7 tips on creating a captivating product review email [+ examples]

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95% of consumers tend to read online reviews before making a purchase and 55% state that they would even pay more if they saw products with positive reviews. This means that if you’re not collecting reviews, you’re missing out on valuable social proof that builds trust and drives sales. 

But sending the same generic, boring review request email as hundreds of other brands won’t compel customers to leave glowing feedback. To collect more high-quality reviews, you need to send engaging, branded, incentivized review request emails that are seamlessly integrated into your post-purchase communications.

Keep reading to discover seven tips for creating captivating product review emails that motivate customers to sing your praises.

Why do you need product review emails?

Product reviews are crucial for building trust with new customers. When people think about buying something, they want to know about others’ real-world experiences with the product.

Positive reviews give them confidence and can help convince them to buy, while negative reviews, even though not ideal, provide honesty about any issues. This transparency helps set realistic expectations and prevent disappointment.

Reviews offer more than abstract “star ratings.” They give detailed feedback on product quality, ease of use, and the standard of customer service. This in-depth information gives a clearer picture than just the brand’s marketing claims.

Furthermore, reviews act as user-generated content that can boost your website’s search engine rankings. With more reviews, your product pages will appear more frequently in search results, bringing more visitors and sales to your site.

Maintaining a strong review program shows customers that you value their opinions and are committed to providing an excellent experience, giving your business an edge over competitors. 

7 tips for writing captivating product review emails

Crafting the perfect product review email is essential for getting valuable customer feedback and boosting your brand’s online visibility. Here are seven tips for creating engaging review request emails to encourage your customers to share their experiences and opinions.

1. Incentivize product reviews

Since the vast majority of customers read online reviews, finding ways to increase customer participation is critical for retailers.

When creating your product review email, put yourself in the customer’s shoes and ask yourself: Why should I open this email? What value does this review request offer the customer?

When asking for feedback, retailers usually emphasize the importance of customers’ opinions. Some will find this convincing enough, but others won’t.

Although saying to customers you appreciate them is important, think of creating more tangible value, for example, by offering a discount on the next purchase or entering them into a drawing. These incentives may be the motivation customers need to boost product reviews.

Product review email examples are beneficial, as they can overcome customer concerns in advance by suggesting ideas on what to write in the feedback and encouraging them to upload photos to show how products look in the customer’s world. Take a look at how George at Asda incentivizes their customers.

2. Brand your message

Incentives may be one thing that can grab customers’ attention, but these messages are part of the post-purchase experience with your brand. Do your messages include captivating, short-and-sweet copywriting, and branded visuals?

Avoid sending a standard black-and-white, document-looking review request email. Instead, convey your brand personality, make it warm, inviting, and even funny — like you’re talking with someone you already know.

Ideally, your product review email is a part of your automated post-purchase series. Make it one of the best of the entire workflow.

See a few more product review email examples below.

Ties.com

This message is not only beautifully branded but also educates customers on why they should leave a review. It gives customers multiple options for where to leave their feedback.

HollisterCo.com

Hollister sends an entirely different style of product review email.

The message doesn’t mention customer appreciation at all. Instead, it is concise and straightforward, even suggesting what rating they want you to give — while offering an incentive to do so. It uniquely combines multiple elements and fits their brand voice.

Genius, right?

3. Integrate “leave a review” message into your post-purchase communication

When creating post-purchase messages, it’s important to consider who benefits from them. If your messages only ask customers to buy or do something for the company (like leaving a product review), they do not improve the customer experience.

The goal is to balance messages that benefit the customer and the company.

So, before asking for a review, consider providing value to your customers with other messages. For example, send a thank you message and include product care instructions, share related blog articles, or offer a discount on their next purchase.

When you give something valuable to your customers first, they might feel more willing to give you something back, like better feedback.

