The profile of the traveler continues to evolve, and one way that is evident is the method in which a person plans a trip. Long gone are the days of calling a travel agent to find you the best deals and to book your rooms, flights, and reservations. Instead of relying on just one expert – the travel agent – vacationers now look to the experts (plural) – a group of peer travelers who are more than willing to share their experiences online. With that, it is extremely important that bed and breakfasts, boutique hotels, and vacation rentals are garnering positive online reviews. The leading site that travelers rely upon is TripAdvisor, and an excellent way to help bolster TripAdvisor reviews is available: Review Express.
A little less than a year old, Review Express is already showing to have a strong impact on increasing TripAdvisor reviews. According to the Providence Journal, more than 47,000 hospitality businesses are seeing tangible results. In addition, Review Express users are seeing a 33 percent bump in reviews, on average.
How Does Review Express Work?
Review Express serves as an email campaign that asks guests to give a review on TripAdvisor, and one of the beautiful aspects of it is that it takes just a few minutes to set up.
- Go to Review Express.
- Enter the name of your property.
- Fill out a brief form, letting TripAdvisor know you are the property owner (or a property representative).
- Begin your campaign!
See how simple that is? And once you are signed up, the ease continues!
The next step is to create your email template. TripAdvisor does a great job giving you a basic template, but it is fully customizable, allowing you to put exactly the right touch on your message. You can select what email address the message is from, the email subject line, the perfect image, the message title, and the message content. From start to finish, your campaign is ready to go in less than 10 minutes.
Once you have created an excellent email campaign, all that is left is to send it to your recent guests. If you have just a few guests you’d like to send it to, then you can quickly enter the email addresses by typing them or copying and pasting them into a field. However, if you want to send your email to many guests, you have the option of uploading your list as a CSV or XLS spreadsheet file.
Still Have a Few Questions?
Who do we send the message to?
We advise that you send the message to people who have recently stayed at your property. The idea is to have them give a 5-Star review while the excellent experience is still fresh in their mind. If they stay over the weekend, the optimal time to send the email would be Monday or Tuesday of the following week when they are most likely to be checking and responding to emails.
Is asking for reviews on TripAdvisor wrong?
While it is not a best practice to incentivize guests for reviewing your property, it is not wrong at all to present guests with the opportunity to review. TripAdvisor clearly states that, “proprietors may encourage guests to submit reviews upon their return home, but should not offer incentives in exchange for reviews … Activity of this nature will negatively affect your TripAdvisor ranking, and may result in a prominent warning message on your listing.”
Is it really this easy?
Yes! You can begin increasing your amount of TripAdvisor reviews with just a few minutes of your time. TripAdvisor ranks on quantity, quality, and recency of reviews. Using Review Express will take care of two of those (quantity and recency), while the property managers and staff members will be responsible for providing a first-class experience (quality).
—
If you’re looking for more information on Review Express, be sure to reach out to the inbound marketing team at Q4Launch. You can do that by scheduling a FREE 30-minute consultation with Matt Bare – owner and founder of Q4Launch.