What is Influenster?

Influenster is an end-to-end influencer and creator marketing platform, powered by everyday consumers. You might know of Influenster from their coveted VoxBoxes. Who better to explain it than Influenster themselves:

@influenster Allow us to reintroduce ourselves #greenscreenvideo ♬ Chrysanthemum Tea – Prod. By Rose

The Influenster community’s love for product discovery has led to over 55 million product reviews, growing on average by a million each month. This makes the Influenster App second only to Amazon in the online product review space. And with 98% of that content added organically and non-incentivized, Influenster App members are genuinely passionate about sharing the brands and products they love. 

The Influenster App empowers everyday shoppers to be influential for your brand. By tapping into the Influenster community your brand can build a solid, transparent relationship with the shoppers that matter most and empower them to become your biggest advocates.

Influenster App benefits for brands

Here’s a few ways your brand can utilize the Influenster App and connect with the everyday shoppers who are actively raising their hands to engage with brands, and empower your future customers to buy with confidence. 

Take advantage of existing, organic content 

Influenster’s wealth of user-generated content (UGC) includes shopper reviews, photos, videos, discussions, polls, and more — across a variety of product categories from beauty to baby to food and beverage.

Whether sharing their opinions on a new eye shadow purchase or finding the best organic pet food for their beloved cat, members are using the Influenster App to research and review products that make up their daily lives. 

Over 50,000 pieces of UGC are added to Influenster everyday but this activity doesn’t have to be siloed to just the Influenster App. What makes Influenster unique is the ability to take this content and syndicate it across different channels that inform their customer’s next purchase. 

For example, Pacifica Beauty used the Influenster App to supply 12 retailers with thousands of new, high-quality reviews. Within just months of leveraging existing UGC, Pacifica gained over 2,000 reviews across nearly 200 products.

Capturing UGC organically can be a challenge, but the Influenster community is highly engaged, and we saw this as a good way to drive purchase intent.

Michael Kremer, Chief Marketing Officer, Pacifica Beauty

Those organic reviews were distributed to become more than 10,000 syndicated reviews with a 4.5 average rating across 12 retail sites such as Target and Bed Bath & Beyond.

Find and connect with your brand advocates

The Influenster App provides an easy way for brands to foster advocacy through the ability to activate hyper-targeted audiences and form one-to-one connections that can be scaled across social and onto your product pages.

Members don’t pay to be a part of Influenster. Instead, by filling out a profile of age, interests and shopping habits, linking their social channels and reviewed products, they’re connected to the brands that matter most to them.

Brands can leverage this hyper-targeted network that stretches across a variety of categories to segment the exact shopper they are looking to reach. Using over 900 data points per member, brands can activate both loyalists and competitive users, members who shop at key retailers or those with specific dietary or skincare needs, to test their products and share their feedback. 

By connecting your products with the exact, desired audience your brand has top of mind you will not only bolster your UGC strategy with authentic content, but will build life-long brand fans. 

Activate the Influenster community with product sampling

Consumer trust in influencers has dwindled over the years. A study from Bazaarvoice reported that 47% of customers are tired of influencer content that appears inauthentic. And according to our recent survey of 10,000 shoppers, it’s actually the every day social media user, like you and I, that reigns supreme.

In today’s market authenticity is key. Shoppers are turning to social media to inspire their purchases but are much more likely to trust recommendations that come from voices like their own.

Hyper-targeted sampling solutions help brands connect with their ideal consumer and lets these engaged Influenster members build brand awareness for them. Not only do these turnkey solutions drive social content and reviews, but through a post-campaign survey, brand’s can get a look into their target consumer shopping behavior and preferences.

Product Sampling is customizable for brand OKRs, whether you’re sending product to their doorstep in a dedicated box or scoring valuable space in a non-competitive shared campaign.

In addition to building up brand trust, sampling helps create a strong relationship with your target consumer. Since the majority of members are everyday shoppers, they aren’t receiving PR packages or getting paid to review products.

When members receive your product at their doorstep, they’re engaged and excited to share their opinions. Creating this branded experience helps build relationships that last long after the program’s end. 

For example, L’Oreal brand Redken wanted to generate buzz and authentic word-of-mouth for a new hair care product. So they activated Influenster members via the app to target a specific audience, including women ages 20 to 46, who have oil-prone hair, frequently hit the gym, or have busy schedules. 

