{"id":3395,"date":"2018-09-10T04:00:38","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T04:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/?p=3395"},"modified":"2018-09-27T05:52:31","modified_gmt":"2018-09-27T05:52:31","slug":"get-product-reviews-using-email-automation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/get-product-reviews-using-email-automation\/","title":{"rendered":"How to get people to review your product using email automation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nCustomer reviews are essential<\/em> to a product’s rankings, but it\u2019s not always easy to get the quantity of reviews you want. The the best way to get a large number of reviews is to create an <\/strong>email outreach<\/a> campaign to automatically ask users for a review.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Without the automated campaign I have\u00a0running to get people to review my products\u00a0GMass<\/strong> and Wordzen<\/strong>, I probably would have only 5%<\/em> of the reviews I actually do have.<\/p>\n

Even more importantly, GMass<\/strong> is ranked higher than its competitors<\/strong>\u00a0in both the Chrome Web Store<\/a> and the Gmail Add-on Store<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>than other products that do mail merge in Gmail<\/a>–even though\u00a0some competitors have a significantly larger number of users<\/strong>. Why do they have more users than GMass when GMass is clearly superior? That’s a story for another day, but mainly because they’re the Silicon-valley big-money venture-capital-funded TechCrunch-type of companies…and GMass is organically grown, in the midwest, and focuses solely on its product and not all that other fluff. But I digress.<\/p>\n

The proof is in…the search results!<\/h3>\n

Let me prove what an obvious difference this makes. GMass is available in two places: The Chrome Web Store<\/strong> and the GMail Add-on Store<\/strong>. First, let’s examine the Chrome Web Store and see how GMass ranks for the search term “mail merge”:<\/p>\n

\"Showing<\/a>
Showing GMass at the #1 position for “mail merge” on the Chrome Web Store.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Notice that GMass<\/strong>\u00a0ranks #1, and it has 1,133 reviews<\/strong>,\u00a0and the #2 product, M*xmax, has only 523 reviews<\/strong>. The effect of reviews is even more impressive\u00a0when you consider\u00a0how many users each of the two\u00a0extensions has:<\/p>\n

\"Number<\/a>
Number of GMass users: 63,271<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Number<\/a>
Number of\u00a0M*xmax users: 93,732<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wow! Even though\u00a0M*xmax has\u00a0almost 50% more users than GMass<\/em>, GMass is ranked\u00a0higher because it has more than twice the number of reviews, and better ones to boot.<\/p>\n

Now let’s apply the same analysis to the Gmail Add-on Store\u00a0<\/strong>(aka the G Suite Marketplace<\/strong>). The Marketplace offers about 60 apps. Where is GMass on that list? Let’s take a look at the first page:<\/p>\n

\"GMass<\/a>
GMass at the #13 position of 60 apps in the Gmail Add-on store.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

GMass is doing\u00a0decently well at #13 out of 60. In fact, GMass is ahead of many apps that have more users. Let’s zoom into the row\u00a0where GMass appears:<\/p>\n

\"GMass<\/a>
GMass ranked higher than other add-ons with many more users.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Notice that GMass<\/strong>, with 49,182 users<\/strong>, ranks above SignRequest<\/strong>, with 156,757 users<\/strong>, and even BasicOps<\/strong>, with 189,625 users<\/strong>–both more than three times<\/em> as many users as GMass! But, of course, look again at the number of reviews: GMass leads with 271 reviews<\/strong>, whereas SignRequest only has 136–and BasicOps only 45! Reviews boost rankings.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Better rankings means more visibility for any<\/em> application, not just GMass. In the same way, your product<\/em> will be more or less visible based on the number of reviews it has in whatever marketplace it competes, whether it be Yelp, the iPhone App Store, or the Google Play Store.<\/p>\n

So, today I am going to show you how to set up a review request email campaign, and how you can apply it to promote your business.<\/p>\n

How the outreach campaign works<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Here is the basic process:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Get the names and email addresses of people who are using your product into a Google Sheet.<\/strong> This should be a system that updates regularly, so new active users of your product are periodically automatically added to the Google Sheet<\/strong>. This can be done by Zapier<\/strong>, or any tool that can connect your CRM<\/strong> system to a Google Sheet<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
  2. Create a daily recurring campaign<\/strong> with at least one auto follow-up<\/a> asking people to write a review.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Example 1: Reviews for your\u00a0software\u00a0product<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    A common use case for this type of campaign is for requesting reviews for your software product, whether that\u2019s a web, mobile, or desktop app. In this example, we will use GMass itself as the example software product\u00a0and look at how\u00a0I use GMass to\u00a0get reviews for GMass. How meta!<\/em><\/p>\n

    Start by creating your Google Sheet with the names and email addresses of people who are using your\u00a0software.<\/strong> For this tutorial, I\u2019m going to assume you know a way to do that, either by exporting data from your internal CRM system into a Google Sheet<\/strong>, or by\u00a0using Zapier<\/strong><\/a> or a similar product.<\/p>\n

    Note: GMass<\/strong>\u00a0uses Microsoft SQL Server as its backend and has written a proprietary tool to take data from\u00a0<\/strong>SQL Server and dump it to a Google Sheet, something we plan on eventually making publicly available so that anyone who uses SQL Server as their back-end can easily get their active customers into a Google Sheet.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Here is a screenshot of an example Google Sheet<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

