“Customer reviews have become the new PR,” says Lynn Switanowski, retail expert and founder of Creative Business Consulting Group, a retail consulting firm based in Boston, MA. Shoppers tend to trust the words of other consumers over the advertisements and other company-generated content they see, she adds. In fact, 84 percent of consumers said they were more likely to check online for reviews prior to making a purchase, according to a recent survey by Brand Reputation (Retail Bulletin, October 2009).

Collecting and posting reviews provides valuable information to your customers and will help bring in new customers as well as help you improve your store. So, how do you collect and post reviews online? Here are three simple and cost effective strategies you can begin using today to collect and publish customer reviews.

1. Use what is already available and FREE.
If you have a Facebook fan page you can add the “Reviews” application to your Facebook page and begin collecting opinions of your store and products from your fans. Also, consider signing up with websites that specialize in collecting and providing localized reviews such as Yelp and create a page for your store. Using Yelp you can not only collect reviews, but also post special offers, photos, and even send messages to customers. Also consider updating and collecting reviews using your free listing on Google as part of the Google Local Business Center. Encourage customers to post reviews on your Google page, which will increase your search engine optimization and website traffic. Over 70 percent of web searches go through Google.

2. Integrate reviews with your website. Having reviews included on the product pages of your website, whether you offer online buying or not, will increase customer visits and increase buyers online and in-store. According to two recent studies by Bazaarvoice, a hosted social commerce application provider based in Austin, TX, review-engaged shoppers became buyers 85 percent more often and spent 68 percent more per visit than shoppers who did not read reviews. Consider starting out by using a low cost solution that is easy to implement on your website from providers such as RateVoice and RatePoint. Both of these providers have review systems that are embedded in your website and allow visitors to rate products and post comments. RateVoice goes a step further and allows reviewers the option to post their comments to social media sites like Facebook. These solutions also allow you to communicate with customers so you can either thank them or resolve a customer complaint, and cost less than 30 dollars per month with the option to scale up with more features. High-end solutions, provided by companies such as Bazaarvoice will create a custom designed rating and review system and integrate it in your website. Bazaarvoice’s customers include large retailers such as Bed, Bath & Beyond and La-Z-Boy furniture.

3. Get creative about collecting reviews and opinions. Ask for reviews by sending an email to all of your customers and requesting they post a review. As a thank you, you can offer a gift card or coupon for their next purchase. Orvis, a retailer of clothing and fly-fishing gear, sent out an email asking customers to review its products and encouraged participation by conducting a weekly drawing for a $100 gift card. According to John Lazarchic, vice president of e-commerce at Petco, a pet supply retailer, offering a drawing for a gift card “boosted review submissions by 800 percent compared with the initial rate of review submissions at Petco.” When appealing to customers to write a review remember to play upon their desire to help others. According to a study by Bazaarvoice, “fully 90 percent of respondents say they write reviews to help others make better buying decisions, and more than 70 percent want to help companies improve the products they build and carry.”

Ask for reviews in all of your communications, both online and offline. You can go so far as to ask customers to post reviews by having a computer with an Internet connection available in your store and offer a free beverage and gift or discount if shoppers will take a minute and submit a review, suggests Switanowski. Consider including a printed card in your bags or better yet, print a request for reviews on your bags, including a mention of the benefit of a discount, gift card, or weekly drawing. If you collect email addresses from your customers, send them an email shortly following their purchase to follow up and request a review. If your store sells products that can be sampled you can offer in-store sampling and ask people that are not even customers yet to review the product based on the sample.

Once you have collected some reviews, be sure to use them in all marketing, both online and print. Rubbermaid, maker of storage and organization solutions for the home, business and outdoors, based in Huntersville, N.C., included a screen grab of a customer review along with a coupon in its print advertisement and found “that when they add reviews to their free-standing inserts [which are mailed and/or put in newspapers], conversion for the coupons increases by 10 percent. This is proof that reviews impact offline advertising and in-store behavior,” according to Bazaarvoice’s Rubbermaid Case Study, April 2010.

1. Tell fans why they should follow you. Although not an independent retailer, there are valuable lessons that can be learned from a recent email sent by Ann Taylor.

They promoted the benefits of becoming a Facebook fan which includes an opportunity to see behind-the-scenes when they have photo shoots, style tips, sneak peeks, things they love, special events, and ideas on “how they wear it”.

