The wealth of peer-to-peer information, and unprecedented availability of expert opinions, give potential purchasers access to a rich, specific sense of what it’s like to own or use goods BEFORE they buy them.
If you are a distributor selling to the new generation of end-user clients, you already know that they bring their own consumer purchasing experiences to work with them. When they are at home, they consult online reviews and access friends’ opinions through social media on “absolute value” long before they make major purchases. While marketers are certainly aware of the rise of online reviews and the availability of peer-to-peer opinions, many still use old-school strategies that ignore the current customer base with ownership experience that they willingly share, as well as the influence they have on potential customers.
Speaking of influence, let’s talk about online reviews. If you’re selling a promotional product that is also available either as a traditional consumer product, or if your competitors include the various online only distributors, the reality is that you will soon confront the issue of product reviews. This is important, because these reviews might well impact a prospective buyer who may generalize on your product from negative reviews of a product that are arguably dissimilar. Reviews are tricky business – and often unreliable, as well. In fact, a recent Harvard Business Review article also makes the case that positive reviews do not necessarily guarantee the quality of product being reviewed.
Consider this: the subset of users who leave reviews is not randomly sampled from those who have actually purchased the product. Instead, it is consumers with extreme opinions who are more likely to post reviews, which is referred to as the “brag-and-moan” bias. Rating distributions take on a “J-shape,” with mostly 5-star ratings, some 1-star ratings, and hardly any ratings in between. Positive ratings also increase the likelihood of later positive ratings, which is known as “herding.”
A finding in Science Magazine showed that positive reviews increase the likelihood of subsequent positive reviews by as much as 25 percent. The thinking that goes into this is along the lines of, “How can I bash something that everybody else says is great?!” An interesting glimpse into human nature, isn’t it?
The Harvard Business Review examined the extent to which average review scores from Amazon.com correspond with scores on the products from Consumer Reports. The correspondence was quite small – in fact, the product with the higher star rating on Amazon.com only received a higher score from Consumer Reports 57 percent of the time. If your buyer is relying solely on online reviews of your competitor’s products, or other products in your category, that’s about as reliable as if they were issuing a P.O. while flipping a coin. Yet it’s unlikely that consumers will stop leaving, or reading, reviews any time soon. So factoring the psychology that goes into reviews and customer behavior as it relates to reviews in general into your marketing strategies is probably not a bad idea.
Changing gears, we caught up with Dana Zezzo, who recently joined Imagen Brands as VP of sales and marketing, on the way to the ASI Show last week. Dana has a rather unique challenge, as his sales force represents two QCA-Accredited suppliers, Crown and Vitronic. We wondered about the challenge of presenting these two accredited suppliers at once as it pertains to safety and compliance. “We are helping the reps explain the product safety message specifically about QCA at each brand level. This shows how committed Imagen Brands is.” said Zezzo. “We are implementing internal training with monthly content which includes: Social media, product safety, product knowledge, etc. – the goal is to not only improve our company awareness in the industry – but internal awareness so our sales force can service our customers with confidence.”
As a QCA-Accredited supplier (or two), I was curious as to whether topics of safety have begun to lead the conversation with distributors. Responding to this question, Dana replied: “The majority of the questions are coming about tech items and children’s items. Most distributors still don’t know the specific questions to ask, but want confirmation that we as suppliers are aware and doing everything we can to protect them. The challenge when training and coaching a supplier sales force is to get them to reduce the amount of product selling, and add more value proposition selling.”
Concluding our conversation about safety, I asked whether the industry is becoming more interested in delivering safer product, or is it still a little of the wild, wild, west out there? “I definitely believe the industry is and wants to deliver safer product. It is a focus point at many of our upper management and product development meetings,” he said. “QCA has done an amazing job of helping educate the industry both at the distributor and supplier levels. It’s simple – people buy from people they know, like, and trust.”
Jeff Jacobs has been an expert in building brands and brand stewardship for more than 35 years, working in commercial television, Hollywood film and home video, publishing, and promotional brand merchandise. He’s a staunch advocate of consumer product safety and has a deep passion and belief regarding the issues surrounding compliance and corporate social responsibility. He recently retired as executive director of Quality Certification Alliance, the only non-profit dedicated to helping suppliers provide safe and compliant promotional products. Before that, he was director of brand merchandise for Michelin. As a recovering end-user client, he can’t help but continue to consult Fortune 500 consumer brands on promo product safety. You can also find him working as a volunteer Guardian ad Litem, traveling the world with his lovely wife, or enjoying a cigar at his favorite local cigar shop. Follow Jeff on Twitter, or contact him at jacobs.jeffreyp@gmail.com.