Published on September 16th, 2019 | by Sunit Nandi

How to Get Reviews for Your New Amazon Product

You’re building your own Amazon FBA business. You’ve learned what you need to succeed (possibly through something like Nine University), you’ve found a product, negotiated to get the ROI you needed, and it’s finally sitting in an Amazon fulfillment center, waiting for someone to click the “Buy Now” button. And…crickets. You’re caught in that catch-22 all Amazon sellers face – without reviews, your product likely won’t sell much, and without your item selling, you can’t get a review. But don’t worry – today I’m going to teach you how to get reviews for your new Amazon product.

How to Get Reviews for Your New Amazon Product

Over my time as an Amazon FBA seller, I’ve developed some tried, true, and dare I say, unique, methods, that have been working for me to get reviews for new products. These techniques range from classic white hat to – let’s just say, gray hat. I’m sharing them in that order, complete with message templates and instructions to potential reviewers.

1. Create a killer, mobile-friendly email sequence

I know, you’re probably thinking that I promised unique ways to get reviews, and here I am talking about an email sequence. Everyone has an email sequence. It’s like floral prints for spring – groundbreaking. Just hang with me a minute.

Every seller on Amazon has the same message – they’re a small, family business. It’s lovely, and it’s what almost every Amazon FBA seller is trying to do, but literally, every email I get says it, and some of them are long and text-heavy.

As of the time of writing this (August 2019), the most common phone in use is the iPhone 7. So keeping this in mind, you want your emails to grab your customer’s attention. They should be quick and easy to digest from a text and design standpoint. Your customer shouldn’t have to scroll or zoom on their phone to get your message – because the truth is, they probably won’t.

Your customer is seeing your email, asking to review the faux succulents she purchased, as she’s on her lunch break or finishing her yoga class. She’s flipping through her emails quickly and hitting the delete button just as quickly. Make it easy for her. Show her what you want her to do, quickly, because it just takes a slight movement for her to delete that email or lock her phone, and she won’t look at your email again. You’ll miss your chance to get that valuable review. So how can you take the standard “thanks for your purchase, small family business, blah blah blah” and flip it on its head? How can you make it better?

First, I always put my name in the “sender” field. It’s not “Flora – Faux Sho Succulents.” It’s just “Flora.” I put in a subject line that looks like a friend might have sent it – not just “Thank you for your purchase!” This has made my best open rate 38% – not bad for these emails. Once I get them to open the email, it’s time to get them to leave a review.

I noticed I would get Amazon seller feedback rather easily, even though I wasn’t getting product reviews. I took a look at what Amazon sends people to get a seller review (see below), and basically copied it into my review request emails. There’s a simple reason why it works – those empty stars are just dying for you to tap them!

2. Join groups to find reviewers who actually want your product.

The best reviews – and the easiest five-star reviews – are going to come from your target demographic, the people who are looking for your item and are excited to get it. So – where are they hanging out?

One of my favorite places to find people who want to review my item is Facebook groups. There’s a Facebook group for everything. If I want to market faux succulents, I’ll look for Facebook groups of succulent lovers, people who enjoy decorating, or even just a general group of women. Don’t just join the group and start spamming members though – be an active member in the group. Have real conversations. Be part of the community. Get involved and get to the point where people recognize your name, so that when you post a request for people to support your small business by helping with reviews, you’ll have people who recognize your name, give you some authority based on that, and are happy to help you.

Don’t limit yourself to Facebook groups. Think about where your target audience is. Online forums, WhatsApp groups, Twitter, Instagram, even LinkedIn. Think of hashtags that might be related to your product. Find your place and connect with people.

Here’s how it works:

After engaging in the group for a bit, post a picture of your item or a similar item asking if anyone would want it for free in exchange for a review (don’t mention Amazon).
When people answer, send them DMs with instructions (instruction template below).
Comment on their comments on the posts and let them know to check their message requests if the blue check doesn’t appear next to your message, meaning the message is stuck in message requests.

3. Ask friends to connect you with their friends

Another great way to be connected with people who actually want your item is by connecting to friends of friends. Having that mutual friend in common creates a level of trust that works in your favor. This does require a little effort from your mutual friend, so this is a technique you’d want to use with a good friend, not that guy you worked with for a few months ten years ago. It can be a great way of doing things though, because people like getting free stuff they can use!

Here’s how it works:

Let your friends know about your business (you should be doing this anyway!) and that you can use their help with reviews. Explain how important reviews are, and how much they mean for your business, and
then ask if they know anyone that might want your item.
Ask your friend to introduce the idea to them, and if the friend wants the item, ask your friend to “introduce” you via Facebook messenger or email, so you can take over the conversation.
Once your friend has introduced you, they can hit the “leave conversation” button and don’t need to be stuck getting alerts about the conversation (unless, of course, they might be interested in your product too!).

