Review of
Naked
Truths About Getting Product Reviews on Amazon.com: 7 Insider Tips to Boost
Sales, by Gisela Hausmann ISBN 9780996897204
Five out of five stars
The rise of
Amazon as a global business power of the first magnitude has done what most new,
expanding businesses do. Created opportunities for existing businesses to ride the
coattails as well as give entrepreneurs the chance to create brand new
businesses, mostly as sideline endeavors, but a few as actual full-time jobs.
One part-time
job that has been created by the rise of Amazon is that of the
(semi)professional reviewer. The position began when Amazon was largely just a
seller of books, at the time they started their reviewer program. I was a very
early participant in the reviewing process, at one time I was ranked in the top
fifty.
As Amazon has
expanded the breadth of their offerings, the review umbrella has also expanded
to cover the new products. This has made the Amazon reviewer program a
critical, and relatively cheap, component to the marketing strategies of
companies that sell their wares on Amazon. With Amazon ranking their reviewers
based on a secret formula, smart companies can intelligently select a small set
of reviewers, send them products for free or a reduced rate and reach a
significant audience. For reviews posted on Amazon are visible around the world
and on the product page on Amazon foreign language sites.
The key phrase
in the previous paragraph is “intelligently select” and that is where many of
them fail, sometimes miserably. As Hausmann points out, it is not difficult to
determine the reviewers that promise the greatest return on investment. Simply
look at reviews for competing products, examine the ones that have a lot of “helpful”
votes and then check their rank. A short day’s worth of work and anyone can
create a small, but very valuable list of people to contact.
Once that is
established, the next thing to do is to send the reviewer a message that will interest
them. The writer of the message needs to understand that they are just another
fish in a turbulent sea and there are others vying for the limited attention of
the reviewer. It is here that Hausmann once again shines and demonstrates her
expertise in the area of email communication.
In my
experience, this is where many marketing contacts totally fail. As Hausmann
demonstrates, the generic message sent to a list that so falsely sounds
personal is something that yells out “Amateur!” The worst is when the entire list appears in
the “To” field, so when someone accidently hits the “reply all” button,
everyone on the list knows about it. If you want me to spend the time reviewing
your product, spend a few minutes trying to entice me.
Amazon provides
sellers with a great deal of opportunities for selling, which also means that
there is a great deal of competition for attention and subsequent sales. The
Amazon reviewer program can be an incredible asset or put you as just another
annoyance, depending on how well you play your position. With Hausmann’s help,
you can win at that game, or at the very least keep up, assuming that your
competition has also read it.
This book was made available for free for review
purposes
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