One of the questions that I get asked the most is
how people can receive free products for review.
Really, anyone that
has a blog can move into the product review niche. I just wanted to
share some things that I wish someone had shared with me when I began
receiving products for review and some ins and outs of the product
review niche. Of course, folks that focus solely on product
reviews may have some stellar advice that I can’t offer you here, but I
will certainly try my best.
Start reviewing what you have.
If you have not done any product reviews before, one great way to begin
venturing into the world of reviews is just reviewing the items you
already have in your possession. Look around at the things in your home
and review the items that you would hope to receive for your blog. Want
to review the latest drugstore products? Start a blog by reviewing what
you use in the morning to get ready. Want to own the latest technology
gadgets? Start with the laptop you are working on. Of course, you want your niche to fit well with your site so try picking products that would interest your readers. As
a family blogger, our readers are interested in the latest toys and
tools to make their days easier & more productive. I started by
sharing tools that I used to clean my home, not intending to ever
receive products from companies. Many companies saw my comments about
their own particular products and my experiences with them, and I would
begin receiving requests to send me products. That is truly how all of this started for me, just writing about my experience with items in my home.
Put together a set of terms for review.When companies contact you
to review one of their items, be sure to have a standard procedure for
reviews. Here are some examples of procedures you could use:
- It is a requirement by our company that we be able to keep the product that we are reviewing.
- It is requested that we be able to offer one of your products to our readers in a giveaway.
- We require a fee from your company in order to do a review.
- We request that you provide a discount code for orders that can be placed online.
- We request items that fit with our readers. We are a _____ site that
caters to _____. Please make sure your product matches the efforts on
our site.
Make sure that your terms are very clear and that the company understands what is required of them. These
terms can be made visible on your website or you can just have a
document ready to go and email the companies that you are interested in
working with.
Streamline your product review process as much as you can. Now
that you are receiving requests for products, what are some ways that
you can streamline the process? My suggestions truly come from trial and
error through my past experiences with companies.
- Set up a seperate email address for your product reviews so you can keep track of what is coming to you. If
it is set up in a different email address, set up an automated response
that lets the company know that their request has been received. At
this time, it is also appropriate to say, “We receive many requests for
products and will try to respond to you in a timely manner. If you would
like your product to be immediately seen I would like to provide our
advertising rates.” This will give the company an option to pay you for
prompt attention and lets them know that you have received their request
without them hounding you repeatedly through emails.
- Word your mailing address so you know if you requested the product or not.
I won’t give away my secret, but I have a very separate wording for
products that I request. There have been weeks where we receive product
after product and I can’t remember what I requested and what I did not
request. Establishing a specific mailing address that lets you know it
is an item you genuinely wanted to try will help you when multiple
mailings start coming in.
- If you are doing a giveaway with a company, request that they mail the product directly to the winner.
Trust me, it is so much hassle to have the product shipped to you and
then reshipping it to the winner. It is expensive, not timely at all,
and one extra step that you don’t want to be dealing with.
- Keep track of that paperwork.
Keeping the winner(s) information in a file along with the PR contact
who handled the giveaway will be of great help to you if there should be
a snafu with getting shipment to the winner. Hang on to this
information for awhile because I have had errors occur months down the
road. At this point, it can be time-consuming trying to hunt down that
person who forgot to mail shipment to my winners.
Decide how you will handle products that you don’t like.
Of the twenty requests or so we receive each week, we only pick one or
two items for the review site because I try to pick things that we would
actually enjoy reviewing. Because of this very reason, you won’t see a
lot of negative reviews on our site because it is products we really
know we will love. There have been the occasional bad products though
and we try to review those honestly. There are times though where I have
chosen to not do a review and emailed the company privately instead.
One company in particular sent me a giant box of their cleaning products
that caused me to go into a fit of asthma when I tried them. Rather
than bash them publicly, I sent them an email and said, “I am sorry, but
these products did not work for me. The scent in them was too strong
and caused me to have an asthmatic reaction. I am happy to review them,
but wanted your company to be aware.” Instead of posting a review, they
took my feedback privately and forwarded it to the team who developed
the products with the recommendations that they come out with an
unscented line.”
Don’t forget to stay true to yourself & your site.
It can be easy to get caught up in all of the loot, but you need to
remain true to your readers and the intentions of your site. Our website
is family-focused and shopping for family needs fit with our site.
Shopping did not fit with a frugal blog though so that is why we chose
to move the reviews to its own separate section of the site. If you are
conflicted on if it is a good move or not, try to be more heavy with the
giveaways rather than the reviews themselves. Nothing makes a reader
happier than that email from you letting them know that they won
something on your site. It keeps people returning to your review blog if
you are sharing the products with others.
Another way that
you can stay true to your mission is by donating the items to charity or
participating in charitable drives in your community with the items you
have received. I am working on a big donation to our local
shelter and am so thrilled to be able to pass on some of these wonderful
products to others. The items that reflect
our mission and goals will be reviewed, but the majority will be donated
or given back to our readers. I feel lucky to be able to give in ways
that I could not necessarily do on my own and I hope that others can
benefit from our relationships with these companies as much as we have.
test and I absolutely love it. I am a mom and I spend a lot of time on the computer for school and my blogs so this wrap is amazing at relaxing the muscles in my neck and shoulders. It doesn't sweat and is totally reusable. I would highly recommend it to men and women.
