Using customer reviews to get more sales from product launches

56% of customers avoid products with low or no reviews — so collecting impactful feedback is crucial to a successful product launch.

But traditional methods of collecting reviews, such as in-person requests, retailer review platforms, or untargeted product sampling, often involve heavy effort and high costs. With digital sampling, customers have a great trial experience and are actively engaged, writing informed and detailed product reviews. It’s why our brand see up to 30% of trialists leave reviews from our sampling campaigns.

Let’s explore five ways to boost your new product launch with user reviews — and how Sampl can help.

1. Building credibility with verified reviews

When shopping, 74% of consumers rely on reviews to determine product value — and when reviews come from a verified source, they’re 15% more likely to purchase. To build credibility and trust with your ideal customers, it’s critical to have plenty of verified reviews in place before your product ever hits the market.

Traditional review methods depend on customers buying products with few (if any) reviews and choosing to leave feedback post-purchase. Without reviews to help these customers make their initial purchase decision, they may choose a product that doesn’t match their needs. Negative experiences can lead to unfavourable reviews, influencing brand credibility and trust with future customers.

Digital product sampling, on the other hand, builds trust by encouraging unbiased reviews before your launch — ensuring consumers always have the information they need to make informed decisions.

Once you’ve collected verified pre-launch reviews, Sampl partners with review syndication platforms like Bazaarvoice, Yotpo, and PowerReviews to share customer reviews across retailers. This seamless interaction eliminates review silos and builds credibility across multiple sites.

Take the leading luxury brand, Jimmy Choo, for example. When they needed to generate awareness before a new fragrance launch, they contacted the Sampl team for help. After the sampling campaign, they achieved over half a million interactions through their targeted Meta ads. The result? 1,100+ reviews — and a strong line of trust with their ideal, luxury-focused customers.

2. Improving customer understanding with valuable feedback

In the right hands, samples are a powerful engine for valuable customer feedback. Sourcing feedback from your target audience shapes product decisions, improving your customer connection. This approach builds brand loyalty, setting you apart from competitors. In fact, 57% of consumers will increase spending with brands they feel connected to, and 76% will choose those brands over a competitor.

Traditional review-gathering methods, like waiting for post-purchase feedback, might cause you to miss out on valuable feedback that can make or break your launch — like preferences in product packaging, flavours, or messaging. It’s also outside of your control, as you need to rely on retail partners to gather and share.

With Sampl, products can be sent to qualified customers before launches. Then, follow-up emails provide product detail pages (PDPs) to offer any necessary product education and ensure a solid product-customer fit and message-customer fit.

These emails also encourage consumers to provide detailed reviews and feedback on their sample, which can point to any areas requiring product improvement. Based on consumer sentiments, PDPs can also be modified to meet your target market’s needs pre-launch.

For example, outdoor gear aftercare brand NikWax needed to ensure that the scent of their new Wetsuit Refresh product was desirable amongst their ICP prior to launch. By distributing samples, they learned that 77% of their customers enjoyed the new scent. Armed with this knowledge, they could confidently carry out their new launch.

3. Increasing product and brand awareness with targeted campaigns

Consumers are 60% more likely to purchase a new product from a brand they’re already aware of — so the success of a new product launch often hinges on building awareness.

But, precise consumer targeting is tricky with traditional sampling methods, which often distribute samples to a wide audience. With digital sampling, you can focus on new-to-brand customers to ensure that each sample works to amplify your brand’s reach.

With Sampl, you can establish goals like building awareness right away through meaningful conversations with our team. From there, every interaction is designed to garner fresh attention for the unreleased product.

While each sample interaction creates a potential new customer, digital sampling efforts can also generate further reach by building a buzz on social media. Targeted campaigns can include outreach to influencers or curated experiences that engage users and inspire them to share across socials.

For example, when beauty brand Clarins released their Lip Oil Balm, they wanted a campaign that targeted new-to-brand audiences. Using SamplMatch, Sampl’s advanced targeting tool, samples were distributed only to the highest-quality new consumers.

By the end of the campaign, Clarins had gained 966 new product reviews and expanded its awareness to thousands of new prospective customers with 8,282 new marketing opt-ins. Plus, when 33% of participants indicated they learned about Clarins through social media influencers, Clarins increased influencer partnerships to boost their social media influence.

4. Influencing purchasing decisions with personalised experiences

When shopping, consumers visit an average of three websites before making a purchase decision. Between any of the sites consumers visit, they are 52% more likely to purchase from sites with one to ten consumer reviews.

Bridging the gap between interactions and purchases is difficult with traditional sampling methods. In the case of mass-sampling efforts, many recipients are low- to no-intent buyers who won’t purchase or leave valuable reviews or feedback.

Sampl allows consumers to try in the comfort of their own homes and give them a personalised product education experience.

After establishing a database of potential recipients, prospective samplers complete a pre-qualification survey to ensure product interest. Once high-intent audiences are identified, samples will be sent directly to their Sampl-verified addresses. Consumers are then encouraged to leave feedback via check-in emails.

By ramping up your email marketing strategy during your product launch, you can also keep customers engaged and potentially influence purchasing decisions. Plus, you have the consent to retarget this audience later.

Finally, Sampl drives purchases with communications customised to your brand messaging. Sampl’s NearStore feature also drives conversions by sharing the closest in-store purchasing options with sample recipients.

Take the skincare brand Weleda, for example. When Weleda needed to boost reviews to drive online sales for their new product, Skin Food, they reached out to Sampl. At the time, they only had 17 live reviews. By the end of their campaign, the reviews had grown 4,000%. By collecting high-quality, detailed reviews from the brand’s target audience in the UK, Sampl helped Weleda achieve a 24% purchase rate and 61% intent-to-purchase rate.

5. Improving search rankings with user-generated content

There’s no question that eCommerce is highly competitive — but with user-generated content (UGC), you can stand out in a crowded marketplace. Not only do user-generated reviews boost your brand reception, but they also play a key role in algorithm ranking and search engine optimisation. As reviews come in, search engines use review quantity, quality, and star rating to measure the relevance and value of your site. So, the more positive feedback you generate, the higher you’ll rank on search engines.

With traditional review methods, collecting a large volume of reviews for your launch can be time-consuming. Plus, waiting for search algorithms to catch up with slow feedback can limit your reach when timing is everything.

To get quality reviews — and fast — Sampl builds an efficient feedback funnel. After Sampl campaigns are underway, follow-up communications encourage reviews. As UGC flows in, customer images and videos of products build customer confidence, creating a flywheel of feedback and confident customer purchases.

Consider snack bar brand KIND’s recent story — when they released their ZEROg Added Sugar Bars, they had a narrow time frame to gain social proof. The brand hoped to take advantage of consumer health goals for the new year. Sampl sent samples to customers who were most likely to engage and create UGC, leading to 7,000 new reviews and a 4.56-star average rating.

Powering reviews with Sampl

With Sampl digital campaigns, you can create a review-generating powerhouse to ignite your next product launch. As our dedicated experts work closely with you to customise your campaign journey, our user-friendly dashboard will generate AI summaries of valuable review sentiments and key insights.

These insights will help guide changes to product features, inform marketing decisions, and help you find the most engaged consumers.

Want to see for yourself? Book a demo with Sampl today!