How to make effective product recommendations | 7 top tactics for promoting products, ranges, and services

Are you struggling to effectively recommend your products and services to your target audience? We’ve got 7 actionable tactics you can start using today to turn that around.

Effective product recommendations are one of the biggest weapons in any business’s arsenal when it comes to converting prospects into paying customers.

Whether it’s through a staff recommendation carrying every gram of the expert knowledge behind it to deliver maximum impact, or a perfectly optimised website with compelling product descriptions that practically talk your wares into customer baskets, read on for our top tactics to make more product recommendations.

1. Ensure your product descriptions are easy to navigate and not lacking in detail

Good product descriptions must do 2 things: first and foremost, they need to tell a story that addresses the target customer’s pain point or aspiration in a concise but compelling way, and secondly, they need to provide concrete information that allows your customer to contextualise your product’s point of difference with your competitor.

On that first “must do,” your starting point is to consider if the product you’re recommending is something that’s solving a problem, or fulfilling an aspiration. For example, if you’re recommending the latest hot piece of tech, such as a top of the range, spare no expense GPS sports watch, you’re recommending something that fulfils an aspiration, and as such you’re selling a lifestyle.

If you’re selling medical equipment or a piece of DIY kit, you’re solving a problem. Then, you then want to think of your product description not as an arbitrary account of product X, but as a short story based on a plausible reality product X could provide.

Whether they’re integrated into the story or not, you’ll also need to provide comprehensive information about features and specifications in a concise and easy to scan way that either shows you’re competitive within the market, or the clear market leader. Some customers will be more swayed by the story, some customers who are more informed will go straight to your table of specifications or bullet points relaying key features – neither facet can be ignored.

2. Integrate user reviews into your product and service pages

User reviews are social proof, and integrating them within your product pages, and making it easy and obvious for customers to leave their own reviews, can be the magic touch when it comes to converting customers through your eCommerce store.

By integrating user reviews, both aggregated on product listings, and with the opportunity to view individual user reviews when users are viewing product pages, you’re making sure that the social proof is as close to the “Add to basket” button as possible. If a user review happens to answer a concern or highlight a positive the user hadn’t considered, that could be the difference between converting them there and then, or them going away to do their own research on other forums, then potentially buying from a competitor.

Pro tip: In a store, sales people are always looking to convert the customer in a single visit (or as few visits as possible), because once the customer is out the door, there’s no telling whether or not they’ll actually come back.

While product and service pages on eComm sites don’t have the same opportunity cost associated with them, the principle of converting customers in as few visits as possible should always be aspired to. If they’re getting all they need to make their decision from your site, you’re minimising the risk of contributing to a competitor’s bottom line.

3. Gamify recommendations to bridge the gap between customer needs and relevant solutions

Thoughtfully used gamification can be a great way to recommend products, ranges, or even services, and it can be put to use in store as well as on your websites.

For example, customising a Product Recommendation Quiz allows you to essentially create a digital sales person. Let’s say you have a new product range full of items that all fundamentally serve the same purpose, but are differentiated in such a way as to appeal to different customers – it could be speakers that offer varying max volumes, connectivity, price tags, and levels of portability. You would construct a series of questions, such as ones an A-star salesperson would ask, and then have the multiple choice answers ultimately recommend the most appropriate product in the range.

Pro tip: While this gamification example is particularly at home on eCommerce sites and as part of social media promotions, you could also generate a QR code with a link to the game, and put it in your store, with a caption saying, “Not sure which one’s right for you? Scan here.” Then, at particularly busy times, if all your staff are busy, or if a customer is slightly shy and isn’t feeling social, the Product Recommendation Quiz is there to take over.

4. Create landing pages that highlight and promote specific product ranges along with tailored content marketing

Developing dedicated landing pages for priority product ranges or collections is a great way to make customer recommendations, particularly if you carry a lot of different ranges, like an online clothing store or a bookstore.

Curating and showcasing these products and product ranges is a great start, but including purpose-made content marketing on these pages makes it far more purposeful. If you work in a specialty area and are able to create blogs, podcasts, or even video walkthroughs, you can really grab visitor attention and “show” the selling points of the ranges you’re trying to recommend.

Pro tip: If you do make videos to further recommend a product, you can include them on intermediate screens in your Product Recommendation Quizzes, or as CTA links on results pages.

5. Outsource product recommendations by partnering with appropriate influencers

Forget about silly dances on TikTok and doom-scrolling through reels of cats being evil, social media influencers who operate within your industry will not only be switched on and knowledgeable, but will have cultivated (and qualified) a following that you could massively benefit from piggy-backing off of.

The kind of social media influencer who can be partnered with typically trades on their knowledge, their authenticity, and their story. They’re not Nike selling the swoosh, or Adidas selling the 3 stripes, their independent operators giving their (typically) honest feedback on something, and probably also helping their following out with tips or tricks relevant to their field too.

An influencer with a big reach who aligns with your brand can be a great way to get your products and ranges recommended to a qualified and motivated audience.

6. Place complementary products next to each other on your eCommerce pages and merchandise them side by side in your bricks-and-mortar stores

Peanut butter, meet jelly…

Sometimes referred to as perfect partners or complementary goods, the act of merchandising one product next to something it goes well with isn’t a particularly new one, but it is an easy tactic that can work for any business.

Merchandise hats next to gloves, socks next to shoes, complimentary tech products that all connect to the same app-based ecosystem, or phones and tablets that carry the same proprietary connections. You should also look to arrange your eCommerce store in a way that presents browsers on specific product pages with a “People also bought” section.

This not only recommends potentially useful products, but can improve your average basket.

7. Invest in educating and converting customer-facing staff

When it comes to bricks and mortar stores, particularly in specialist environments, who still makes the product recommendations that count?

It’s the customer-facing staff.

If the sales of the products you manufacture depend on in-store colleagues getting behind your brand and recommending your product, you need to capture their hearts and minds.

Investing in colleague discounts, training courses, and having brand reps allows you to educate and convert the customer-facing staff members, and if they’re not only singing your praises, but can adequately explain your product’s point of difference to the end customer, those can be highly effective recommendations.

Pro tip: Multi-level, gamified training courses can be a highly effective way to educate customer-facing staff, both at your own company-owned stores if you’re the retailer, or distributed to independent stores if you’re the manufacturer or supplier.

Immersive, gamified experiences that build on a user’s understanding and knowledge level after level are a great way to build up their grasp of your concept, and by making them fun and interactive, they’re far more likely to absorb the information than if presented with an after hours presentation by a product rep. The better staff understand your products, the more effectively they can connect your products to customer pain points and aspirations, and make effective recommendations.

Key takeaways

Effective product recommendations and promotions are crucial to making sales. You can’t just suggest a product, or posit an idea, you need to be demonstrative, and connect a customer’s aspiration or pain point to the service or the product that you sell.

Effective promotions and recommendations ultimately result in conversions, and the key to mastering it involves a combination of compelling storytelling, providing market context, and generally minimising a prospect’s need to go or look anywhere else.