How You Can Do Better Product Reviews

How To Do Better Product Reviews On Your Blog

Updated: June 27, 2017

One piece of advice I would like to share with readers is something that gets asked to me quite often as a product reviewer and that is how do you get companies to give you products that you can review.

This can be where you negotiate showcasing or partnering with a company to raise brand awareness and in How to Do Better Product Reviews on Your Blogexchange you can receive free products to review, some are review copies that must be returned after the review is completed, but others are compensation as in you get to keep the products as compensation for doing a review.

To understand why company's and brands reach out to bloggers and influencers and give away products in exchange for reviews you have to understand the reasons and benefits to the companies first.

This will help give you insight as to what you can offer them and why they would send out products for free in the first place.

Free Backlinks

I find that most of the smaller companies still follow the rule “backlinks are king” and are looking to get more links to their company homepage or products links.  They are hoping by sending out the products and getting the review they are getting dofollow links and will raise the Page Rank and number of backlinks to their site which will help gain authority in the eyes of the Google engine.  You will often note this type of request if the advertiser or company is specifically asking for a link to their homepage in the article and not just a product sales page.

Increased Sales

When you showcase a product, especially one you like the advertiser may simply want to raise product awareness and help boost sales.  In this case the advertiser will clearly request that you link to the sales page for the product.  Some companies will have their own affiliate programs where you can make a percentage of the sale of the product or others will simply sell their products on Amazon and you can be an Amazon affiliate and make a percentage of the sale from that.

You know the company is more interested in sales if they want you to link to the Amazon sales page or any sales page for the product even if it is one through your own affiliate program and they aren't asking for backlinks to the company's own site.

Brand Awareness

Public Relations is everything in social media as it is in television, brands hire big name actors, singers and more so that awareness can be raised for their brand.  The same is true with bloggers, an advertiser is looking for awareness of their brand and if your followers hear you talk about them, the brand name sticks in their mind when they are in the market for something the product offers.  Reach a larger group of bloggers and you can potentially reach more people on social media and online than you would by targeting more expensive marketing platforms.

They want opinions and their brand to be known, not just the products.  This is the most ideal situation for bloggers where they become brand ambassadors and you are starting to see a lot of players getting into this market where companies don't want a single blog post about their company anymore, but want a long term cooperation.  Tap Influence, Famebit and Social Blue Book are 3 companies that are in the market of connecting brands with bloggers and in some cases there are products exchanged and offered in addition to cash compensation for becoming an ambassador for the brand.

Now, knowing those are the primary reasons why companies would give out products for review you can tailor your interest to make sure you are able to offer something of value to those companies.  For companies that are interested in the backlink for example, a high Page Rank blog is more appealing to them than say a large Social Media following, but for a company that wants brand awareness your site visitors, RSS subscriber base and social media following is of key interest.

So the next section is steps you need to take to prepare yourself for sending out inquiries to companies who you plan on asking for products to review.  This is an ideal checklist of things to have together before you send your inquiry.

Step 1 – Previous Reviews Written and Examples

Before you can go contact a company asking for them to send you free products to review you need to show that you can write high quality and impartial product reviews.  You must have at least 3 product reviews written on your blog and once within the past 6 months to show they are recent.  Your reviews should be your best work that overview what you liked about the product any improvement areas, experience with unboxing and then using and testing the product.  If you also affiliate sell the product you need to keep track of the sales information (more on showcasing sales later).  Copy the link for your last 3 highest quality product reviews and keep them on hand for your introductory letter.

Step 2 – Know the Company and Products

Don't just blindly contact a company and ask for anything to send you, you need to have a laser focused target.  Specifically know what the company offers, which products and which ones you specifically want to review and why.  Have an example of what the product would be used for during the review and what you would like to compare it with if there are other products already reviewed.

Step 3 – Showcasing Sales

If you reviewed other products before where you have done affiliate sales, then take a snapshot of all sales for that companies products over the past year or since the review was written.  If you have more than $1,000 in sales (not your commission but total sales cost) then you can use that an example in your pitch to companies, you can show that you can drive sales.  Now, $1,000+ in sales may not seem like much to a million dollar corporation, but if they give you one $50 or $100 product and can get $1000+ in sales from giving you that product, it is a return on them as the post, sales will be ongoing.  If you have much higher sales volumes, you can go after bigger and higher end products to review.

