Okendo Quick Start Guide: The Basics to Driving Results Fast with Okendo

Introduction

There’s nothing we love more than seeing the success of our merchants. Ensuring you have the right customer marketing strategy in place is crucial for creating Superfans to drive revenue and accelerate growth.

We know that migrating over from a platform or implementing a new one into your operations can be overwhelming at first. To help equip you with the tools needed to help you get started on Okendo, we created a comprehensive Okendo quick start guide. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the elements and best practices you need to implement to start seeing success with the Okendo platform immediately, and how to expand your program after launch to drive continued growth.

By taking a ‘crawl, walk, run’ approach, you can gradually understand, optimize, and implement Okendo’s features at your own pace and ultimately set yourself up for long-term success on the Okendo platform.

Reviews: The Foundation of Customer Marketing

Online reviews are the lifeblood of ecommerce businesses. They’re the backbone of your online reputation, and a significant deciding factor for potential customers. They’re powerful social proof tools that work to reassure visitors that your brand is trustworthy and reliable.

More than just a marketing tool, customer reviews help improve the customer experience by providing invaluable feedback. In fact, according to Okendo research on ecommerce trust, 95% of customers believe reviews are at least somewhat important when making a purchasing decision. Furthermore, 48% of customers say visible social proof, such as customer reviews and user-generated content, contributes to a shopping experience that exceeds their expectations.

By showcasing reviews on your website, you effectively engage shoppers at the right moments, thereby increasing their purchase confidence. Not only does this build trust, but it also fosters a sense of community among customers, which is invaluable for customer retention and brand loyalty. 

Establishing a review strategy is key to encouraging customer participation. Let’s look at why widget design, attributes, and user-generated content and incentives are the essential features to have in your Okendo review strategy to get up and running quickly to see immediate results. 

Design Your Reviews Widget Fast 

This first important step to setting up your website’s reviews widget only takes about an hour. The reviews widget helps increase conversions and provides shoppers with the information they need to make purchasing decisions. 

Once you open the Okendo app, you’re presented with some basic initial design choices including font style and color palette using the Auto Style feature. At the most basic level, the reviews widget shows star ratings, review content, product attributes, customer information, and any submitted UGC when you start collecting reviews. 

Once you have your basic widget design set up, you can then invest time to optimize the design your widget. Okendo provides seven different widget display templates, each of which can be easily and quickly customized using the Style Editor. 

Using Attributes in Reviews 

An essential component of reviews is customer and product attributes, or data points voluntarily given to brands by customers when submitting a review, that allow brands the ability to learn about individual customers and the details they love or don’t love about your products. 

Attributes also serve as a strong baseline of social proof for prospective shoppers. For example, if you’re an activewear brand, it can be useful to include attributes like a buyer’s height, their usual clothing size, and the clothing size they purchased with their review. This will help shoppers with similar attributes make more confident purchasing decisions.

Okendo customer Born Primitive does this well. They ask customers to provide the activities they perform with the gear, like running, weightlifting, etc. 

As you continue to use Okendo, you can add attributes to your widget, enhancing its functionality and engagement. We have some great attribute recommendations for brands in the Fashion & Apparel, Skincare, Beauty, Accessories, Food & Beverage, and Shoes industries! 

To go a step further, once you start collecting attributes as part of your reviews, the insights gained will be stored in each customer’s profile, which you can then use to send personalized marketing SMS and email communications to your customers. 

Learn how to get started with Attributes.  

Review Capture Form

The Review Capture Form is a pivotal component in the feedback ecosystem. Acting as the main portal for review generation, it’s where customers can submit their reviews to share their experiences, insights, and opinions about your products or services. 

Designing the review capture form to be intuitive and user-friendly is essential. The form should be crafted in a way that encourages and even incentivizes high-impact reviews. If you’re using Okendo, you have the advantage of their default styling, ensuring consistency and alignment with your brand identity. But customization is always an option with features like Auto Styling and Enhanced Style Settings.

Review Generation

Now is the time to reach out to your customers and encourage them to share their experiences. An effective review request strategy ensures consistent and valuable feedback, which can be invaluable for a business. A review request strategy and generation process takes anywhere from 3-8 hours. 