Redken sent out over 2,5000 boxes to these everyday influencers, and in return generated:

• 7.7 million impressions
• 1,700 organic reviews
• 84,000 posts, shares, and likes

But most notably, the campaign generated $567,000 in earned media value. “We didn’t spend that much, so the performance was incredible,” said Monique Salas, Director of Marketing for Redken at L’Oreal.

Better understand shopper preferences through data

Customer ratings and reviews are a crucial component of the shopping experience, impacting everything from sales to SEO. But, unlocking the meaning and trends behind UGC is often time-consuming and labor extensive. In fact, according to Bazaarvoice research, half (49%) of brands and retailers report that they don’t have the resources or tools to collect insights from their UGC.

With 50 million product reviews, Influenster can source robust first-party insights on brand and products. From an in-depth review analysis that helps brands better understand their target audience to custom surveys that help fill in data gaps, insights can help guide and improve brand strategy and inform product innovation.  

Shopper data from the Influenster App can also help inform and enhance ad campaigns and marketing efforts. Brands can leverage post sampling campaign insights to create testimonials and claims that bolster brand credibility.

Also, brands can leverage Influenster’s robust targeting capabilities and high-quality member content to power their paid media strategy. ReviewSource turns their top reviews and UGC into highly-targeted digital and social ad units, bolstering brand reach, and credibility. 

The Influenster App: Your next favourite thing

For brands not yet utilizing the Influenster App, there’s a goldmine of engagement and data waiting for them to take their business to the next level.

The ability to hyper-target consumers based on behaviors and other characteristics beyond typical demographics was a key benefit in choosing Influenster

Elizabeth Northrup, Associate Brand Manager, Kraft Heinz

Bazaarvoice can help you create and customize targeted campaigns that connect with the right audience of shoppers to build brand awareness, generate authentic UGC, and create lasting brand loyalty. Learn more about the Influenster App here. Or get in touch below to get started.

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The Walmart seller Marketplace is an online platform that allows third-party sellers to list their products on Walmart.com. Selling on Walmart Marketplace lets you tap into the retailer’s massive customer base and reputation as a well-known, trusted source for high-quality items. It will also help you grow your audience, build a following of your own, and drive sales.

Walmart.com sees 100 million unique visitors each month, and it keeps growing. Recently, Walmart CEO, C. Douglas McMillion, said that online sales during the pandemic accelerated by “two to three years in some cases,” and he expects that growth to continue. 

First steps for selling on Walmart Marketplace

1. Begin the application process, where you tell Walmart about your business and the kinds of products you sell (that can be found here) 
2. Wait for approval
3. Once approved, register and create an account on the platform 
4. Set up your profile for shoppers to see 
5. It’s time to list your products! 

Now that you have your product pages up, there’s several ways to optimize your Walmart Marketplace listings.

4 ways to sell on Walmart Marketplace

As a business that partners with Walmart, we’re well positioned to guide you on how to sell on Walmart Marketplace. Here’s our best practices to follow.

1. An SEO strategy ensures your products get noticed

To increase sales, your products need to show up in a shopper’s search results. So, you need to optimize your product pages for SEO. Walmart uses algorithms to rank products based on the number of sales and views, and how your page displays the product name, images, features, description, and attributes. 

Product names should be 50 to 75 characters and clearly state exactly what you’re selling. The suggested naming structure includes the brand name, size specs, a defining quality, the item’s name and style, and quantity. 

Getting more reviews is one way brands can improve where their products show up, giving them more clicks to their products

Shariq Hasan, Associate Manager, E-commerce Merchandising Operations at Walmart Canada

Include multiple high-quality, professional images on each product page and consider adding a video showing the product in action to increase traffic. In the product descriptions, add several relevant keywords. You may need to do a little research — such as checking out your competitors’ product pages— to find which keywords will work best. 

Using the right keywords to highlight a few product features also helps shoppers browse easier. Adding the relevant Walmart Marketplace built-in product attributes, such as clothing size groups or colors, helps your items stand out when consumers search. 

The higher you appear in search results, the more products you will sell on Walmart Marketplace.

2. Use user-generated content to enhance product discovery 

Ensuring that your product pages feature user-generated content (UGC) offers a wealth of benefits. For one, it enhances the discoverability of your products and boosts sales. 