Step 4 – Showcasing Your Site and Social Media Properties

This is the part where you need to collect the analytics from your site and total number of followers/subscribers/fans in all your social networks and compile it for your introductory letter.  This is where you will get your monthly visits/pageviews (average for last 6 months to avoid any spike interference) and your total number of subscribers.  If you have over 10k subscribers in any social media networks, list these ones first.  If you have less than 1,000 subscribers in a social media network, then don't list it until you have at least 1,000 followers.  Also if you have more than 1,000 RSS subscribers you can mention that as a selling point, also if you have a mailing list with more than 1,000 subscribers.

Don't ignore Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat as social networks, these showcase pictures of products and brands products.  Many companies want to see campaigns on Pinterest as well as Twitter/Facebook and if you have more than 500 connections on LinkedIn make sure you include that there as well.

Step 5 – Giveaways

Finally in addition to asking for a product to review, you can always include in the inquiry if the company is willing to provide an additional product that you can giveaway to a reader in a sweepstakes.  Let them know that the company will have their brand social media properties added as entries that the entrants musts follow/subscribe and let them know you can even build entries where the entrants have to click on product link and write a comment about why they want the product which can help drive awareness.  I suggest running the giveaway on PromoSimple or Gleam.io which are very flexible platforms and give you a much wider range of custom entry types.

UPDATE: Try Streamyard's Free Giveaway Tool 

(affiliate link)

Step 6 – Introductory Letter

Now that you have compiled all of the above information you are ready to draft your introductory letter to the company and help try and showcase your site, properties and what you can do for the brand if they are willing to send you a product to review.

Here would be a sample introductory letter that you can use, replace everything in [xxx] and read/remove the notes in () to customize this letter to make it your own.

To whom this may concern at [COMPANY],

I am contacting you on behalf of the excellent team at [YOUR WEBSITE] in regards to getting one or more [PRODUCT A, PRODUCT B…ec] so we can do a review of them for our rapidly growing blog and social media audience.  [YOUR WEBSITE] is a [TYPE OF BLOG] blog that enjoys a large readership every month ranging from [Analytics] page views. Our mailing newsletter has over [Add email or RSS subscribers] email subscribers and we also host successful giveaways that draw as many as [highest entry giveaway] entries.  Those who have partnered with us have drawn in more than [sales figures] in sales (if you can link to a snapshot or image showing sales). Which is 10-20x the earnings from the cost of just providing a product to review and showcase to our readers.

Here at [Your Site] we do YouTube video reviews, Facebook Fanpage Reviews, Amazon Reviews, Written Blog reviews and showcase products to our readers on a variety of platforms including Pinterest as well.  (make sure you remove and/or list all social media networks where you can broadcast awareness about their brand or product)

I am not looking for compensation or charging for doing a review of your products, there is no cost to the company if we get to keep the review copy of the product and use it occasionally, each time it is used we will mention that we used that model for the work we do so the promotion is constantly and ongoing with our partners.  Please let me know if this would be of interest, and/or if you can forward this request to the right department if your department doesn't handle review copies for media/press.  Also, if it is possible to get a 2nd copy of the product that we can giveaway to readers in a sweepstakes we could add your brand's social media entries as entrant options as well as have readers click on your products link and leave comments/feedback as to why they want the product as part of the entry options.  We also collect emails of most of the entrants and can share those with you for purposes of a marketing newsletter to help raise additional awareness for your brand and products.

In addition to the review article being published on the blog, it will be promoted multiple times across my social media entities
[LIST all of your properties here and # of followers]
http://www.facebook.com/[YOURPAGE]   #### fans
http://www.twitter.com/[YOURTWITTER]   #### followers
http://www.pinterest.com/[YOURPINTEREST]   #### subscribers
http://www.linkedin.com/[[YOURPROFILE]     #### connections
http://www.youtube.com/[YOURCHANNEL]      #### subscribers

Regards,

Your Name
Owner of [Your Blog}
[Your Email]
[Your Phone Number]

Now, the letter is not the final step, the final step is follow up.  You may not hear back from companies on just an email so as an added measure try to find out if there is a press or release contact for the company that you can call by phone and follow up with a phone call.  If you can't find any live person to call on the phone, then you can call the support desk and ask if they have a press or sales phone number they can transfer you to.  Finally, you can send a follow up email 1 week after sending the initial email asking if they had a chance to review your email and if they are willing to partner with you to help raise brand awareness.

