews for my product, book, website, app, or service online?

To get reviews of your product posted online on your website, on Amazon.com, on Facebook, on Google, Pinterest, Yelp, Goodreads, Tripadvisor, etc. is KEY to sales success these days.

Everybody checks the reviews before making any major purchase these days, right?

So it's important for your product to show up in as many places as possible and with positive reviews from real customers and good comments from users, too.

How can you get more reviews for your product online?

Here are some free tips from our years of experience running ProductsForReview.com.

Follow these guidelines and you can find your product sales benefiting from increased social proof, testimonials, comments, shares, and multi-star reviews, too:

*  Be Grateful and Friendly:   Once a customer has made a product purchase from you, start by thanking them personally for their business. Everyone likes to be treated like they're important, so try being polite, personal, and friendly when you ask for comments and feedback and ratings.  A more casual and authentic approach will get you a lot more reviews than an impersonal form letter review request that looks like spam.

*  Ask Customers for Feedback:  Part of your ongoing marketing strategy should be to ask customers for reviews and testimonials.  You can do this manually by e-mailing customers to ask.  But a better strategy is to set up autoresponder emails that automatically send out e-mails to recent customers and invite them to post a review publicly.

*  Offer an Incentive or Prize for Comments and Reviews:  Bribery is not cool (and possibly illegal) but expressing your appreciation is just good manners.  What can you offer to people who post good reviews about your product, book, restaurant, music, app, or software?  "Real" prizes can quickly get expensive.  But a coupon or a digital download like an ebook of tips or a helpful "how to" video can be produced once and given away indefinitely as a "thank you" to people who help spread positive word-of-mouth comments, reviews, and ratings about your business online.

*  Budget for Review Copies and Product Giveaways:  Include in your marketing budget an allowance for free "review copies."  Use this budget for product samples that you can give away to encourage public discussion and reviews about your product.  If it’s too expensive to give away actual products, find a way you can share the info or experience of using the product – maybe through a YouTube video or Pinterest photos.

*  Post about your Product in Social Media:  Take advantage of the free publicity and wide reach of social media services like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, Instagram, and more.  Publicly asking questions about your products, offering free products in exchange for reviews, and running contests are all good tactics.  They encourage discussion of your products that can help inspire more reviews and comments to increase the "social proof" around the value of your products by publicly demonstrating that lots of other people value it, too.

*  Offer your Products through ProductsForReview.com:   This unique website service matches product marketers with the bloggers, reviewers, and journalists they need.  Post your product offer on the site to get reviews.  You'll get email inquiries from qualified reviewers offering to help you promote your product, usually in exchange for a review copy or free product sample. It's an easy, quick, and cheap way to find product reviewers and help build buzz if you're an Amazon Vine reviewer, or active on Yelp, YouTube, Twitter, Goodreads, TripAdvisor, Google, or anywhere online where people post reviews.

What tips do you have for getting product reviews?

What has worked for you as a winning strategy to help attract positive customer buzz about your products online?

Please leave a comment below with other ideas!

- Your Friends at ProductsforReview.com