This is where Omnisend’s new Product Reviews feature can help. With this noteworthy tool, you can easily collect valuable customer feedback to understand what your customers love (or don’t love) about your products. Automating the review collection process saves time and effort while gathering valuable data to improve your products.

With Omnisend’s Product Reviews, you can boost social proof and conversion rates by displaying top-rated reviews on your website and marketing campaigns. This builds trust with potential customers and leads to more sales.

Comprehensive reporting and analytics allow you to track review metrics like average rating, number of reviews, and more, to see how they impact your business.

Below is an example of a post-purchase workflow where a customer gets an email, and their experience — from email to placing a review — is smooth and easy, thanks to Omnisend’s “Product Reviews” feature.

4. Lessen negative online reviews

There’s a saying: “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Well, when it comes to customer feedback, that’s not necessarily true. While avoiding bad reviews is unrealistic, there are various strategies retailers can use to reduce the number of them:

1. Invite only returning customers to rate you. Some of the best review emails ask for feedback only from repeat customers, increasing the chances of getting good reviews. While this may limit the number of reviews you receive, the ratio of positive reviews received may outweigh the cons.

To do this, split your first-time purchasers from returning customers and set up different post-purchase workflows for them, focusing on more loyalty-oriented emails for first-time purchasers.

2. Include your customer service and a link to leave feedback for your team (not a public review). This approach allows you to recognize any customer experience issues that arise and react accordingly, making it a great option for first-time customers.

It doesn’t have to be one or the other — these two ideas can be combined in every message. In fact, some of the best product review email examples use a variety of tactics.

Doing so may help avoid getting a negative review and solve a customer service issue simultaneously — resulting in higher brand satisfaction.

5. Provide alternatives to the traditional product review email

Social proof is a powerful tool for influencing purchases. Building your brand’s social proof can be as good as getting a review.

There are two great ways to start collecting social proof during the product review process:

1. Create a standalone message encouraging your customers to share their experience and photos of them wearing/using the purchased items
2. Provide an alternate CTA in each product review message with the same social ask

Unboxing YouTube videos, Instagram Stories of trying new makeup products, and excitement about new sneakers on TikTok are all powerful examples of social proof, and brands should encourage customer sharing in their post-purchase messaging.

To use social proof in one of your customer nurturing messages, pick the best shots/unboxing videos from social media and create messaging around them. This type of content will engage your customers with your brand and influence future purchases.

Here are a few top review email examples encouraging customers to share their experiences on social media.

1. Handy

2. Cocunat

3. J.Crew

6. Get interactive with embedded surveys

A successful email is one that stands out, and you can apply the same to product review emails. In fact, some brilliant review email examples include a variety of different elements to surprise and engage their readers.

Embedded surveys not only offer that element of variety but also make it easier for your audience to leave reviews. If they can do it directly in the email, there’s a higher chance your review request email will have positive results.

When looking at the subject line, be sure to imply a survey is inside the email or that something is waiting inside.

You can go elaborate and colorful with your review request, or you can keep it plain and simple, like Mistobox here:

7. Make it easier with emojis

Another way to convey the same information, more or less, is to use emoji reviews, which are short, sweet, and simple.

Some of the best review emails we’ve seen includes a simple three-emoji answer to some version of the question: how did you like our product(s)?

Here’s an example from Book of the Month:

Here, you can see they went with the really simple, straightforward method of focusing only on the product, a simple question and description, and the three emojis.

This can serve as an effective product review email template — that is, if you are interested in only aggregated data from your customers about their experiences.

However, if you want more qualitative and anecdotal information, this product review email template may not be the best choice for your purposes.

Wrap up

The significance of a customer-centric approach is undeniable nowadays, but product review emails are not traditionally known to be customer-centric.

Asking customers about their latest shopping experience with you is a part of the entire customer experience. However, simply asking for feedback is not enough. The messages you send have to be captivating and provide tangible value.

Taking an authentic and creative approach and strategically integrating your product review emails into your post-purchase communication can make these messages work for you to their full potential.