My last bit of advice is to start off with the small companies until you build up a comfort level with doing product reviews. Also, having a number of small partnerships helps solidify your standing and will help you reach bigger brands. Don't give up and keep at it, if you never got a response back from a brand then give it 6 months and try again.

Be persistent and don't give up, no response is the worst and keep pestering until you get a response even if it is a know at least make sure you get known and a response.

64 thoughts on “How To Do Better Product Reviews On Your Blog”

  1. I am glad I came across this post. This is an idea I have been throwing around for a while but have yet to act on it. I might have the motivation to act on it now that you gave me a template for accomplishing it. I do have a question about this method. With my affiliate reviews I am very honest about a product. When you actively seek out products for a review like this do you feel obligated to post a favorable review? I’m sure the company would not be happy to give you a free copy of something you ultimately review poorly.

    1. You make an excellent point, if you receive cash compensation for doing a review it is hard for people to see you as objective, this isn’t true if you are sent the product to review since they have to send review copies to any company doing a true review, though you should never feel inclined you obviously don’t want to burn bridges with the company right? So there are two ways I handle the situation, 1) I tell the advertiser what I didn’t like about the product, and say that I appreciate them giving me the opportunity to test and review the product, point out what I didn’t like and I thought needed improvement. If there is something broken, give the advertiser a chance to make sure you weren’t sent a defective product first, in many cases they may have a patch, bug fix or send you a replacement copy in case yours was defective.

      If the product is indeed flawed seriously, then post your honest review but be professional, never scold or chastise the advertiser, they are your partner but do be clear that you the product claimed to do something but you weren’t able to do it, or what improvements it needs. If the product is fair but not great, still offer to link to it because others may still want to buy. Also check Amazon and if you see the product has a number of high stars, mention that though you found these issues with the product there were plently of satisfied reviews on Amazon…etc. Soften the blow.

      Finally if the product is truly terrible, I won’t affiliate sell it, I don’t affiliate sell products I don’t stand behind. I may still link to the sales page as one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, but I make it clear my opinion and what didn’t work for me.

      In most cases, advertisers will appreciate the feedback, especially if you list what the advertiser should do to improve the product, not just hate on what you didn’t like, this is constructive criticism and builds reputation and respect. Never promote something just because you feel obligated to say something favorable, I got a $1000 Dell XPS 18 as a review product to keep, I clearly state that the system came with too little RAM (4GB), locks up when running multiple applications and is not a good system for gaming, only able to play some MMO games at the lowest graphics settings and barely acceptable frame rates. However I also point out what is good about it too, what I liked and that it isn’t a fit for all but if you have specific wants in that product, then it will fit those specifics nicely.

      Hope this helps!

    2. Man, I left a really long comment and somehow the site just lost it, LOST it. Was like a 800 word comment.

      Anyway, here is what I was going to say, summarized now.

      Be honest and open, don’t feel obligated to give a favorable review. If you find a product has flaws then be honest and provide constructive criticism in your review, not only what you didn’t like but what the company could do to make product better. By offering feedback you help them take ideas to improve product. Never hate, flame or be unprofessional, be constructive and professional but always be 100% honest. I don’t allow advertisers to buy favorable reviews, whether paying by cash or providing product as compensation. Reputation is everything, if it is jeopardized you don’t get it back.

      Always put a disclaimer that you were sent a copy of the product to review. I won’t affiliate sell a product I don’t like ,but I will still link to their sales page if it was a condition on getting the product. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure and remember every product on Amazon has reviews ranging from 1 to 5 stars no matter how good or bad the product.

        1. Excellent, the funny thing is I logged into the dashboard and didn’t see it in pending and when I posted it, I never got a confirmation that it went into pending so I just thought it was lost.

    1. My pleasure Justin. You always offer valuable content and I am more than happy to share it with the readers of this blog.