2. Offer incentives. The email from Bruegger’s is a strong example of how one store is attracting new Facebook fans with a contest for the 40,000th fan to receive a $100 gift card. Plus, they emphasize all the benefits of becoming a fan on Facebook: to hear more about their community initiatives, the chance to win free prizes, exclusive coupon offers, menu updates, and real-time ordering.

3. Make the design appealing. You have two seconds to capture the attention of your email recipients once your email has landed in their inbox. A strong design with bold graphics, a clear message, and an effective layout will increase your click-through rate by ten-fold or more. In a recent study, researchers learned that participants read an email from left to right. So, as you design your email put your strongest message on the left-hand side. n

Here are our favorite techniques for creating a successful blog:

1. To attract and keep readers, a blog must include practical information. The process of creating the blog forces retailers to focus on their strengths and the aspects of their operation that make it unique. Here’s what to blog about that your blog visitors and subscribers will love.

Blog-only bargains seem the most natural subjects for business people to talk about. After all, we know people love bargains. The trick is to keep some bargains only for those who visit your blog. If they can count on once-a-month bargains they’ll be back. And if you deliver, they will keep coming back.

Your employees: new ones, employees getting awards, employees doing community service, and more. Blogging about employees lets you indirectly brag about your store, and it is an inducement for staff members to be more loyal and creative.

Yourself. This is a topic many business people shy away from. You and the operation of your business are your best brand, the one that makes you and your blog different from others. You are the romance. You are the fun. Let people know about you, let them feel like they know you and your visitors will be back.

What is in the news is already being Googled big time. Figure out a way that your business relates to current events. For example, inclement weather is an occasion for a free-shipping-with-phone-orders-over-$25 offer. You will find dozens of other ideas in Your Blog, Your Business: A Retailer’s Guide to Garnering Customer Loyalty and Sales Online and In Store.

2. To keep people engaged with your blog, do not send them somewhere else. That means that if your blog isn’t part of your website, avoid directing them to that other site. Even if your blog is housed on your website, you want your visitors to think of your blog as an important resource. Do that with sales or bargain-of-the-week pages as posts on your blog.

This works especially well if you:

• Have a search engine as part of your blog so people can search for your bargains or events
• Use codes on sales pages to drive people to your store to make the purchase
• Interlink the bargain pages to one another; that’s a little like “would you like fries with that?” but within your own blog.
• Recycle useful pages. There is no need to invent the wheel every time you have a special. Every Christmas, advertise and promote your Christmas Bargain Page. It can become a tradition your customers will come to expect.

3. Like anything else, your blog needs to be promoted. Consider doing this:

• Everywhere in your store
• On your website
• In your advertising
• On anything you print; checks, bag stuffers, fliers, invoices, receipts, bags, gift wrap, labels, and so forth
• Do not just give the blog address. Tell people the benefits they will find there.

Involve others. Even independent business people know they are not a one-person show. Neither is your blog. Get others involved and ask them to link to your blog and talk about it—specifically ask them. They may not think to do it otherwise. So who are these people? Your…

• Vendors
• Customers
• Staff members

And, those who read your blog… even if they’re not yet customers.

Most important: your blog is marketing. Stay targeted. That does not mean you cannot talk about your poodle, Cherie. To introduce her, just think of an angle that fits the purpose of your blog. Cherie is using a new line of pet supplies you carry. Cherie—with all her charms—made a new customer of a stranger you met on the street.

Contact current customers
Begin building your list by contacting your core group of loyal customers, those that make up the majority of return visits and sales. Take time to ask them what it is that brings them back to the store and whether they would be willing to tell a friend about your store, says Hurlbut. Based on what you learn by talking to your customers, start your list-building strategy by deciding what pieces of information you want to collect and how you want to reward customers for signing up. An email address is a great place to start but consider collecting additional pieces of information from your customers. Fleener recommends asking for a mailing address and birth date. He says, people love to celebrate their birthdays and getting an acknowledgment from you along with a gift card is a great way to increase customer loyalty.

Attract new customers
Recruiting new subscribers takes consistent effort and creativity. Bob Negen, retail expert, and founder of WhizBang Training, based in Grand Haven, MI says there are numerous ways to build your list but some are more effective than others.

Frequent buyer program
The most effective way to build your list, according to Negen, is to create a frequent buyer program. Create a program that is heavy on benefits that are redeemable by email and your customers will be much more willing to offer their contact information. The key to
having a successful frequent buyer program is to offer benefits that make the program worth being a part of. Benefits could include a free monthly newsletter chock full of great ideas, a first look at new popular products, special member’s-only events and a monthly contest where the winner gets a gift card or free gift.

