Lemi Shine leverages sampling to drive strong ratings for new product

Lemi Shine challenges established brands with user-generated content

Small companies with modest budgets and limited resources face the perpetual challenge of competing against bigger, more well-known businesses. Lemi Shine, a family-owned manufacturer of household cleaning products, enjoys significant and sustained growth by including user-generated content (UGC) as a major component of its marketing strategy. This gives customers a compelling reason to choose its products over others.

The voice of the customer is critical for establishing our credibility with first-time buyers unfamiliar with the brand. It also helps us develop products consumers will love, says Josh Emshoff, Associate Brand Manager at Lemi Shine.

Fueling successful product launches with sampling

As consumers pay more attention to what’s in the everyday items they use, Lemi Shine consistently develops new cleaning products to meet the growing consumer preference for non-toxic, safe products. Reviews play a major role, making it easy for consumers to discover the new products and have confidence to buy them as soon as they become available.

Lemi Shine jumpstarts review collection of new products by sending samples to customers in exchange for honest feedback using Bazaarvoice Sampling. Getting reviews prior to launch means products hit the digital shelf with UGC already in place, which is especially effective for acquiring new customers.

Millennials in particular are skeptical of traditional advertising tactics and product claims, said Emshoff. By leveraging positive UGC on our products, we’re able to remove much of the apprehension consumers face when trying a new brand or product.

When Lemi Shine released a new product called Everyday Spray, it sent samples to its Club Clean Freak sampling community. Nearly all of those who received one submitted their feedback, resulting in dozens of reviews and a 4.8 average rating.

Turning insights into action

The reviews also surface improvement opportunities before products hit the market.

We regularly comb through reviews, share them internally, and make modifications to the messaging or tweak the product formulation in response to issues or needs. Occasionally, we find some hidden gems, said Emshoff.

Lemi Shine is meticulous in ensuring its product pages contain as much useful information as possible, all while presenting the products in a simple and clean manner.

We try to do a good job of ensuring our product pages are optimized to deliver information consumers need. Having the reviews front and center on the top of our product pages presents a stark difference between us and some competitors who have chosen to bury their reviews below the fold, meaning we provide more transparency in a simple, clean manner.

Driving success in the retail channel

Lemi Shine distributes its reviews across the Bazaarvoice Network of retail websites, making it easy for consumers to discover its products and get the information they need where they shop. The brand syndicates more than 15,000 reviews to a dozen of its core retailers, representing more than 95% of the total Lemi Shine reviews at retail.

In addition to ensuring a high volume of content covering their products in the retail channel, Lemi Shine has also noticed a stronger relationship with its retailers and drop in product returns since sharing content.

The voice of the customer makes the difference

As consumers continue to become more empowered with access to an abundance of information, growing brands like Lemi Shine that are disrupting the market have a significant advantage when they invest in user-generated content, said Emshoff.