      Thanks and have a wonderful weekend.

  2. Some great tips Justin. I don’t do reviews myself, but have often thought about it and your list will surely make it easier for folks. I appreciate the information.

    My wife has a friend who has a blog and she claims to get quite a few products in exchange for reviews. I was curious how she went about it. Don’t think my wife ever asked her.

  3. Peter Kanayo

    Justin you took your time to write this post and am quite impressed with the advice you shared.

    The question I would love see answered is that how do you review a product that you asked for without being partial.

    That while the law courts do not allow judges to accept gifts from people.

    If you are offered the opportunity, then your conscience becomes clearer because you can tell them you are only going to do a honest review

    1. Read my comments above to William, they answer some of this. But make no mistake. In most cases companies don’t ask for products back because they leave them at reviewer so if they are used they can be mentioned numerous times. As a tech blogger, I ask to review as many tech gadgets as I can not just the ones I want. I know an Archos Tablet won’t stand up to a Samsung Galaxy Tab or iPad Air without having to review it, I don’t “NEED” the products I review, I only request them in an effort to test them and showcase them for my readers.

      Also, the small sites need to do that initial contact to create a partnership, that partnership forms so that the 1st time you get a product, the advertiser then sends you updates on future products to review without you having to initiate again. Also you can always contact the advertiser and leave the specific product blank, saying that you are doing reviews and would love the chance to review something the company is wanting to get more press releases or publicity on or such.

      To get a review copy and keep it, is generally considered more ethical than being paid cash for doing a review if possible. You develop a reputation and trust over time, with your disclosures. If people know you can’t be bought for a favorable review, then they start to trust and you have to make sure trust isn’t broken. As an example of this ,I did my last unfavorable product review http://www.dragonblogger.com/review-watch-smartwatch/ I was sent a $380 dollar smart watch plus received about $150 in cash compensation, and the review was still not sugar coated on what I thought of the product.

      I have had some advertisers ask me to change my review or modify it after they didn’t like it, in these cases I give them an opportunity to show there was a flaw in the review or if something is corrected to correct it, this is why I always say if you have problems with a product contact advertiser before publishing a review to see if there is a way to resolve it before doing a negative review, if the advertiser can’t resolve it, document and share all issues in review but be professional.

  4. Hi Justin, as a blogger I really like your article, Product Reviews is very effective for increase traffic for blog. thanks for share.

    1. Traffic is very short lived in technology reviews, products come out so frequently that anything you review is pretty much old news very quickly. The however establish brand awareness and partnerships, where reviews bring in traffic is if you can get the latest and cutting edge technologies to review that are either just released or soon to be released and I still am not big enough to get noticed by the big companies for this which is my overall goal.

  5. Justin,
    Thanks for such a good article. I think giving an honest review is more important for making your good image.

  6. Hello Justin,

    Pitching companies for a chance to review their products has become clearer with this super post of yours.

    I have always wandered each time I send out a pitch whether to ask for outright payment or just a right to retain the product. It seems you favour the right to retain the product…Is that what you’ll advise?

    Always,
    Terungwa

    1. If you are asking them to receive the product, then in your letter say there is no cost to the company in exchange for keeping the review copy. It is double dipping to ask for a company to send you a product to review and ask for them to pay for the review. However, with big items like monitors, PC’s, laptops tablets I often ask for a press/review copy of the product even if I don’t get to keep it I still want to do a hands on review even if I have to send it back after.

  7. Very good article with practical info! I have run across all three types of companies with the particles intents. Generally the companies who like backlinks are more of a pain to deal with. The others are typically fun and I enjoy the community aspect of the reviewer relationship. I have had the opportunity to work with some great companies and pr representatives.

  8. Complete and well written post. I asked about product review techniques a couple months ago to Justin and he gave me the same tricks as written in the post.

  9. Hello Justin,

    Glad to see you here man, You’ve shared wonderful ideas for better product reviews and I think giveaway would be ultimate option for more exposure.

    Thanks

  10. Steps for sending an inquiry are very important to get reviews. It is also the best practice that you have to send emails to concerned persons, while the format of the letter should be like given by Mr. Justin Germino. Some list of website for reviews may please be include! Can any one tell about such list?