    \"Showing<\/a>
    Showing your Google Sheet with your Gmail-using recipients.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Now you\u2019re ready to\u00a0reach out to your customers, asking them for a review.<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Click the GMass Spreadsheet button<\/strong>\u00a0at the top of your Gmail page to connect to a spreadsheet.\n

      \"About<\/a>
      About to click on the Spreadsheets button in GMass.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>\n
    2. Choose the spreadsheet you are using with this product review invitation campaign and click “Connect to Spreadsheet”.<\/strong>\n

      \"About<\/a>
      About to connect to a Google Sheets spreadsheet with GMass.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>\n
    3. In the Gmail Compose window that is then launched, create a new email with your invitation to review your product–in my case, GMass.
      \n<\/strong><\/p>\n
      \"Outgoing<\/a>
      Outgoing review request for a software application (in this case, GMass)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

      Bonus:<\/strong>\u00a0Notice how we can use\u00a0GMass’s\u00a0personalization feature<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(“{FirstName|there}”) here? This way, if there is a FirstName column with information, GMass will address the\u00a0email recipient\u00a0by his or her first name (such as, “Hi, Bob”).<\/li>\n

    4. Now let’s schedule this email sequence.\u00a0Click the\u00a0GMass Settings<\/a>\u00a0button.<\/strong>\n
      \"The<\/a>
      The GMass Settings button (up arrow)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

      The Settings window will be displayed.\u00a0Click the plus next to Schedule.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \"Showing<\/a>
      About to open the Schedule option from the Settings Window.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>\n
    5. Click the “repeat” checkbox, and choose daily or hourly in the dropdown.<\/strong>\u00a0You can also set a few other settings, such as not sending on weekends.IMPORTANT:<\/strong> Keep in mind, this scheduling doesn’t<\/em> mean you are going to be pestering the\u00a0same\u00a0<\/em>people daily or hourly, asking them repeatedly if they will write a review of your product. It means that this campaign will check the Google Sheet daily or hourly to see if there are\u00a0new\u00a0<\/em>people on the list who have not yet been contacted, and only email the new people.\n
      \"Showing<\/a>
      Set your settings for repeating, daily or hourly.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

      Note: If, and only if, you have launched a Gmail compose window through the Spreadsheet button (Step 2 in this section), the Settings will include an option for scheduling\u00a0repeated\u00a0sends of this email. It will not show this if you compose an individual email without using the Spreadsheet button.<\/em><\/li>\n

    6. Let’s also set up one reminder email.<\/strong> The reality is, people need\u00a0to be reminded to write reviews, even if they are willing. Fortunately, GMass<\/strong> has a great feature for this (one that I’ve blogged about before<\/a>). In the Settings <\/strong>box, click on the blue plus mark to the right of “Auto Follow-Up”<\/strong> to expand it. Here you will have options to set an auto follow-up email<\/strong> that will be sent to each recipient based on the rules you specify. In this case, I have set the follow-up email to occur a day after the initial email<\/strong>, but only if the recipient hasn’t replied to my first email<\/strong>.
      \n
      \nBonus:<\/strong> You can even send up to seven more reminder emails<\/em>, at some pacing you choose, using the various “stages” shown in the image below.<\/p>\n
      \"Using<\/a>
      Using the Auto Follow-up feature of GMass<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

      That reminder, by the way, will look like this when they get it the next day:<\/p>\n

      \"Showing<\/a>
      Showing what the automatic follow-up email will look like.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

      Reminders are\u00a0essential in getting people to reply, because often it is only after someone has been reminded of something once–or even twice–that they will take action. In this case, that will often make the difference between another review or not getting one.<\/li>\n

    7. Finally, click the red\u00a0GMass<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>button<\/strong>\u00a0to start this automated email sequence. The first email addresses on the Google Sheet<\/strong> will be sent emails immediately, and then as new rows are added to the spreadsheet<\/strong>, GMass<\/strong> will send out this same email to those new people in an automated fashion.\u00a0GMass<\/strong> is smart enough to avoid sending the\u00a0previously emailed\u00a0<\/em>recipients the same email again.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      That\u2019s it!\u00a0Now people will be invited to write a review of GMass<\/strong>, and each will get one (or more, if you prefer) follow-up email to remind them. Furthermore, new addresses added to the spreadsheet will automatically get the same email sequence.<\/p>\n

      Example 2: Reviews for your brick-and-mortar business<\/strong><\/h3>\n

      Remember, customer reviews aren’t only beneficial\u00a0to software\u00a0products like GMass<\/strong>. They are vitally important for getting the good word out about your shop, restaurant, or any other “brick and mortar” business in your community.<\/p>\n

      In this tutorial, I’m going to use Ted’s Tadpole Tanks<\/strong> as an example of a brick and mortar establishment, but it could easily be any sort of local establishment.<\/p>\n

      The steps here\u00a0are the same as the first example, but with a different outgoing email that makes sense for a brick-and-mortar business. In that case, asking for reviews on Yelp.com<\/strong> might be the way to go. Here is the outgoing email:<\/p>\n

      \"Example<\/a>
      Example of an outgoing email requesting reviews for a brick and mortar shop.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

      The rest of the process is the same as shown in the previous example.<\/p>\n

      Other uses:<\/h3>\n

      The world of public opinion about products and services runs on reviews. They can make or break not just businesses, but any creative or public effort that requires people to make decisions in your favor. So consider using GMass<\/strong> for any of the following ways to automatically request reviews for your:<\/p>\n