The tips below might seem simple but you'd be surprised how many people forget to implement them in their review collection strategy and they can have a MASSIVE IMPACT on your review request conversion rates.

We know its tempting to write a cold mass marketing email but these convert poorly because after all, who wants to read a mass email let alone do you a favor from one?!

Your goal is to make sure your campaign sounds like its coming from a member of your team the user knows and its a real 1-to-1 email from them.

Make sure your verbiage sounds as close to a real email that you would actually send 1-to-1 to each user as possible in your tone, mannerisms and humor to feel more authentic and increase conversion.

HTR provides starting templates for inspiration but these are intended as a starting point to begin customizing to make them look, feel and sound like an email you would actually sit down and write to 1 individual user.

If you're using the automated review manager, your #1 goal is to make the requests you send look as much like a 1-to-1 email request to only that user (not a mass marketing email) to increase conversion.

One easy way to do that is to brand your footer with your company's logo to look like the emails you send from your own email account. Check out some footer examples or Customize Your Own Here

Its super important to make sure that whoever sends your review campaign/review requests has rapport with your users and will be a recognizable name.

The most successful campaigns come from a team member who is recognizable when the client sees their name in their inbox because they are more likely to open the email and engage when its someone they know.

Recommended senders include either: (a) an account representative who has a close relationship with the client or (b) a c-suite executive like the CEO that clients know by name and will feel special receiving an email from them.

Hoteliers are busy just like you so sometimes emails get missed. Vendors who send at least one followup see up to 2x conversion rates. You can setup drip sequences through your own software tools or use the automated review manager to do it for you.

Incentives show appreciation and increase conversion. Use an incentive to motivate and thank clients while also increasing conversion. Remember, your clients are taking time out of their busy day to essentially help you with your marketing. Showing them you appreciate and value their time by offering an incentive is not only respectful, but it can increase campaign conversion by up to 50%! Learn more about giveaways

People procrastinate, we all do it. Adding urgency and a deadline can increase conversion significantly especially when paired with an incentive (ie. "Leave a review before the end of the month and enter to win a gift card").

Remember, review campaigns are essentially email marketing campaigns and you should expect ~10-20% conversion to review so make sure your audience is big enough (ie. if you want 30 reviews make sure you are reaching out to 150-300 users.

The more requests you send, the more reviews you'll get. Since its one review per user, you can send requests to any hotelier on property (or corporate) who is a user of your product.

There are lots of different stats out there on email open rates, delivery and lots of complex variables. Generally speaking we recommending sending campaigns by geography (using the simultaneous campaigns feature) and choosing the date and time that you think your customers will be (a) the least busy and (b) the most willing to take a minute to help (ie. when they aren't at their morning meetings, pass-offs or getting bombarded by guests on peak days/hours).

A good general rule of thumb that we advise is Tuesday or Wednesday morning because Monday is the start of the week and hoteliers who don't work weekends are catching up on emails and pass-ons while Thurs/Friday is usually heavy on arrivals so things are a bit more hectic.

In the review manager prior to sending your campaign sequence, individual request or mass followup you can send yourself a test. That way you'll be able to see exactly what your customers will see so you can ask yourself how likely you'd be to open, click and complete getting that email if you were in their shoes. (NOTE: MAKE SURE TO CHECK YOUR FORMATTING!)

It might not seem necessary if its your first review campaign but once you start reaching out to customers you'll want a way for your team to see who has been reached out to, who has opened/clicked and who has left reviews so nobody on your team accidentally reaches out to them again. You can setup tracking using your own tools or software or the automated review manager has built in tracking.