For two, UGC helps brands boost their SEO traffic. Encouraging UGC and customer reviews keeps your product pages fresh with new content, and websites with regularly updated content that’s rich in keywords rank higher. 

Customer ratings, reviews, and social content also let you foster a dialogue with shoppers and reduce return rates. 78% of shoppers worldwide trust online product reviews, and nearly 40% rely on reviews to inform purchase decisions, according to Bazaarvoice research. And using data from the Bazaarvoice Network, we found when shoppers engage with UGC on best-in-class sites, brands and retailers experience a 144% lift in conversions.

Shoppers also respond to visual content from their fellow consumers, as they consider photos and videos as authentic and helpful in their shopping journey. Visuals, combined with detailed product descriptions and reviews, provide a more engaging shopping experience.  

3. Increasing your review volume on Walmart Marketplace drives purchases

The more reviews your products have, the better. Getting just one review can increase purchases by 10%, according to Bazaarvoice research. A hundred reviews can bring a 37% purchase increase, along with insights into consumer sentiment about your products. Increasing your review volume helps grow your Walmart seller marketplace presence. 

One of the best ways to increase your Walmart Marketplace reviews is through Managed Sampling, by Bazaarvoice. The sampling program gives brands access to a vast community of loyal shoppers, who receive a product sample and provide an honest review in exchange. 

Bazaarvoice helps brands choose items to sample — whether it’s a new, seasonal, or exclusive product — and the audience segments best suited to sample and review the product. Within just three weeks, you can see authentic reviews and images start flowing in. And then your revenue increasing.

4. Optimizing reviews helps brands succeed on Walmart Marketplace

Collecting a trove of Walmart Marketplace reviews is just the start. You need to optimize your reviews, too. Bazaarvoice offers several products to help. 

Collect + Distribute equips brands with tools to collect reviews from customers who make a purchase and share those reviews across different retailer websites, like Walmart.com. For Walmart Marketplace sellers, this boosts sales, expands the impact of each review collected, and enables you to connect with consumers. 

Engaging directly with shoppers through reviews lets them know that you’re listening and care about their feedback. Answering questions and responding to reviews on the Walmart seller marketplace helps you build relationships and deepen connections with your most loyal shoppers. Brands that interact via Questions & Answers see a 150% increase in conversion. 

Brands can also tap into the more than 7 million members of the Influenster community, who can be engaged to create content about the products they love. 

Start selling on Walmart Marketplace

Selling on Walmart Marketplace gives brands an opportunity to engage with a huge group of shoppers and link up with one of the most recognizable retailers in the world. The key to getting noticed, driving sales, and building a following is increasing and optimizing Walmart Marketplace reviews.

Getting started with Walmart and Bazaarvoice

Now you know how to sell on Walmart Marketplace, all that’s left to do is get started. Walmart partnered with Bazaarvoice so we could help brands build UGC programs on Walmart, through Sampling, Questions & Answers, and our Influenster community. That means we’re best positioned to help you succeed.

Learn more ways to drive Walmart sales on our co-marketing page. Or get in touch below to get started.

Unlock the power of user-generated content to stand out on Walmart.com

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Product samples shipped to a shopper’s door, handpicked based on their interests, is a consumer dream. And Bazaarvoice has made that dream come true with Bazaarvoice Product Sampling.

And with our latest product sampling offering, Cashback Sampling, you don’t even need to ship samples to the consumer. Consumers go directly to the sample. Now you don’t have to worry about bulky, fragile, or perishable items. They can all easily be sampled too.

Here’s four ways product sampling scales your brand.

1) New product launches

New products deserve the freshest UGC on launch day. Or even better — before. Product sampling gets your products in the hands of your ideal shoppers before you officially launch. Giving them a chance to share UGC after they’ve tried out your new product.

Almost 90% of shoppers always or mostly consult ratings and reviews before making a purchase, so the last thing you want is a bare page on launch day.

And product sampling nets more than just ratings and reviews. It brings in thumb-stopping visual and social content too. Over 60% of shoppers say they’re more likely to make a purchase if they can see photos and videos from other customers.

This has an even bigger impact than any professional imagery could provide — 64% of shoppers would pick visual UGC over your brand’s professional photos any day. 

2) Product development

Are you in the midst of creating a great product but wanting to know how it’ll do in the market? Product sampling can also help you before the big launch day. As you’re perfecting how you’ll introduce products, Bazaarvoice can get you answers to your burning questions.