A general rule of thumb is to send out review requests a few days after the order has been completed. This offers customers ample time to try out and form an opinion on the product.

Okendo’s built-in email functionality can be your starting point. Okendo has a built-in email function that you can use to request reviews. As you compose your email request, make sure to request unique customer attributes as part of the review process and clearly communicate any incentives for review completion. Okendo’s email tool gives you a variety of easy-to-design templates in the Style Settings feature that can be customized to suit your brand’s look, feel, and tone. 

It’s not just about sending an email; it’s about crafting a message that resonates. Ensure that you mention the importance of their feedback, highlight any incentives, and guide them on how to leave a review. If your business uses platforms like Klaviyo, Attentive, Postscript, or Omnisend, integrating them with Okendo can further scale your review requests.

Once you’ve built out your review request email function, SMS can be an additional request process to ensure your review requests are as versatile as your customers are.

Next Steps with Reviews 

The Power of User-Generated Content (UGC) and Incentives 

The next step is to leverage incentives to motivate customers to leave a review. This should only add an extra 10 minutes to the review capture form implementation process. Tiered incentives such as coupons or loyalty points that reward richer reviews with photos, can significantly boost review generation. 

There are several reasons why you want to collect detailed reviews with rich UGC. Let’s look at two main ones. 

Second, while reviews without UGC are still valuable, reviews with the UGC such as video or photos show powerful social proof to prospective customers, helping them make purchasing decisions and building trust with your brand. According to Okendo’s ecommerce trust report, 87% of consumers say that UGC included in product reviews improves their value in informing their purchase decision.

Surveys: Capture Customer Data and Improve Experiences

The voice of the customer is critical to any brand’s growth and success. Surveys provide an effective way of capturing this voice directly from the source.

In a digital landscape where personal interactions are limited, surveys bridge the gap, enabling brands to gain valuable insights into customer preferences, behaviors, and pain points. Moreover, with privacy a major concern for 69% of consumers, collecting zero-party data (ZPD) through surveys can empower brands to enhance trust and fine-tune their product offerings, improve experiences, and tailor marketing strategies to precisely match customer expectations. 

By optimizing your survey strategy, brands can foster loyalty, trust, and engagement among shoppers, leading to improved customer satisfaction, higher retention rates, and a distinct competitive edge in the dynamic online marketplace. Importantly, this is also all while meeting consumers’ standards for data privacy. 

Here are the most basic and important surveys brands can set up to collect detailed zero-party data and track the performance of their marketing efforts. 

HDYHAU Surveys

You no longer need to guess what channels to focus your marketing efforts on. HDYHAU (How Did You Hear About Us) surveys are crucial for attribution marketing. Setting up and distributing HDYHAU surveys can be achieved within minutes, providing a simple means to identify the channels driving the most traffic and engagement.

These surveys can shed light on where your customers are finding you, including online and offline channels that may be hard to track, enabling you to adjust your marketing spend accordingly for higher return on ad spend. This valuable data can aid in determining the most profitable marketing channels and understanding the customer journey, which is key to optimizing your marketing strategies.

NPS Surveys

Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys are a trusted tool to gauge customer loyalty by determining how likely they are to recommend your store or brand to others.

Creating and distributing NPS surveys can be completed in minutes, and it’s a task that should be prioritized due to the wealth of actionable insights it can provide. By capturing a high-level snapshot of customer sentiment, you can make data-driven changes and track their impact over time.

With NPS surveys in Okendo, you can nurture customers who give you a low score. You can discover why dissatisfied customers are unhappy by following up with specific questions to uncover insights behind the low NPS score and work to turn detractors into Superfans of your brand. 

An example of an Okendo customer is successful with HDYHAU and NPS surveys is Feastables. They gain a deeper understanding of their customers with surveys, discovering that a majority learn about the brand through YouTube and understanding the why behind low NPS scores. 

Okendo offers more than 50 survey templates that already incorporate best practices within them, making it easy to get started with NPS and HDYHAU surveys, as well as other forms of customer feedback.

Learn more about getting started with Surveys. 

Next Steps with Surveys 

As a next step with surveys, you can start asking customers questions to gather valuable zero party data and insights that that can be used immediately to improve and personalize customer experiences. 

