No One Believes Your 5-Star Reviews...

The TL;DR:

• Let’s Chat D2C: 5-Star Reviews Are NOT Enough.

• What I’m Thinking about this Week: Build a Foundation First before you start wasting money on ads.

• The D2Z Podcast: In this week’s episode, I sat down with Yash Chavan, Founder & CEO of SARAL, an influencer marketing management platform.

• App Highlight - Malomo’s New Problem Order Triggers Release.

• Book of the Week: That Will Never Work - The Birth of NETFLIX and the Amazing Life of an Idea.

• Upcoming Events - I’m stopping by Recharge’s event in Miami on the 27th at 5 PM! You can RSVP here. And here’s the link to my 10-part retention marketing keynote from DTCX Retain!

Random tip: As a business leader, it’s essential to be optimistic, but you also need to be realistic.

Let's Chat D2C: 5-Star Reviews are NOT Enough

I want to chat about two things related to product reviews this week.

First, if all your reviews on your site are 5-stars, your customers know you’re full of shit.

Second, if all you’re collecting when you ask your customers for reviews is a 1 to 5-star rating, you’re missing the opportunity to collect valuable zero-party data and product attributes.

Only Showing 5-Star Reviews

Customers want authenticity. You’re not fooling anyone with 5,000 5-star reviews and zero bad reviews. In fact, only showcasing your 5-star reviews can significantly hurt your conversion rate. Show the 1 and 2-star reviews! And if you’re worried about it somehow impacting the site conversion rate, then split-test showing the negative reviews versus not showing them.

Going Beyond a 1 to 5-Star Rating Request

You need to be asking for more than just a 1 to 5-star rating. Asking for more will help improve your conversion rate and give you valuable data to segment and personalize your retention strategy for that customer moving forward.

Let’s look at the below example of a review modal we set up on a coffee client’s website. We’re collecting valuable customer and product information.

Now, visitors on this product page can filter reviews based on important information, such as how the reviewer typically brews their coffee and how they usually drink it.

For the customer, Stephanie, we can now tailor our messaging strategy to her around our offerings that are best suited for brewing with a coffeemaker and that go well with sugar and cream.

What I’m Thinking About This Week: Build a Foundation First

Coming off the heels of my DTCX talk, I want to keep stressing how important it is for a brand, and really any company, to have a strong grasp on their overall customer experience and business fundamentals before jumping into paid ads.

If your site’s conversion rate isn’t where you need it to be, your ads will fail.

If your company’s retention rate is too low, your average LTV won’t be high enough to justify your CAC.

If your product margins aren’t high enough, your margins will be too thin to get a return on your ads.

I think you get the picture :)

This Week's The D2Z Podcast

#33 - Influencer Marketing, Trends, and Relationships

🎧 Listen Now 🎧

In this week’s episode, I sat down with Yash Chavan, Founder & CEO of SARAL, an influencer marketing management platform. Specifically, we explored the following:

💰 Pitfalls and issues with ROI in influencer marketing

📲 Nurturing influencer relationships at scale

😎 Aligning influencers with your brand

🚀 Up and-coming influencer marketing trends

App Highlight - Malomo

If you’ve read this newsletter before, you know how adamant I am about brands retaking control of their transactional experience. If you missed it, here’s the link to the newsletter and the link to the overview I put together of why it’s so important and how we solve it with Malomo.

Today, I want to highlight a feature they just released, problem order triggers for integrated apps like Klaviyo and Attentive.

Having an informative shipping experience that delights your customer is key to a strong retention strategy. Nothing is worse than purchasing from a store, having no idea what the status of your order is, and being forced to reach out to customer service. Now, with the following new Malomo problem order triggers, your customers won't need to:

• Stalled in Fulfillment

• Stalled in Transit

• Delivery Attempted

• Return to Sender

Book of the Week - That Will Never Work: The Birth of NETFLIX and the Amazing Life of an Idea

That Will Never Work is a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the inception and execution of NETFLIX as we love and know it today. It dispels common entrepreneurial myths, touches on building organizational culture, and even remarks upon the importance of establishing work and life boundaries, no matter how busy you are.

Key Takeaways

• There is no eureka moment. Netflix is the byproduct of countless hours of ideation by Marc and Reed during their hour-long work commute.

• When entering an industry with an establishment (in this case, the movie rental business), you need an industry insider to help you navigate it.

• Sometimes, you have to rip the bandaid off. Even though Netflix made about 90% of its revenue from selling DVDs in the early days, Marc and Reed knew Amazon was about to enter and dominate that market and that they needed to focus all of their energy on figuring out how to get people to rent, no matter the cost.

• Assume nothing. Test everything.

• Every Tuesday at 5 PM, Marc would leave the office to spend the evening with his wife, no matter what! It’s important to have non-negotiable family time.

Upcoming Events

I’m stopping by Recharge’s event in Miami on the 27th at 5 PM! You can RSVP here.

And here’s the link to my 10-part retention marketing keynote from DTCX Retain!

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