Marketing
AI Generated Content: What Place Does it Have in eCommerce Marcomms?
July 31, 2023
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5 min read
This BFCM trust strategy will help you increase conversions without slashing profits, and turn seasonal shoppers into loyal customers.
Shoppers are more selective than ever. They want value for money, but just as importantly, they want to buy from brands they trust.
This BFCM trust strategy will help you:
Before you launch your BFCM campaigns, audit the elements that influence how customers perceive your brand.
This means reviewing both company reviews and product reviews for quality, consistency, and impact.
There are multiple ratings and review sites on the web where consumers can voice their opinion on your company - whether you’ve asked for it or not. These same sites are available to new customers in the research stages of a purchase and if they’re not all telling the same story it brings your reputation into question.
You might have a 4.5 company score on REVIEWS.io, but how do you rate on Trustpilot or Facebook for example? Have you clocked up any unsolicited, negative reviews here that are sending low trust signals?
If you spot gaps or negative feedback, use our Reputation Management feature to direct more review requests to third party sites that need improvement.
Product reviews directly impact conversion at the point of purchase. Audit your top-performing product pages first and work through this checklist:
Run a site speed check before BFCM to spot and fix any performance issues. Ideally, repeat this review audit every six months - and always before peak sales periods.
Review mining is the process of analysing your own reviews - and even your competitors’ - to uncover recurring themes, trends, and sentiments. Done well, it reveals exactly what shoppers love, what frustrates them, and what drives their purchase decisions.
Traditionally, review mining could be a time-consuming task. That’s why we’ve built AI Assistant, your companion for review insights and data analysis at speed. Simply ask it what you want to know, and it will scan your review content to deliver clear, actionable answers in seconds.
For example, you can quickly identify:
Ahead of BFCM, you might ask AI Assistant to pinpoint the most common objections in product reviews so you can address them directly in your campaign messaging.
These insights can shape your BFCM strategy - from marketing messages that address purchase concerns to product page content that highlights key selling points. By combining review mining with AI-powered analysis, you can create campaigns that speak directly to customer needs and build trust faster.
Once your reputation is strong and you understand what customers value, it’s time to weave trust into every stage of your BFCM sales funnel - from awareness to post-purchase engagement.
Social media is a primary source of brand and product discovery for today’s consumer, and a great channel for building trust at the awareness stage.
If you’re investing in paid social ads be sure to incorporate review data - whether that be a snippet of written review content, a product star rating or an authentic piece of visual UGC.
Consumers will see A LOT of advertisements in the run up to and over BFCM. Adding these trust signals will make yours stand out over those promoting nothing more than just another discount.
And you’ll have the click through rates to prove it - we ran substantial social media ads with review data that converted at a much higher rate than those without.
Whilst some shoppers do buy straight from social ads, most will go on to find out more about you. This consideration stage happens primarily on Google.
There are three trust boxes you want to tick here:
Rich Snippets: this is review data next to organic search results. This data - gold stars, average rating and review count - increases buyer confidence and displays naturally with no cost involved.
Google Seller Ratings: these are gold stars next to paid ads. You’ll need to meet certain criteria to earn a Seller Rating but once you do you’ll benefit not just from increased trust, but greater ROI on ad spend.
That’s because they prompt higher click through rates, boost your quality score and subsequently lower CPC. We’ve seen REVIEWS.io customers reduce costs by 15% - 20% through Seller Ratings, so if you plan on running Google Ads this sales season they’re an absolute must.
Google Product Reviews: here we’re talking stars next to PLAs. Just like Seller Ratings, these increase CTR whilst lowering costs. Make sure your product reviews are synced and star ratings are visible so you make a strong impression at the consideration point of contact.
If you’re a large retailer selling through multiple sites and marketplaces there’s another tool for boosting trust at the consideration stage, and that’s review syndication. This distributes product reviews to your retail partner sites for a consistent reputation on all your sales channels.
When shoppers reach your website, reinforce trust right where they’re deciding to buy:
You can go further by:
Essentially this is what we’ve been talking about all along - review content is customer advocacy. But there’s one more important place to share it, and that’s in your email marketing.
Just as they’ll see a lot of ads, customers will get a lot of emails from brands they’ve connected with in the past, attempting to lure them back with attractive BFCM deals.
When you add advocacy to those emails through review content and UGC, you offer so much more. You share a brand experience and give consumers yet another reason to trust you more than your competitors.
For really effective email marketing this BFCM, you can use our UGC publishing tool and Klaviyo integration to add dynamic shoppable galleries to your campaigns.
BFCM doesn’t have to be about deep discounts that eat into your profits. With the right tools and strategies in place you can attract sales season shoppers through trust rather than cheap prices. And with trust in place you can grow a loyal customer base, earning yourself more brand advocates in the process.
It’s a profitable cycle that we refer to as the Feedback Flywheel: leverage the power of reviews on all channels to drive more customers - the faster you spin the wheel the faster you will see an effect
If you’ve got any questions about incorporating reviews into your BFCM strategy contact our support team. And if you’re not yet a REVIEWS.io customer, try us out with a 14 day free trial.
Check and update your company and product reviews to ensure they’re high quality, consistent, and up to date across all platforms.
Review mining is analyzing your own and competitors’ reviews to uncover what customers value most, helping you create targeted marketing campaigns.
Publish reviews on key pages like your homepage, category pages, and product pages, and highlight persuasive snippets near buy buttons.
Feature reviews and UGC in email campaigns and social posts to keep trust high and encourage repeat purchases.
