Guest Post – Product Reviews for Beginners

This is the first thing I learned when I started contacting companies and asking to review their products. Many people seem to think you should have a blog for a long time with a lot of traffic before you even begin looking for products to review and give away to your readers. I agree and I disagree. First of all, I do think it is important to have a decent blog happening. Blog often for at least a few weeks, build your blog branding look, have a nice layout, several pages, etc. The thing is not to focus on your length of opening time or traffic but your quality! This going for getting traffic in general. You should always make sure you’ve put something together nicely before you advertise. Where do I disagree? I disagree that you need to have a lot of traffic. It truly depends. First of all, having a ton of followers on Twitter means little if they’re not interacting or don’t know and trust your opinions. What is better to a company, a blog with a couple hundred followers who are loyal to the bloggistas opinion (and therefore may buy a product at some point!), or 2000 followers who are extremely passive? Word of mouth media is what product reviews are about. If you can engage your audience, that is KEY. All you really need to begin sending out product letters is a nice blog with a decent amount of content, and active users. You need to think about how your blog will help your product review sponsor, which brings me to point two

2. Marry your blog with the company

As soon as you are ready to start sending out letters to companies, you need to really understand that you are going to be partnering with this company, even in a small capacity. Product reviews should be for you and your readers to enjoy – but you should also be genuinely interested in helping a company grow. Step into their shoes for a moment. What can you do to help them out? Look into every company you want to work with and make sure you feel safe, secure, trusting, etc about their business and practices. Hopefully everyone knows you should never endorse a product you don’t like – but you also need to be a fair reviewer. Companies know this, and if you are approaching them you should clarify this. Legitimate companies don’t want sugar-coated reviews, they want real people with real opinions on their product. The company believes in their product, and they are hoping you will, too! Make sure to prioritize in your review or giveaway post. List their various social media accounts, newsletters, etc. as entries. Ask your readers to visit their website and tell you their favourite product in a comment. Generate hype! It will not only make your readers happy, but it will help the company be happy, too.

3. Be specific and respectful

When it comes to actually writing your product review letter, basic business sense applies. For a first interaction, stay businesslike but not necessarily overly formal. To reiterate, companies are looking for real people even in a professional blogging capacity. The biggest mistake you can make at this point in your product review career is to be overly general. NEVER do this. How turned off would you be if you received a long version of this letter as a company rep:

Most likely, you’d chuck it in the trash! No one wants to be copy and pasted along with hundreds of other companies. Companies want bloggers who will connect with their product in a meaningful way and inspire their readers to do the same. Be specific. If you haven’t tried their products yet, say so! Or if you’ve tried one of their products, tell them how you felt about it. Look into their history. Make sure to make the letter personal and interesting and show a genuine interest in the company or brand.

4. Avoid talking about your stats, at least at first

This can be kind of controversial view among bloggers, but I stand by it! I’ve heard people talk about both methods and I feel people have a lot of success by not revealing their stats in an initial letter to a company. I certainly have! However, you still need to be completely honest. I do not mean this to be advocating for dishonesty to your company sponsors. for If you are a newer blogger, say so. Give them your blog address. Make sure they know who you are. You don’t have to directly send them an email with your friend count on Facebook/twitter/G+/page views/etc ! The time for this is after they’ve expressed an interest. Think of it this way – if you send them an email with every bit of info, including all of your ‘counts’ they might immediately dismiss you. Some companies will have a set idea in mind in terms of followers. However, by leaving this out initially it gives them a chance to take a chance by contacting you back if interested. Some companies will directly tell you they prefer to work with blogs at such and such count, or some will simply ask for your details and go from there. But there is a third category – companies that will look at your blog, read your letter, and decide from there, without ever needing to know the numbers – because you showed them what you are about and didn’t need followers to speak for your success. A time when I feel it is appropriate to disclose stats when comfortable could be on your PR policies page. Companies will be looking here for information – and they will be more likely to go out of their way to contact you for a review if they know immediately they are interested.

This is probably the most important part – so listen up! It’s easy to see what other bloggers are reviewing and try to contact the same companies – and you may end up actually jeopardizing your chances. For example, when I go to a high-calibre, high traffic, full-time run blog, I may see them contacting very famous companies for various products. This is because they have built up a branding and readership that will make these larger companies notice them. Now, I will say that all of us have this potential to succeed to this level, but for some of us (like me!) it’s still a work in progress. There are two ways to look at it. First of all, there may be no harm in contacting a larger company for a review. They may take a chance on you, or they may simply say no and invite you back when you have, for example, x new followers. On the other hand, though, you may put a black mark on your record. If I went to a huge makeup company tomorrow and asked for products to review, I would probably have a 99% chance of getting a no. And maybe, just maybe, the person receiving my letter may remember my blog as it was when I apply at a later date. Maybe they will see my name and go ‘Oh! That blog! They applied before and had like 20 followers and no domain’ and not bother to look at my blog very carefully. I think this risk can really be dependent on the company, but it is out there. The way I see it is that there are so many smaller companies to review with. A fun part of this is that you probably haven’t tried their products before! A good way to start is searching for local products, then provincial/state products, products within your country, etc. Make sure to know the demographic of your readers and accommodate that. For example, I wouldn’t review a product you can usually only buy in person in China! Another great place to look is Etsy. It’s a win-win for these shop owners to get exposure. When you’re starting out, you’ll start seeing product prospects everywhere. Note products you see out and about that you want to review. Ask friends and neighbours. And google, google, google!

Overall, I feel that all of us have the chance to be successful product reviewers – and sometimes, we just need to take the plunge! Thank you for having me, Jenn’s Blah Blah Blog readers!

Please feel free to visit me at Contesting for Commoners.