  11. Justin,
    I agree with all your points. People these days are stuck with Adsense, I think they product review a chance.
    Thanks for taking your time to put this together.
    -Seun

    1. I don’t do product review for money specifically so it doesn’t really replace AdSense as a source of income in itself, however if you do Amazon affiliate or other affiliate programs and affiliate sell some of your favorite products you can supplement or even overtake your other source of income. The key is to only really offer to sell what you believe in and stand behind.

  12. Great Suggestion. I have been already reviewed some 4-5 companies in my blogs. But I really found this article to be really helpful as because of the Letter to send Professionally to the companies. In a very short term we can say them a lot of meaningful things.

    I am really thankful to you.

  13. Great Suggestion For Newbie Blogger because i just thinking about start review product on my blogs. this post really help me lot to do this work better and such quality article.
    That`s why i follow this blog daily 🙂
    @ Harsh

  14. Hi Justin,
    really bang on target.Great tips to write product review.Still i am not write any product review but when i will go to write it,i will keep in mind these all tips.

  15. Justin, while I enjoyed this post, I didn’t feel like the content matched up with the title you gave it. On a side note, would you be willing to do another writeup where you detail your review writing process?

    1. You make a good point about the article title not quite lining up, that wasn’t the original title for the article it was slightly altered I think. I will do two more and make this a 3 part series, the 2nd one I will specifically focus on my methodology to doing reviews. Of course I could do separate posts about reviewing hardware, software, services, games…etc as they all require different approaches.

  16. Brand Awareness – developing a heart-felt story that speaks to why you are in business is one way to make your product reviews on blog better. They need to accept you as a person behind the brand before they buy you what you are offering to them.

  17. Hello,

    Well for every products review I do, I’ll be checking the previous reviews and from that reviews I can produce a better product review.

    Thanks for the tips!

  18. hi Justin,

    Great post and it is really very informative for bloggers like me who want to make money from blogging. But here i feel that i need few more information about companies and how to choose them and contact them.

    i mean if i like to write on technology so should try from microsoft or from adobe or nokia.

    1. That really depends on the size of your blog, if you reach less than 100k visitors per month you may not get much notice from Adobe or Microsoft, start with freeware applications like I did and do reviews of freeware, use sites like alternative.to to find freeware alternatives of major company products and start doing reviews on them to build a foundation. Then work your way up to the lesser known software companies, I look on MajorGeeks too to find new software to try. Create a Product Review page where advertisers can find you for product reviews and contact you, I get a large portion of smaller software reviews by request from companies now.

  19. Hi, i do agree small sites need to do that initial contact to create a partnership, that partnership forms so that the 1st time you get a product, the advertiser then sends you updates on future products to review without you having to initiate again. Also you can always contact the advertiser and leave the specific product blank, saying that you are doing reviews and would love the chance to review something the company is wanting to get more press releases or publicity on or such.

  20. really great information shared from your side….
    and yes backlinks are still the king in blogging field and it will be…
    you may found sites at front page that has high PR backlinks….

    1. Yes, when companies want a dofollow link and care about the link to their site, they will often ask for a link on the homepage or if your review article will also make that link on your homepage. When they start asking more about the link than the product review itself you know they are more interested in the dofollow link.

  21. Give aways is by far the best way. I’ve tried it so many times before and it never failed. Let’s face it. People love freebies. So what’s better than giving your readers exactly what they want?

    1. Giveaways are especially great for advertisers to get some attention and notice, using a giveaway of a product can get their brand mentioned in hundreds or thousands of Facebook, Twitter tweets and that many more followers. It has the best return on investment out of any marketing budget I have found.

  22. To be very honest, writing product review is one of the hardest thing to do for me.Because they seems to be in a hurry to get published the review. This is why i almost don’t do product review on my blogs. I hope this article will solve my problems of mine. Thanks for Sharing.

    1. I will do a sequel post on how to set guidelines and a framework for actually writing the review, you have to set publisher expectations and give a reasonable time frame on when you will have post published, but you will have to be able to deliver when you say or reputation will be jeopardized. Even I find myself during the holidays having to push advertisers reviews back when I told them the would have been done by X date, and had to take a potential reputation hit because I was busier than expected and had too little free time to do the reviews in the window I told them.

