Our In-Email review collection form is a handy feature that allows your customers to leave reviews from right within the body of an email. No links, no redirects, just quick easy feedback. But like any type of review request, it takes understanding and practice to craft high converting campaigns.
Please Note:
Account details may vary. The feature is now part of the subscription

In-Email review requests offer complete simplicity for both you and your customers. Easily set up from your REVIEWS.io dashboard, they’re a quick alternative to a fully custom HTML template and take less time to create than our drag and drop forms.

For the recipient, they offer a one stop feedback solution, as review content can be submitted without having to leave their inbox. This alone can lead to an increase of up to 6% on conversion rates.That said, it’s not just a case of create and send. For really high performing campaigns, you’ll need to put time and effort into finding a winning review request formula.

Use A/B Test Your Review Invites

The most effective way to boost your In-Email request conversions is to conduct thorough A/B testing. This is a way to assess the impact of subtle changes to your email content.

Good A/B testing takes patience. It’s important that you focus on a single variable at any given time, since that’s the only way to know if it has any effect. That variable could be the length of your content, the difference between long or short headings, invites with or without a banner image.

It could also be the voice you use. Casual, direct, or even blunt language could drive conversion rates – it all depends on who your customers are and the type of communication they respond to. Of course, no one knows your customers better than you do, and it’s likely you’ve already got an established style that connects with your audience, so we’d suggest you stick with that.

To create a good test, start by hypothesising. Put yourself in your customers shoes and consider how your invite might be perceived. You can then create a base template with various suggestions for improvement. Implement these one at a time to test their influence. In practice, you can run two versions of an invitation at the same time from your REVIEWS.io account. These are split between your review request recipients, and you’ll get detailed analysis on the performance of both.

Once you know which of the two drives the higher conversion rate, you can deactivate the less successful one, and create a new version to test for further improvement. Look for a margin of around 10% increased conversion to pick your best performing invites.

Keep It Simple or Go the Extra Mile?

When it comes to the right approach for review request forms, it’s impossible for us to offer generic best practice guidance. Every business is different, and what works well for one might not work for another.

Our advice for best practice is this – think about what you’re trying to achieve and what you need to offer in order to achieve it. For some merchants, a simple thank you and a request for feedback works perfectly well. For others, a little more encouragement may be needed.

In the latter case, incentives provide a great opportunity. We offer voucher codes and discount coupons as part of our solution, as well as integrations with popular loyalty platforms like Smile.io and Loyalty Lion, so there’s plenty of scope should you wish to trial a rewards campaign to boost conversion rates.

Ultimately, you need to consider the relationship that exists between you and your customers. For example, if you’re selling high value items that are a one off purchase, or have provided a personalised customer service, there’s likely a high level of trust there and simplicity could well be the way forward.

If you’re supplying low value consumables with limited customer interaction, you may need to offer a little more by way of encouragement to get the reviews pouring in.

How & Why You Should Encourage Video Reviews

For truly engaging review content, video is the way to go. It is by far the most powerful form of feedback, since it doesn’t just describe customer satisfaction, it visually showcases the customer experience.

By encouraging video reviews, you get the chance to connect with your target market on a much deeper level. This form of user generated content offers real insight as to how people just like them are making good use of your products and celebrating your brand.

It’s relatable, it’s tangible, and it’s great at driving sales.

REVIEWS.io offers video review collection as standard. Although not currently able to submit them directly through our In-Email forms, it’s a simple process to add a link that directs customers to your company collection page.

Whilst this adds another step to the process, if you’re going for quality review content prompting your customers to make the extra effort is well worth it.

Get the Support You Need

At the end of the day, the success of your review collection all comes down to how well you implement your campaigns. Get it right, and you’ll reap the benefits of valuable customer feedback. Get it wrong, and you’ll struggle to acquire those all important trust signals that set you apart from your competition.

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Free Template

We know that our clients aren’t designers, in some cases they’re not even marketers. They’re business owners that often have to juggle all those responsibilities at the same time. But that doesn’t have to be the case. We have provided a template to get you started these templates can be added into our system or used to add to your own email client.

It’s super easy to edit, and can be added as a custom template within our invitation builder.

Our support team works closely with clients that are struggling to get their review requests to convert. We’re here to give you everything you need to make the most of our service, and we’re more than happy to design templates for you to boost the performance of your campaigns.

In Summary

In-Email forms offer a simple solution for review collection. Thanks to a user friendly format, they have the ability to increase conversion rates by up to 6%. And with a little experimentation on your part, and a little help from us, that rate can shoot up even higher.

It’s important to note however, that some email clients will not display the content of In-Email forms correctly. To ensure optimal performance, we therefore strongly advise that you also include a ‘Write a Review’ button, linked to your company collection page. Additionally, we recommend giving your customers the option to tap on a star rating. In this way, you ensure a great user experience for all your customers, regardless of their chosen email client.

New to REVIEWS.io? Take our In-Email forms for a test drive by creating a free trial account.

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