How Many Reviews Should You Have?

If you have a review site and are reviewing, for example, various guitar courses, how many courses should you review?

I don’t know exactly. Some review only three courses, some as many as ten.? Ultimately you should test it and see what number results in the highest revenue.

Let me share some interesting research with you that might lead you in the right direction though.

In his book, Yes! 50 Scientific Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, Dr. Robert Cialdini (along with authors Noah Goldstein and Steve Martin) discusses the issue of how many selections to offer consumers.

One example involves a manufacturer of jams. The researchers setup two displays, one with only twenty-four flavors and one with only six flavors. The results blew me away!

Only 3% of the customers who saw the twenty-four flavor display bought, while 30% who saw the six flavor display bought.

Now think about this. The smaller display had a 4 times lower chance of having someone’s favorite flavor. The smaller one had no novelty flavors. And yet sales were 10 times higher!

Why? Their theory and mine is that having to differentiate between too many options makes the decision-making process far too frustrating. Reading through review after review, clicking on site after site, and trying to decide between so many courses often results in the potential customer giving up on the entire process.

So how many reviews should you have? I still don’t know the answer, but I would bet it’s not over five for sure. So start testing the different numbers and see what works best for you!