  23. Hi Justin,
    Very informative post,
    I do some product reviews on my blog for affiliate commission, but only suggest products that I’ve used and familiar with. .
    thanks for sharing!

    1. You know and that is a good point too, if you have used a product and like it, and know a product offers affiliate commissions often you can get them to give you a license to review (even temporary) and then you can do the review and potentially make some affiliate commission. I myself affiliate commission some of the software I review but don’t seem to make a lot of sales, the other thing is that often Android, iOS games the commission rates are so low it may seem not worth doing an affiliate for $.99 or $2.99 items.

  24. Hi! Justin Thanks for such a good article. Product review is really important in a blog or if we are in the real marketing world to targeting our customers. But It’s my personal view when we are in start first step is strategy and plans and second always focus on the niche market, what you think about it :)?

    1. It depends really, because I do just as many product reviews on my personal blog as my professional or more business like blog. There are different purposes for a blog, if you want to get into affiliate marketing, you may be better suited to develop niche blogs and review only products you can affiliate, or if you sell your own product you obviously don’t want to showcase and give attention to competition brands right? But for general bloggers, personal bloggers who just blog about anything/everything without a niche, and they get a following who follow them for their persona, product reviews can be a fun way to work with brands plus raise awareness for them as well as test out some cool stuff, or sometimes not so cool stuff.

  25. I have been reviewing products on my website. Glad i found basicblogtips i can now improve reviews 🙂
    Thanks for your excellent write up. bookmarked your site. Hoping for better articles in the future 😉

  26. Hello Justin,

    Already reviewed few products at my tech blog and I’m doing great with it. Your tips are really helpful to learn more about the product rveiews.

    Thanks

    1. You start doing reviews of product/stuff you already own first, stuff you already paid for with your own money, then you also look for freeware that you can review for free if you are talking about software, free games…etc Use alternative.to to find freeware to many mainstream applications. Use iOS/Android games that are free and build some experience doing free Android/iOS app and game reviews.

      You have to have some reviews to show advertisers, I started out by reviewing everything I bought or owned within the last 6 months in my personal life to build that review experience and showcase my styles of reviews. It is really no cost if you already bought something, or if you plan on buying anything for yourself take the time to do a review of it.

      Offer to do free reviews for a sample too, you need to have experience under your belt first, software companies will often jump at the free review for a trial license over paying any money too, so look for smaller software companies.

    1. I don’t recommend hosting a plugin where readers can rate/review products that you are partnered to feature/review, when you are doing a review people visit to see your opinion, not your readers. It is one thing to host a review blog where you have user reviews, that is specific and different than you being a product reviewer.

      As the advertiser provides you with a copy of the product, or sponsored you, only you should be listing your views of it, not leave it open to people who many not have actually used or tested the product to leave ratings/reviews and you have know way to verify if it is just blatant opinion or actual experience when people rate a product themselves.

  27. Already reviewed few products at my tech blog and I’m doing great with it. Your tips are really helpful to learn more about the product reviews.

  28. Dibakar Bala

    Hi Justin! I’m just starting out as a blogger. Yet I’m sure these info would help me out a lot someday in future. As it is said we should always hope for the best.
    By the way, i think you have a broken link where you have hyperlinked the word Triberr with the blog post at triberr about how to become a brand ambassador.I hope that information helps 🙂

  29. I am starting out as a blogger and have for the past two days, scoured the internet on all tips relevant. I have got a few new ideas here and found it quite useful. However, my type of blogging will be for an educational organization and therefore, my challenges are mainly on how to ensure constant hits on topics students will participate in.

  30. Nice explanation, I know many people who own such type of product reviews blogs many of them write on technology. But doing this is common in blogging now so, from my side any one can’t achieve much in theses as there are already so many blogs available for the brands to watch.

  31. To improve product review, you must first have some knowledge in that field. Say if you understand mobile technology, you cannot review a software product built for testing. You can only give comments once you are an expert or else it will take you down.

    A review must be detailed and precise. Start with introduction, features, uniqueness and benefits. A closing note can be replaced by “My take on a product”.

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