The holiday season is your biggest revenue opportunity each year, and your best chance to build the trust and loyalty that keeps customers coming back all year long.
Below, we cover proven tactics to earn more reviews this season:
Unify Your Communication Channels
A common mistake that brands make in review generation is treating each channel as its own, creating a disconnect between email, SMS, in-app, and in-store communications. This leads to a fragmented customer experience that gets in the way of your message.
To maximize review generation, unify your communication channels across channels so that all messaging aligns with your unique customer profiles. This doesn’t mean sending identical messages in each channel but rather creating a coherent brand story across them. Review your current post-purchase communications across every channel. Check for consistency in tone and timing, if they reference the same purchase, and if they are tailored to the customer.
Personalize the Message
Generalized review requests are more likely to get ignored, but personalized emails reach 41% higher click-through rates. Link customer data and purchase behavior to a unified customer profile so you can segment your audience and deliver highly personalized experiences.
For example, these segments might include the following:
First-time shoppers: Welcome them and emphasize your brand story to build a connection. Encourage them to join your loyalty program to keep them engaged and highlight that their feedback is valued.
Loyal repeat customers: Acknowledge their purchase history and make them feel like VIPs with an incentive like loyalty program points if they leave a review.
In-store shoppers: Don’t neglect your in-store shoppers. Send emails mentioning their purchase with a direct link to leave a review. Consider including a field for their experience in the store.
Optimize the Timing
Timing is everything when it comes to review requests. Ask customers to leave a review at the right time (usually 7-14 days after purchase) so that they have enough time to use the product and form an opinion but have not yet forgotten about the purchase.
For holiday purchases (orders with a gift message, a different shipping address, or a gift wrap option), adjust your timing for right after the holidays to account for when the gift has been given and used.
To seamlessly keep reviews top of mind, you can also include a QR code to leave a review in the product packaging. That way, you may earn a review from a gift recipient or the purchaser.
Offer Incentives
Leaving a review requires a level of effort from your customers, so it is important to make them feel it is worth it. Incentivize customers to leave reviews by offering small rewards like extra loyalty program points, early access to an exclusive post-holiday sale, or by entering them in a holiday giveaway. These gifts make customers feel special and like the few minutes spent leaving a review are a worthwhile trade-off.
Be sure to be transparent about any incentives in the review itself to comply with FTC guidelines. Include language like “incentivized review” to maintain the trust of future shoppers reading your reviews.
Make the Process Simple
The best way to encourage customers to leave a review is to make the process quick and seamless. When sending post-purchase emails or SMS messages, provide a direct link to the product to leave a review or embed the form directly in the message to make it even easier. If customers purchased multiple items, provide a dropdown or pre-fill elements of the form so they can easily leave a review for the right product. Removing friction will be critical to earning more UGC during the busy holiday season.
Celebrate Your Customers
The holidays are about gratitude and celebrating your customers. Make them feel seen and heard with curated experiences and frictionless shopping so that they are more likely to return after the holiday season. If they go the extra mile and leave reviews for your products, send a genuine holiday thank-you message that expresses gratitude for their support. Incorporate UGC in your social media campaigns with branded hashtags to highlight their contributions and strengthen the sense of community.
Final Thoughts
Earning more reviews during the holiday season is about creating excellent customer experiences, communicating with purpose and personalization, and making it easy for customers to share their feedback. The brands that build trust and loyalty during the holiday season will see greater returns in the new year.
Not sure how your UGC strategy stacks up? Take our free UGC Health Assessment and get personalized insights to optimize your strategy today.
