Four Reasons Music Brands Should Be Rocking Customer Reviews

Tuning in to customer feedback can drive more sales.

Your music brand is awesome, and you want everyone to know it, but today’s customers are extremely skeptical about marketing messages. Reviews, feedback, and testimonials are an effective way to offer unbiased opinions that can motivate potential customers to act and, ultimately, increase sales.

Here’s why every music brand should be asking for online reviews:

Build Trust

Reading a positive online review gives fence-sitters an honest opinion that can move them to hit the “buy” button. On the flip side, there’s no guarantee all reviews will be flattering. Your willingness to post the bad with the good tells customers that your music brand is willing to listen—and respond—to feedback. To a potential customer, that is a telltale sign of good customer service. For instance, Sweetwater posts its customer reviews along with the specs and description of each item it sells. The vast majority of comments are written by happy customers who bolster Sweetwater’s reputation as a trusted seller with every post.

Unite Your Fan Base

If a customer has a great experience with your music brand and tells a few friends, the recommendation is limited to that person’s social circle. When you crowdsource reviews online, one positive opinion is compounded by many others, creating a virtual fan base of people raving about your products.

Instagram users like #TheGuitarReviewGuys or #Australian_Guitar_Review use their accounts to review instruments. Your music brand can just as easily set up a similar forum to share product reviews. Martin Guitar currently supports #MartinPride, where fans share their passion for the brand. A simple extension of that might be #Martin_Guitar_Feedback, where current customers help future customers make purchasing decisions so they can join the fan club.

Create a Buzz

Your website isn’t the only place to collect and share reviews. Being proactive about inviting customers to review your products on social media is a sure-fire way to get, and keep, a buzz going. Invite them via email or your website by adding links to the profile pages of your social sites. Resist offering incentives, as this can bring the authenticity of your reviews into question. Happy customers who are really into your brand will be eager to spread the word.

If you search YouTube for Les Paul reviews, you get around 1,070,000 results. That’s over a million, folks! Imagine if your brand solicited product reviews on your own YouTube channel. Simply hosting the conversation could be enough to create a buzz around your brand.

Amplify SEO

SEO isn’t that sexy, but it is critical for getting people to your website. Any content that bolsters your keyword strategy is a bonus. User-generated content (like customer reviews) is awesome for SEO, because it contains organic language that will resonate with your target audience, and it is constantly being updated, which helps you rank higher in search.

If you’re still not convinced, consider the success of Amazon.

35% of Amazon.com’s revenue is generated by its recommendation engine, which uses customer feedback as a metric for what other customers might like.

Search “gibson les paul standard” on Amazon, and you will immediately see customer reviews, along with recommendations for similar products. These products were chosen using custom feedback as part of the metric. The result is a highly customized experience that quickly converts browsers into customers.

Bottom line: Music brands need to get serious about asking for customer reviews. The benefits greatly outweigh the risks, and the price of entry is $0.