Questions to get to know customers better provides brands with an understanding of customers’ purchase intention, preferences, and behaviors to enrich customer profiles. For example, skincare brands can ask about a customer’s skin type, and then provide the customer with personalized product recommendations based on their skin type and other relevant data you collect through reviews, surveys, and quizzes.

Referrals: Leverage Your Most Loyal Customers

Referral marketing is a powerful way to amplify your brand and reach new customers. By letting your most loyal customers do the marketing for you, you can tap into their networks to acquire new customers, amplify your brand, and reduce customer acquisition costs in the process. Additionally, referral marketing can lead to conversion rates that are nearly 4x the average of other channels.

To further speak to the value of referrals, Richard Emanuel, CEO and Co-Founder of Parkfield Commerce says, “Referrals rock as a top-notch sales channel with killer ROI. Every brand should be turning loyal customers into brand ambassadors. Case in point: a swimwear brand raked in $400k in just 6 months. If you’re not into referrals yet, you’re missing out big time!” 

Creating a Referrals Landing Page for Participation at Various Customer Touchpoints 

An easy way to start up your customer referral program is by creating a landing page. 

Timing is an essential element of asking for a referral, so a landing page is useful because it helps you let customers know about your referral program at different points of interactions with your brand. It also gives customers the information they need to understand what your referral program is and how it works. 

You can ask for a referral at a point during post-purchase, post-review, or onsite, for example. 

Asking for Referrals Post-Review 

A smart way to begin generating referrals is by incorporating a referral prompt into the review capture form. By doing this, you can leverage your most loyal customers ( 4 or 5 star reviewers) to get the positive word out about your brand.

Asking for referrals post-review is a good strategy because engagement is at one of its highest points. The customer is already feeling a connection to your brand and taking action with by leaving a positive review, so asking for a referral right after they do so makes the experience easy and seamless for the customer, especially when they are offered an incentive. 

The Importance of Rewards 

Customers today want to feel a connection with brands. Implementing incentives for referring your brand provides customers with a sense of connection, which helps build loyalty and retention. Incentives give the signal to customers that you value their business. The recipient of the referral is also given an incentive to help acquire a new customer. By offering an incentive to both the referrer and recipient, you increase the likelihood of driving more sales. 

Incentives are also an effective strategy for increasing the amount of customers who participate in your referral program. According to Okendo research, 70% of customers said they would be more likely to refer a brand if they received an incentive. 

As a basic step, you can configure referral rewards in Okendo, such as the percentage or dollar amount discount you offer along with a minimum purchase amount. 

Learn more about getting started with Referrals. 

Next Steps with Referrals 

Once you’ve set up the basics, we recommend that you use the Referral landing page URL in your marketing campaigns or email and SMS flows to encourage customers to refer friends or family at all communication touchpoints. 

Investing in marketing campaigns around your referral program is important. The more marketing you can do with your referral program, the more you’ll drive growth and boost revenue. Take advantage of this low-cost acquisition channel once you’ve set up the basics. 

Quizzes: Drive Sales with Personalized Shopping Experiences

Quizzes play a critical role in enhancing the overall customer experience and business growth. They serve as an interactive tool that differentiates the shopping experience from increasing competition by boosting personalization. Quizzes drive customers towards the right product for them, leading to faster purchasing decisions to increase conversions and sales. In fact, research indicates that these types of personalization strategies typically increase revenue by 10-15%.

Additionally, quizzes provide invaluable customer data, adding to customer profiles to contribute to customer lifetime value and retention strategies. In today’s ecommerce landscape, consumers are increasingly demanding a personalized shopping experience. According to loyalty and retention research conducted by Okendo, 58% of consumers say offering a quiz to get to know their individual needs better is a way brands can exceed their expectations.

As Adam Sharon-Zipser, Director of Elephant Room, says, “Quizzes form a strong entry point for customers where product optionality is a potential barrier. The quiz itself helps validate the customer journey and provides a window for the brand to capture true, actionable, and measurable data.” 

Personalize the Shopping Experience with a Quiz 

As a first step to getting started with Quizzes, you can set up an easy one-question and answer quiz on your website. It’s important to think through the questions and answers of your quiz to make sure they help match the customer with the right product. You can start by recommending your most popular product line. 