Our community members can provide insights on what they love and hate about your products and brand so you have time to fix the formula and find success from day one. 

This benefit extends to older products too. As shoppers leave reviews and share photos, your team has the opportunity to dig into what consumers love and hate about your products and brand.

When you share your products through Bazaarvoice Sampling, we work with your team to customize and conceptualize the campaign. This means you’ll get exactly what you’re looking for out of it. Including actionable feedback from real customers.

3) Core SKU support

Your well-loved hero products can benefit from product sampling too. Collecting UGC isn’t just a one time thing. Which means you have to keep up the good work, even when a product has been on the market for a hot minute. 

Not only does product sampling remind loyalists what they love about your brand, it brings in new shoppers to try your products out for themselves. These fresh eyes keep UGC on your product pages optimized too. About 60% of shoppers strongly agree or agree that recent reviews (written in the past three months) are more reliable than older reviews.

4) Entering new markets

Nailing one new market entrance doesn’t mean it’ll be smooth sailing in every locale or with every demographic. Product sampling increases your chances of product adoption from new customers in new markets.

Over 70% of shoppers are looking for perspectives similar to theirs as they evaluate a new product to buy. As shoppers are consuming UGC, they want to see feedback from people like them. And in their own language. Which is why once you’ve collected UGC from your sampling campaign, Bazaarvoice’s translation services enables customers to click to see the content in their own language

Bazaarvoice partners with 6x as many retailers across the globe as our nearest competitor. And our Influenster community includes members in over 30 countries. We make it easy for you to not only sample, but also give you a choice of fulfillment options on how you get products in the hands of consumers across the globe. Have full confidence moving into new segments and leave behind the hassle of not knowing what will happen. 

Product sampling can help you meet your goals. Let us show you how. Request a free demo and see for yourself.

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It’s a proven strategy for generating reviews, creating social buzz around products, helping products sell faster, and providing greater shopper confidence. In fact, we surveyed 6,000 samplers in the Influenster community and found that 63% of them purchased a product they’ve sampled and 87% recommended the product/brand to friends and family. 

McPherson’s, a B2B company serving customers across Australasia, recently saw how successful product sampling can be for their brands. When they were building their new e-commerce platform a few years ago, they knew they would need a robust ratings and reviews program. They partnered with Bazaarvoice to develop sampling campaigns and boost UGC on their sites. Today, McPherson’s estimates that about 20% of their new ratings and reviews come from sampling.

Sampling brings success 

McPherson’s worked with the Bazaarvoice team to populate their e-commerce site with reviews and syndicate those reviews to their market-leading retail partners.

Once these reviews were on the site, McPherson’s next challenge centered around creating UGC for products that were about to launch. That’s when they started using sampling to get new products into the hands of engaged, loyal customers in exchange for ratings and reviews. 

They started sampling with a new face massager from Manicare called Nova Fit. The campaign was so successful that the brand currently has about two sampling campaigns running at any given time. 

Our new case study explores how McPherson’s created a successful sampling and UGC program for their brand and their associated retailers. They have also found ways to incorporate UGC into their landing pages and social media campaigns. Plus, the product development team uses ratings and reviews to learn more about what customers like and don’t like about current items so they can continuously improve. 

Learn more about how McPherson’s continues to succeed with sampling and UGC in our case study here.

Companies are able to generate 82% more in annual revenue when they have above-average review counts, according to a study by Womply. Consumer product reviews are a better revenue generator than average star ratings. In research commissioned by Bazaarvoice through Deloitte & Touche LLP, consumers say review volume is even more important to them than star ratings on products.

Just one review can increase purchases by 10%, according to Bazaarvoice data. Eight reviews bring lifts in natural search traffic and SEO benefits. Reach 100 reviews, and you’ll see a 37% lift in purchases and valuable consumer insights, including consumer sentiment and product suggestions. Two hundred reviews deliver a 44% increase in purchases.

There’s a few ways to ask for consumer product reviews. Some deliver quick, high-impact results, while others offer incremental, longer-term benefits. Using a combination of evergreen and targeted methods to increase review volume will pay off in dividends for your business.

