A product review is when a blogger takes a look at the user experience of a product and gives their view of the product. A product review is the perfect way for a blogger to begin getting in contact with companies. In addition, if the product is popular enough, it can be a sure way of exposing yourself to a new audience. Today, we’ll analyze the steps to begin product reviews on your website.
Finding Companies
An audience may mistakenly think that product reviewers are thrown products to review. While this isn’t a possibility that is entirely ruled out, people still must contact companies to get the word out about their interest. The best route to begin is to search for up and coming companies. New companies are more willing to help out new writer.
Contact Companies
When you find the perfect company for you, the best route to contact them is through email. Many entry product reviews are surprised when they find out that many companies take advantage of what some call, “the modern snail-mail”. It’s important to remember that some companies specifically request no calls to prevent distractions from other requests. When contacting a company, most companies don’t always have an email specific for product reviews.
Those that do don’t always have a clear way of finding this email. Product reviews are still a relatively new practice, especially technology reviews. Companies that do have specific emails (i.e. Casemate) are usually found in the general contact page.
Have Knowledge
The company has finally contacted you back and they are interested in you reviewing their product. You soon receive an email that your tester is coming soon, it arrives, now what? When you receive the item, you should dive into it right away. When unboxing, have the viewpoint of an average consumer, but the expectations of a product reviewer. Make sure to take notes to yourself of certain aspects of the product, likes, dislikes, and more. This will be the formation of your actual review.
However, as we mentioned before, you must have the expectations of a product review. This means that once you write out your final review, you must have additional research to complement your article. This can be in addition to the official website, consumer reviews, and fellow bloggers.
Be Honest
When planning this article, I originally planned for this subject to be in combination with the previous point. However, this is a subject that sometimes can get forgotten by early tech reviewers. Companies offer their products for review not just to get stellar reviews, but honest reviews. They want to hear if their product overheats or if certain applications repeatedly crash. This will allow them to make improvements themselves. In addition, this will preserve your reputation as a product review. In return, more companies will be willing to come to you for you to review their product.
Keep the Company Informed
As much as we would like to think, the company doesn’t just drop off the company and run. In addition to a review, it’s considered quite commendable to keep the company informed of how the review is going. After the product has been secured for shipment, you should also contact the company once you receive the product, while you are reviewing, once your review is complete. This will show them that you wish to have them at an intricate part of the process, not just as a product provider.
As you can see, product reviewing is a very fun part of blogging. It allows you to try out new products, sometimes even before the public. However, you should also remember the serious parts of product reviews and to not just see it as a free product. Many times, companies ask you to return the products once the review is complete. Make sure to clear the up during initial contact. If you follow these steps, product reviewing will feel like a breeze.
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Michael Aulia @CravingTech.com says
Great post, Emmanuel, you really sum up everything there :)
Writing about the pros and the cons are always good for the readers and for the vendors themselves as explained. Try to highlight both of them and don’t just say “This product sucks”
In fact, it’s even better to reject review offers if you don’t see any value in the product you are about to review
Emmanuel Banks says
Thank you for the comment. That’s true, product reviews are all about balance. Not saying you love the product when you don’t and not disrespecting the company in the review as well.
Emmanuel
Patricia@Direct Response Marketing says
Hello Emmanuel. Product reviews are a GREAT way for making money online, especially with blogging. I’ve tried doing them when I started out blogging a couple years ago. I’ve found that you need a popular, high raking marketing blog for you to get them. On the other hand, you’re guide here suggests cold calling which definitely would get you some responses, which if you do the number calling will get you some… I said some. Because once again, the potential customer will definitively evaluate your blog and look at things like your influence, Pr rating (for links) and Alexa rank, and if those aren’t relatively good, it will be tough. Do-able, but tough.
What must also be said is, the company must be willing to give you a sample or access to the product for you to do a proper review. I don’t see how you can do a proper review otherwise. Some bloggers just review products to get ‘known’ and ‘around and that’s sort of where one starts. But it’s hard work and if your stats are there, you need to charge for your ‘services’ – it’s only fair.
On the other hand you can do ClickBank reviews too. They do really well for affiliate commissions, but once again I must caution to review products you’ve used. I can’t tell you how many emails I get of the ‘next-best’ thing that you can tell that person has no idea about (especially once you used the product).
Fabrizio says
Awesome post Emmanuel, you’ve covered some great essential points here.