Promote your rewards program in your store as well as on your website where you can include a sign-up page. Include links in your email marketing as well as on your Facebook fan page. Encourage customers to forward sign-up information to friends. Have a regular “Invite-a-Friend” promotion and for customers that get a friend to sign up, either in-store or online, both will get a free gift or be entered into a frequent drawing.

Contests and giveaways
Having an annual or semi-annual contest can be a great way to catapult the size of your list. Get creative and have fun with your contest such as asking entrants to describe an experience with one of your products or your store. La-Z-Boy is a great example. The furniture retailer grew the size of its list by 13,000 new prospects with a creative contest called “Comfort Stories,” which asked entrants to submit a story about how La-Z-Boy furniture brought comfort to their lives. The retailer promoted the contest with informational content on its website and launched three email marketing campaigns. The winners were awarded highly desirable prizes such as a room makeover, recliners, a Nintendo Wii game console, and Amazon gift cards.

Contests that include a random drawing can be just as effective. For example, you could have a monthly drawing for a free gift for all that sign up. Promote your contest in your store as well as on your website and social media pages. Include information and a sign up form on your website with a very visible link on your home page. You can post a link to the sign up form on your Facebook fan page and any other social media websites you use. Promote the contest by using email marketing. Then, once you have a winner, you have a great reason to send an email to all the entrants congratulating the winner. In that email you can also promote your store by inviting recipients to visit, announcing your upcoming events, and suggesting they become a Facebook fan of the store.

Ask everywhere
Recruit new subscribers to your list in every form of communication that you produce, such as press releases, print advertisements and radio spots. Make sure to mention the main benefits of subscribing like a special discount, monthly drawings, a newsletter loaded with valuable ideas, and exclusive invitations to special events. Ask for new subscribers on the homepage of your website and at the check out of your ecommerce site with a link to your sign-up page. Provide a link to your sign-up page in your email marketing, write posts on your social media pages, and even include a link in your personal email signature line. Little by little you will see your list increase in size.

Creating a great list of customers, prospects and friends of your store is the foundation of building a more loyal and profitable customer base. Traditional, impersonal marketing is not as effective, says Hurlbut; customers want to be engaged by more personal communications. Get to know your customers and create a list that you can use to continue to communicate with them even when they are not in your store. This will increase customer loyalty and increase repeat sales. Although it may seem like marketing primarily to a finite list may not be as effective as blanketing your community with print and radio ads, you will likely find that most of your sales and foot traffic come from repeat buyers. Build your list by asking core customers to introduce others to your store, says Hurlbut. Have fun and get creative with increasing the size of your list, by hosting contests and giveaways and consider setting up a frequent buyer program. Building your list and using it to get to know your customers will help your sales and increase customer loyalty.

Using online marketing, you too can launch more effective marketing and create a more loyal and lucrative customer base. Online marketing, including email campaigns, social media and your website, provides the ideal environment to build loyalty and have conversations with your customers even when they are not in the store, says Doug Fleener, president of Dynamic Experiences Group, a retail and customer experience consulting firm based in Lexington, MA. Using social media networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you can increase loyalty and store traffic by having fun contests, sharing snippets of information of interest with your customers and taking polls to help you create a better shopping experience. Tullis uses social media to drive traffic to her store with contests, product announcements, and exclusive offers.

Your website and email marketing can provide added value to customers by offering information, customer reviews and offers tailored to their interests. Tullis uses email marketing to offer decorating tips, advice, and new product information. She also partners with other local businesses to provide special discounts for her customers, which she includes in her email newsletters. Your social media marketing, website and email marketing campaigns need to all work together to provide value, maintain a conversation, and build relationships that keep customers coming back, says Bob Negen, author, retail expert, and founder of WhizBang Training, based in Grand Haven, MI.

Social Media
Start a Facebook fan page for your store and begin using it to get to know your customers by asking questions and offering information of value to them. Facebook is a great place to begin conversing with customers—with over 120 million users in the U.S. and 50 percent of them visiting the site daily you are likely to find many of your customers already there. Social media, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, provides an ideal way to create a consistent two-way conversation with customers, which enables you to provide value, foster relationships and learn what your customers want to keep them coming back, says Lynn Switanowski, retail expert and founder of Creative Business Consulting Group, a retail consulting firm based in Boston, MA. “Our guests love the immediacy of Facebook to learn about new product arrivals at Ambiance the moment they come in,” says Tullis; “social media allows us to ‘talk’ to our customers and build long-lasting relationships, all while introducing them to our fabulous line up of products.” Tullis began using social media in 2005 to connect with 13 to 17 year-olds but soon found they were not her only customers using social media. Their moms, middle-aged women and also Ambiance’s customers were using social media to keep up with their kids, says Tullis. So she started using social media to reach out to them too and now her store has almost 1,400 Facebook fans and over 550 followers on Twitter.

