It all started with the infomercial – the bread and butter of TV advertising. In a time when people actually paid attention and didn’t have a thousand other channels or media sources to choose from, advertising was a lot easier.
Product reviews have always been a staple of good consumer salesmanship, although in the last ten years we have seen dramatic shifts in what works. People no longer want to be cajoled and fooled into thinking a product is good by a panel of fake analysts or “experts”. We have grown far past that point and display a sense of contempt for any perceived source of contrived endorsement.
We are sensitive to any information that we may believe is biased, yet ironically we fail to place ordinary people under this same microscope. Studies have shown that endorsements made by regular people work.
The reason is rather simple – emotion. Decisions are for a large part emotional, and testominals or product reviews made by regular people tend to elicit stronger emotional responses by people.
This was explained in a recent Think Big article…
“Think of a situation where you had bulletproof facts, reason, and logic on your side, and believed there was absolutely no way the other person could say no to your perfectly constructed argument and proposal. To do so would be impossible, you figured, because there was no other logical solution or answer.
And then the other person dug in his heels and refused to budge. He wasn’t swayed by your logic. Were you flabbergasted?
This is similar to what many negotiators do when they sit down at the table to hammer out a deal. They come armed with facts, and they attempt to use logic to sway the other party. They figure that by piling on the data and using reason to explain their side of the situation, they can construct a solution that is simply irrefutable—and get the other party to say yes.
They’re doomed to fail, however, because decision-making isn’t logical, it’s emotional, according to the latest findings in neuroscience.”
Humans believe other humans because well… that is what nature intended. While advertisers spend millions of dollars figuring out how to create powerful ads that get us to buy – the answer is quite simple. By using everyday opinions and ideas we can create product reviews that get to the point without making people overly sensitive.
Sites that reviews products in the most “everyday” way are the most convincing. Take for example this site explaining beginner sewing machine reviews, by generating a large number of user reviews we can see that not only are promoters doing a great job promoting their product they are also creating trust.
Let us know what you think about consumer reviews – do you believe them or tend to stay away?