How to Get the Media to Review Your Product

Product reviews are a tremendous way to build your business online. With each blogger or media outlet that reviews your product, you gain more exposure and awareness to new audience members. Your brand is strengthened and you boost your credibility and authority in your industry. Your search engine optimization is improved. You not only get links to your site, you also improve your own organic search results. And let’s not overlook the fact that when someone reviews your product (assuming that it is a favorable review) you also gain a boost in sales. There really is no downside to getting product reviews. The trick is getting the media to review your product. The following tips and ideas will help.

1. The Direct Ask. Identify bloggers in your industry and media representatives that you’d like to review your product. Ideally, they will write for your niche and their audience is one that will benefit from learning about your product – and potentially make a purchase. Send an email to the media rep asking them to review your product. Remember, you’re asking for a favor, so there has to be something in it for them as well. A free product is often enough to motivate a “yes,” but not always. Depending on the person you’re reaching out to, referral commissions may be another option.
2. Be on the Lookout for Requests. Believe it or not, many journalists are looking for opportunities to review products. You can leverage Twitter and the hashtags #journorequest and #journalistrequest to find journalists who are asking questions about your industry and/or looking for products to review. You’ll be able to fine tune your search results if you also include your keywords in the Twitter search.
3. A Little Research Goes a Long Way. Who has reviewed your competition’s products? Perform a Google search and find out. You can simply enter the words “ABCCompetition + Review” to see what pops up in your results. The folks that review your competition may be ideal prospects to review your products as well.
4. Be Transparent. When asking a media representative to review your product, be clear and honest about it. Let them know what you’d like and why, as well as what they have to gain.
5. Include it in Your Pitch. If you’re pitching to a media representative, you can include an opportunity to review your product in the pitch. It needs to be relevant to your story angle and can provide a valuable opportunity to get media attention.

Finally, if your product can be demonstrated, why not invite media representative to watch the demonstration? You can demonstrate it online or off; the choice is yours. When the demo is over, you can ask anyone if they’d like to try the product for themselves and review it.

You’re going to get a few “no’s” when you ask journalists and bloggers to review your product. However, that shouldn’t stop you from asking. Perfect your pitch and know how they can benefit. It just takes a few “yeses” to make it worth the time and effort.

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Anthony Santiago

Anthony Santiago is Director of Marketing at Newswire. With over a decade of experience in PR, he helps ensure that clients understand the value of brand messaging and reach.