When using social media, consider relationship building as the goal rather than selling products. “Applying traditional marketing approaches to new media marketing does not work,” says Fleener. Create a community with your customers around common interests like writing postings about your town, parenting, gift ideas or whatever is of interest to your customers based on your store’s expertise and products, says Negen. You can increase participation by offering free gifts or having contests. Tullis recalls what she says was a successful campaign her store launched, called “Spot the Dot.” Customers that took a photo or video with Dottie, the store’s polka-dotted Hummer H2 SUV, and posted it on MySpace received a gift card. “With that campaign we learned that social media had an instantaneous effect that no other form of advertising such as print, television, or newspaper could offer,” says Tullis.

Remember that a conversation goes both ways, so regularly ask questions of your customers and read and comment on responses, advises Negen. It is a great way to get input in making store decisions. “Our customers love being able to give their opinion in an open forum,” says Tullis; “we pay attention to what our customers like and what they don’t like, which gives us major insights to our upcoming buys,” says Tullis. You can use Facebook to survey customers and learn more about their tastes, preferences and how you can offer greater value to them. Allowing your customers to be involved in store decisions helps them feel more emotionally invested and will keep them coming back.

What about negative comments? Tullis says she does not worry about unflattering comments. “Every once in a while people will post unflattering remarks and believe it or not, I find it entertaining because our other fans handle it for us. They are typically the ones responding to the comment. If the customer writing the unflattering words is an existing shopper, we will pick up the phone and call them.” She says she has never had to delete a negative comment and has found that one negative comment typically leads to many positive comments posted by fans responding to the negative post.

Email marketing
Tullis began using email marketing as one of the first steps in her store’s transition to online marketing by replacing her print newsletter with an electronic version in 2003. Her newsletter now reaches over 10,000 people and she says is frequently shared on social media websites and forwarded to friends by the recipients. Email marketing is a great tool to keep in touch with customers and offer added value by sending out regular communications, like an email newsletter. Tullis sends out an email newsletter weekly plus one or two product or event related promotional emails per week. She says “the enewsletters keep customers informed of happenings both at Ambiance and in the local community as well as new product arrivals, coupons, tips and advice regarding products that we sell.”

To build her list of subscribers, Tullis created a rewards program. “We do not simply ask them for their information,” she says; “we explain the benefits of being in our ‘A-wards’ program, which includes $10 back for every $200 that a customer spends with us, plus coupons via email, and advance notice of all of our events. We have a 99.9 percent success rate in getting customers to sign-up. Everybody loves getting something for free” says Tullis.

Website
Use your website as the online destination that brings together all of your online marketing by providing links to your social media and a place for visitors to subscribe to your email list. Using your website to provide instruction and showing customers how others are using your products is a great way to add value, says Fleener. You can provide tips, advice, product reviews and store information of interest to your customers. Let your website be the hub of your online presence, the place for more detail about your store, your products, and another place for customers to shop with you using ecommerce.

Tullis is in the midst of a website re-design and the new website, she says, is slated to launch later this year. She says her new website will give visitors the feel of being in her store by featuring images of her gift boutique and showroom showing their award-winning in-store displays and many other Ambiance features that make the store unique. The website will also provide links to the store’s Facebook fan page and links to the other social media sites they use. Consumers will have the opportunity to communicate directly with Ambiance staff using the website and “there will be multiple blogs and forums our guests can subscribe to covering home design and sharing our fabulous fashion expertise,” says Tullis. In 2011, she says, the store plans to offer online shopping on its website.

Online marketing can help you build deeper customer relationships and add value to your customers’ experience with your store, which in turn can increase sales, says Negen. You can build a more loyal customer base by shifting your thinking away from “how can I sell this product?” toward thinking “how can I know my customers better and provide products and services to fulfill their needs?” Facebook fans tend to spend the same amount of money per store visit but end up visiting more often and generate more positive word of mouth than nonfans, says a Harvard Business Review study, published March 2010. Consider increasing the use of online marketing to promote your store and shifting the focus of your marketing strategy from products to relationships with customers and you can enliven your customer base and in return grow your sales.

Best of all it’s FREE!