How to Make Sure Reviewers Know What to Look For.

It’s up to you to ensure that reviewers notice your product’s outstanding features. If you don’t point them out, you’re leaving it to chance that the reviewer will find these features. Obviously, it’s much more effective to take matters into your own hands. To be sure the new and outstanding features are covered, you’ll want to provide “Reviewer’s Guidelines.” This is a one-page tip sheet filled with product highlights and comparisons to competing products.

Let’s assume you want to promote a product whose benefits are not easily seen. For instance, let’s pretend you are publicizing a watch that takes a person’s pulse, compares it to the person’s target heart rate and sounds a “beep” if the person’s rate is above or below their target range. You send reporters the watch. They look at it and see it is a watch. They don’t know that it can do all these other great things that can help a person exercise safely and effectively, so you have to tell them.

Your guidelines can be incorporated into a letter to convey a friendly, business-like tone, or you can create a separate one-page tip sheet titled “Reviewer’s Guidelines” to present the same information. In addition to product highlights, these tip sheets may also include comparisons to competing products.

Another format is the storyboard. As shown in the example that follows, The Learning Company uses this approach to get the point across quickly and colorfully for their Super Solvers Midnight Rescue.

Note For Software Publishers:

Another format is the guided tour. (Like this system.) This is a demo with step-by-step instructions, complete with keystrokes, diagrams, sample data and screen shots. It will take time to produce this road map, but it is worthwhile because the reviewer will see the highlighted features.