You want to make sure the question you write captures enough data about the customer to recommend a relevant product based on their specific needs. Some effective questions include: 

• Do you spend most of your time indoors or outdoors?
• What are your health goals? 
• What type of shoes are you looking for?
• What occasion are you shopping for? 

For example, a footwear brand might ask, What activity do you plan on doing while wearing your shoes? Answer options can include, hiking, walking my dog, running, going to work, etc., and then suggest your most popular product that matches the customers’ profile based on the response. 

Learn more about setting up Quizzes here. 

Next Steps with Quizzes 

As you advance with Quizzes, you may wish to add more questions or increase the level of personalization with Okendo’s branching feature. This tool enables you to show different questions based on a customer’s previous response, further enhancing personalization.

You can also add more product lines and SKUs to your recommendations after initial setup. This can be especially helpful if your brand has many SKUs or product variants, so customers who may be new to your store don’t know where to start. 

Another element to consider is implementing rewards for customers who complete a quiz. The benefit? Rewards can be applied to purchases immediately, which helps drive more sales for your store.

Loyalty: Build Your Dream Loyalty Program

Loyalty programs are a powerful tool for maximizing customer lifetime value, increasing customer engagement, and driving revenue. Okendo Loyalty makes it easy to build your dream loyalty program by combining deep customization capabilities with an ultra-intuitive interface. According to recent loyalty research by Okendo, 77% of consumers stated they are more likely to remain loyal to a brand long-term if it offers a compelling loyalty program.

Loyalty programs provide your brand with a strategy to engage your Superfans, or highly engaged brand advocates, by rewarding them when they make a purchase or engage in activities that promote your brand. These can be actions like leaving a review, referring your brand to friends or family, or following your brand on social media. Loyalty programs also strengthen relationships with customers, so you can create a dedicated community of Superfans.

Get Started Configuring Rewards for Customers with Loyalty

As a first step with Loyalty, configure the earn and redemption rules. Okendo makes it easy for brands to give customers flexibility in how they earn rewards.

Loyalty program rewards to initially set up include:

• Joining the Program: Customers can earn rewards by signing up to be a member of the loyalty program.
• Place an Order: Customers can earn rewards based on every dollar they spend.
• Write a Review: Reward your loyal customers for leaving a review. To show your appreciation to customers further, give them extra rewards for leaving user-generated content such as photos and video.
• Like and/or Share on Facebook: Your customers who are part of the loyalty program can earn rewards by liking and/or sharing your brand’s Facebook page through the Loyalty Page or Floating Widget.
• Follow on Instagram: Customers can also earn rewards by following your brand on Instagram through the Loyalty Page or Floating Widget.

Naming Your Loyalty Program

As you continue with Loyalty, easily name your program and your loyalty program rewards. You can create a unique program name that resonates with your customers and matches your brand. For inspiration, Luna Bronze named their program, the Bronze Squad.

For rewards, many brands call their rewards points, but you can get creative here. The elite streetwear brand Jordan Craig calls their points “clout.”

Next Steps with Loyalty

To continue building your loyalty program in Okendo, an optional but important step is to create and configure VIP tiers, which increases the level of engagement among customers. According to loyalty program research by Okendo, VIP tiers for additional benefits are considered at least somewhat important by 74% of consumers. Just like naming the program and naming rewards, you can also creatively name your VIP tiers in a way that resonates with your unique customer base.

In addition, you may want to further customize earning rules, such as following your brand on Twitter or referring a friend or family member. To take relationships with your Superfans to the next step, think about giving them a meaningful reward on their birthday as part of your loyalty program rewards strategy.

Learn more about setting up Loyalty here.

Conclusion

Starting with Okendo doesn’t have to be daunting or time-consuming. Using this guide, you can know what functionalities of Okendo to set up within a day. As you familiarize yourself with the platform, you can customize and optimize the system to align better with your brand identity and marketing goals. A ‘crawl, walk, run’ approach allows you to adapt to Okendo’s features at your own pace, ensuring a smooth transition and ultimately, long-term success in your marketing efforts.

Remember, Okendo is a comprehensive tool for understanding and connecting with your customers. By utilizing Reviews, Surveys, Referrals, and Quizzes, you can build a strong online presence and drive your brand’s growth. Dive in and get started with Okendo today!