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To Write a Review Folks Find Useful — Don’t Stick to the Facts

October 9, 2007 by Liz

Reviewers Who Think

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Have ever read a review and still wondered whether you’d like the product? Do you know any reviewer who you rely on because he or she has the opposite opinions of you? Sometimes a reviewer who thinks differently than we do is more valuable than one who doesn’t say what he or she thinks at all.

I’ve been reading a passel of product reviews all weekend. Now I remember why I don’t read reviews. In an effort to be unbiased, reviewers seem to be too distant, too flat — they give the facts. The facts aren’t enough.

Don’t Stick to the Facts

When you blog the facts only, anyone could write basically the same review. The differences will be in the writing only. When you blog the facts only people tend to read to the minute detail to make sure your facts are exactly right . . . and that they’re all there. Too many facts can be either distracting or boring. Would the VW Beetle have been a hit based only on the facts? What about McDonalds? the iPod?

If you want to write a product review that folks find useful, don’t stick to the facts.

  • Facts don’t tell me if I will love my future mate.
  • Facts don’t tell the story of history.
  • Facts are only a part of the whole picture.

Write your experience too.

The Two Key Reasons to Write Your Experience

Here are the 2 key reasons why you should write a review with both the facts AND your experience.

  1. When you add your experience, readers get to see you. They know you used the product. It’s your voice and your credibility.
  2. When readers hear talk about using the product, they can picture themselves. It doesn’t matter whether they agree with how you found it, If you explain what made you think as you do — they’ll decide for themselves.

Any customer needs more than facts to decide whether to buy any product. Sure the facts are important, but looking only at the facts doesn’t tell what it’s like to use it.

When you add your experience, people are more likely to remember both the product and you. A great review can save a reader a great deal of time and money.

Don’t be shy. Tell me what you think.

— ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar. Call her now!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

Filed Under: Blog Basics, Inside-Out Thinking, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, Blogs, business, Inside-Out Thinking, product-reviews

4+6 Things to a Product Review Even James Bond Would Trust

August 29, 2006 by Liz

What You Have Here James Is . . .

power writing at work

Product reviews. We all do them. We love to tell people what we like about stuff. Even more, we love to tell them what’s wrong with stuff. . . .

The President had started a discussion about a product we were prototyping. Our new product was meant to compete with one that had owned the market for 10 years.

“So, what do you think of the product that’s out there?” the President asked the editors.

Each editor was eager to respond and gave in detail the things that she saw in the existing product. The President made sure that every editor had a chance to talk.

“I wonder how it continues to sell 100,000+ units per book per year?” Then he glanced over my way and said, “That’s why no one listens to editors’ opinions. They only talk about the negatives.”

I was the only person in the company who reviewed product for the President.

Where do you get advice about products? Most people trust friends and family first. If friends and family don’t know, research says that 77 percent of online shoppers read consumer product reviews and ratings.

That means you’ve probably done that.

Product review are big business . . .

. . . if folks feel they can trust what the review says.

If you want credibility James Bond would trust, you have to know 4 things before you start and tell 6 things when you write..

. . . [Read more…]

Filed Under: Content, Personal Branding, Successful Blog, Writing Tagged With: bc, blog-promotion, business-blogging, business-writing, communication, personal-branding, Power-writing-at-work, product-reviews, reader-relationships

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