When you get more reviews, you stand out among your competitors. But you have to be proactive about asking for consumer product reviews. Here’s some ways to increase review volume:

Post-interaction emails boost review volume

Simply sending an email inviting consumers to review a product, referred to as a post-interaction email (PIE), is one of the best ways to get more reviews. In fact, we’ve found that in-mail submission emails reap a 4-9x increase in native content almost immediately. After the initial email, sending a follow-up message can increase review volume by 50%, according to Bazaarvoice. 

If you know exactly what product someone purchased, include a link in the email. About 80% of reviews collected are the result of a post-purchase email that includes a link to the product purchased. But, if you’re not sure exactly what product was purchased, send along a product picker letting the consumer select the product to review. 

Craft PIEs with a single call to action, such as simply “write a review,” to avoid distracting recipients from your key message. The best time to send the emails is after the consumer has received the product and had time to interact with it, but while the purchase is still fresh on their minds. 

Product sampling give brands a review lift

Who doesn’t love freebies? Sending consumers free samples can pay off for brands in many ways. It increases sales, builds brand loyalty, and helps you get more reviews. 

Sending samples of a new product can help generate reviews before its official launch. For existing products, product sampling could attract an influx of fresh review content. In either case, sending individual product samples or collections of samples to consumers will help build review volume quickly.

Tea brand Tetley, for example, used product sampling for the launch of its Cold Infusions line, and collected hundreds of reviews and saw a 238% increase in sales at a single retailer in the first four weeks of the product’s launch. 

Retailers have it slightly different. For retailers, it’s a Managed Sampling campaign. Managed Sampling is our tool for retailers to build their own turnkey sampling program. We leverage brand partners to increase UGC on retailer product pages, leading to higher conversion.

Take Bazaarvoice customer Home Depot Canada, for example. The brand needed more UGC to increase conversion rates, so it worked with Bazaarvoice to create the Home Depot Seeds Sampling program. Since the program launched, customers who interact with UGC on HomeDepot.ca are 2x more likely to convert.

Request product reviews via social media 

Social media is the No. 1 place for brands to engage with their customers. A Sprout Social report revealed 64% of consumers want brands to connect with them on social media, and 46% want brands to create interactive social content. 

Using social media, you can target consumers with a message about leaving a review for a specific product or a more generic branded message asking for reviews for multiple products. If your brand works with social media influencers, get them involved, too. Invite influencers to leave product reviews. You could even create a custom badge showing off an influencer’s expertise, which will resonate with consumers who often make purchases based on influencers’ recommendations. 

Incremental tactics add up to more reviews

Emails, product samples and social media may be a high-impact way to get more reviews. But, don’t rule out more incremental methods, which build rapport with shoppers and gather insights about them, offering longer-term benefit for brands.

For example, create a call-to-action box on your website’s homepage to make a specific or general product review ask. Or, host live events where consumers can interact with your products in person and provide feedback. You can also slip an insert in a product’s packaging with details about how to leave a review.

The most effective method of receiving feedback is with a customer satisfaction survey. Not only do they help you improve products, but they’re an effective method of sourcing review content.

Offer something in return

Just like consumers love freebies, they also appreciate receiving coupons, cash back, sweepstakes entries, loyalty points, or other incentives—and, enjoy opportunities to share their opinions with their favorite brands. In fact, a BrightLocal survey found that among the nearly 3/4 of consumers who had been asked to write a review, 68% were willing to do it and 24% received something in return, like a discount or gift card. 

Offering an incentive in exchange for a review can boost your brand image and help you increase review volume. Incentives from brands encourage more than 30% of purchases, according to Campaign Monitor. But, requiring reviewers to disclose that they received incentives in exchange for the review leads to greater transparency and builds trust with shoppers. More than half of shoppers say incentivized reviews inform purchases just as much as organic reviews.  

Consistently grow review volume with ReviewSource

If you want more reviews, which you do, there’s a really easy way to do so. Switch on ReviewSource. ReviewSource is Bazaarvoice’s always-on content machine. It constantly scours our Influenster community, where over 1 million new reviews are written each month, to collect a continuous stream of fresh review content for you.

Every 10 reviews equals a 5% increase in sales. So imagine what 20 would do for your business. Or 50. Or 100.

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Review content matters for brands. Review volume truly matters. Consumers enjoy opportunities to share their thoughts about the products they buy. But, it’s often up to brands to proactively ask consumers for product reviews. Finding the best way to ask will help you get more reviews, generate more sales, and maintain a consumer connection.

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