In my experience, using your mutual friend to introduce yourself is the best way to get a review from a friend of a friend. Asking your mutual friend to do all the back and forth is too much work for them, without any promise of a return, and trying to connect to their friend is less likely to yield a response, or will just leave your message stuck in their message request folder.

4. Ask classmates to connect you with their friends

If you have Nine University classmates who are willing to help, they might be able to connect you with their friends who genuinely want your item. Returning the favor by sharing their product may help more. I have several friends who are generally willing to help out my classmates, so if your product is useful, you might be able to get connected with others.

This is pretty self-explanatory as far as asking classmates, so here’s how I introduce the idea to my friends if I am on the helping side of things:

Message or text your friend a photo of the item and ask them if they want it for free. Typically people say yes.
My standard response after that is “Cool! One of my Nine University/Amazon class buddies is selling it and is giving it away in exchange for a review. I’ll connect you with him/her.”
Go to Facebook messenger and do an intro. Mine usually says “Hey (Classmate’s name), this is (friend’s name). She/he is interested in your item for free in exchange for a review. I’ll let you two take it from here.”
Leave the conversation.

If you’re the person receiving the help (as in, it’s your item and you need the review), I recommend following my super simple instructions to buyers. Too often, they are overwhelmed with how to get the item, and I hear they never purchase. I’d also recommend not asking for too much – just a product review and a seller review. Otherwise you’ll lose them.

My simple instructions to reviewers

Keeping your instructions very clear is incredibly important. People are busy and often doing ten other things on their phone or computer (be honest, how many tabs do you have open right now?). Keeping your instructions simply worded and easy to understand will help get them to actually buy your product. Numbered lists are the way to go (that’s why sites like Buzzfeed use them all the time!).

If you and the reviewer don’t know each other, I recommend sending them the money to purchase your product, via PayPal or Venmo, up front. Sure, they could run away with your money, but it’s never happened to me, and honestly, there’s more in this for you than there is for them (those precious, invaluable reviews!)

Here’s my template:

Hi (their name)!

Thank you so much for helping me out! I sell this item on Amazon and I would love to give it to you for free in exchange for a review. Here’s how to get it:

Give me your Venmo or Paypal so I can send you money to buy the item.
Go to Amazon.com and search (Your keyword). The seller should be (Your seller name) and it’ll look like the attached pic (attach your picture). You’ll find it on page (_) on the (top, middle, bottom).
Buy the item and send me the receipt. I’ll send you anything left for taxes and shipping
I’ll get in touch when the review needs to be posted if that is okay

Thank you so, so much! Let me know if you know anyone else who would like this for free too!

If you want to pay them only after they’ve purchased, here is a template for that:

Hi (their name)!

Thank you so much for helping me out! I sell this item on Amazon and I would love to give it to you for free in exchange for a review. Here’s how to get it:

Go to Amazon.com and search (Your keyword). The seller should be (Your seller name) and it’ll look like the attached pic (attach your picture). You’ll find it on page (_) on the (top, middle, bottom).
Buy the item!
Send me the receipt and give me your Venmo and PayPal so I can send you the money.
I’ll get in touch when the review needs to be posted if that is okay

Thank you so, so much! Let me know if you know anyone else who would like this for free too!

How Many Reviews Do You Need?

Wrapping this up, most sellers would agree that ten reviews is the tipping point. There is something about reaching those double digits that does something psychological to the consumer. This is when you want to go for your PPC and you should see your Acos drop the more reviews you get.

Studies show that at twenty reviews, there is a significant positive change in conversion rate, so I have seen some sellers go for this before really going for it with PPC. I’ve even seen people never really stop doing some of the above “gray hat” strategies.

Personally, I am fiscally consevative when investing in my Amazon shop since I have a career in selling physical products and have worked for companies that I’ve seen overspend and what it does for the bottom line. I stick to 10 reviews and try to get the email sequence above to do more of the heavy lifting. Once you’re off the ground, nothing beats getting actual reviews from people you haven’t contacted!

Hopefully you’ve learned some new things about how to get reviews for your new Amazon product. If you want to learn more about succeeding on Amazon, I recommend using Nine University to learn how to succeed in Amazon FBA selling. Nine University provides the most up-to-date FBA training to students all across the globe by Amazon experts so that students can FastTrack their success as Amazon FBA entrepreneurs.

Tags: Amazon, get reviews, how to, product

About the Author

Sunit Nandi I'm the leader of Techno FAQ. Also an engineering college student with immense interest in science and technology. Other interests include literature, coin collecting, gardening and photography. Always wish to live life like there's no tomorrow.