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Getting Mileage From Your NIBBLE Review

How To Generate Visibility & Sales

Introduction

We love your product. Since we’ve chosen to recommend it to NIBBLE readers, we would like to help you as much as we can to introduce it to other people as well.

Here are some ways that you can use your NIBBLE review—and any other reviews you receive—to get immediate sales as well as future sales from people who learn about your product but aren’t ready to buy now.

E-Mail Your Review To Your Friends & Neighbors

Share the review with your friends and neighbors and ask them to pass on the word. This is an example of viral marketing. Ask others in the company to do the same.

Your acquaintances will be glad that your product is being well-received in the marketplace, and most will be happy to take a minute to send the information to their friends who like fine food (which is almost everyone). Not only are they helping you, but it also gives them a chance to say hello to people they may not have been in touch with for a while.

Here’s all you need to do:

1. Create a PDF of your NIBBLE review.
2. Compose an e-mail. It can be as brief as you like, e.g.:
   
   I just wanted to drop you a brief note to tell you how proud we are of the good press our [name of product] has been getting. I thought you might like to see one of our reviews, which I’ve attached as a PDF. You can also link to the review at http://www.thenibble.com/URL-of-your-review.
   
   If you have friends or colleagues who like fine food and would enjoy our [cookies, ham, whatever], please forward this on. I know I always appreciate hearing about new things!
   
   With best wishes,
   
   [Your Name]
   
3. Consider offering a promotional incentive to get people to act, e.g.
   
   P.S. Anyone who orders on our website, www.ourwebsite.com between now and (date), and enters promotional code N100, will receive 20% discount.
   
   The code will also help you track the effectiveness of your e-mail in generating sales.
   
4. Do a Mail Merge with your contact management program and send out the letter and attachment. If you don’t know how to do a mail merge, pull down the Help menu of your e-mail program. (If your e-mail program won’t let you merge a document with an attachment, the link to the review will suffice.)

If you have children who are high school age or older, they may enjoy being part of the viral campaign (and they may have other ideas, too). They can e-mail the letter to their friends to share with their relatives. If just one friend’s aunt passes it along to her circle of friends...the viral message could sweep back and forth across the country making thousands and thousands of people aware of your delicious product.

Do The Same With Your Business Colleagues

There’s no reason why you shouldn’t make the same offer to your business colleagues. After all, they have co-workers, friends, and family too—and each of those people may want your product for themselves or for gifts.

Other Ideas

Here are some best practices to incorporate into all press coverage:

• Make a copy of the review for your press kit.
• Use it as an opportunity to contact the journalists on your media list. Send an electronic copy with a note. Begin the note with your unique selling proposition and customized references to the different uses for your product beyond the obvious, to give journalists ideas for how they might write about your product. Don’t forget to include seasonal ideas (magazine editors, as opposed to newspaper and online journalists, work three months ahead of calendar events). Remember, journalists don’t want to be schmoozed and they don’t want superlatives (“the greatest,” “the single best solution”)—they just want the facts, and they’ll decide for themselves how special your product is. Conclude by saying:
  
  I’ve attached a recent review from a specialty foods magazine. If I can supply you with product samples or any other information, please let me know.
  
• Mention the review in your company newsletter. If it’s an electronic newsletter, include a link to the review.
• Add the review to your website’s Media or Press section.  If you don’t yet have a separate section, put it somewhere prominent—like the Products section.
• Share it with everyone in the company.  It sounds obvious, but most people are so busy they forget that the folks in shipping, billing and customer service are just as much a part of the success as marketing and sales.

If you have additional ideas to share, click here to send them to us, and let us know how else we can support you.