The Power of Reviews - Part 2 with Crossmark’s Stephen G. Koven

The CPG Guys

The CPG Guys Sri & PVSB are joined in this 2 part episode by digital experience maven Steven G. Koven VP of Omnichannel & eCommerce at Crossmark. Most recently, Stephen was VP of Digital Experience at Hormel Foods and had previously worked at Henkel and The Clorox Company.
Stephen speaks to how brands can leverage user-generated content like product ratings & reviews up and don the marketing funnel to drive commercial success.
Questions Stephen addresses:

1. It’s been my experience reading reviews on sites like Amazon, that many reviews are 1 or two words. How can you go about generating more meaningful reviews?
2. It seems many brands are deathly afraid of negative reviews? Should they be? How
   should brands consider dealing with this feedback? Also, what should they NOT do?
3. How should brands consider maintaining their UGC program? What things should they be considering in ensuring it delivers sales results?
4. In my prior life as an eCommerce leader, the way I would make sense of all the UGC on my site and on retail sites was to hire a bunch of summer interns, give them some PCs, put them in a conference room, tell them to read reviews and come back at the end of the summer with a presentation. Clearly, this is neither scalable nor objective. What
   should brands be doing in 2021 to learn from UGC on their products and their competitor’s products?
5. There is this concept called syndication. What does that mean, why is it important to
   brands?
6. What is going on in the industry about monetization of syndication? Is this good for retailers, brands and consumers?
7. What about Q&A? Should brands offer Q&A on their sites? How should they build a plan
   to respond on retailer sites?
8. What is the importance of visual content? Are there some ways to promote collection?
   

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