Category ideas for labeling your customer feedback​​​​​​​

3 min read

I ’m going to keep this as simple as possible. If you need help thinking up ways to get started labeling your customer feedback so that you can actually use it, this is for you. I’ve listed some of my favorite ways to label (or tag, or whatever system you use) your clients’ words when you get them. Each group has a different purpose, and depending on your tool for storing them, you can even label them with multiple categories. In fact, I highly recommend it.

The Copy Perspective 

These categories are all about the context or moments of your client’s experience. The purpose of this set is to break down the feedback so that you can identify and pull out when your client was experiencing something specific SO THAT you can use it when writing new content or refreshing content with new social proof.

There is an art to this and it takes time to get the hang of it, but once you get used to it, you’ll see it everywhere.

Bonus Tip: You don’t have to slice and dice every sentence into different categories. You want to leave some context so you can quickly remember what they were talking about. Quotes are pretty easy to separate, but if there are larger sections of feedback, it’s ok if they overlap and appear in multiple places.

Tag Categories:

You don’t have to use all of these, but they should give you an idea of what you are trying to look for. You want to use tags that make sense to you. Also, if you have a copywriter you work with, ask for their input if they’ll be working with this feedback.

Is It Quotable? 

Feedback may not be quotable, but it is still usable to influence your writing and your business. I like to tag my data as #quotable if I’ve received permission to use it, and keep all the clients contact info with it. That way I can quickly sort by what I’m allowed to directly quote and what I can use in other ways, but not quote.

How You Could Use It 

This one is purely practical. If you are just starting out using client feedback, you probably are thinking about just putting your client quotes on a testimonial page, or only on your website.

However, you can (and should) be using your client’s words everywhere you show up online. So labeling quotes or stories that you know you want to try and use in different places, like Instagram, Facebook posts, emails to your list and more, can help you get started.

Once you get used to using your social proof in multiple places, these labels might not be needed, but if it helps you get started branching out, use them.  

Special Tag Groups 

If you have certain systems you follow when writing copy for your business, you can create tags that match those systems specifically and save yourself a lot of work when it’s time to write.

For instance if you have a way to build the pieces in a sales funnel or email series and you are supposed to include certain things, (much like the copy tags above), make tags that exactly match those categories.

A good example of this are the building blocks from Tara Gentile’s recent Creative Live Course: Create a Marketing Plan & Grow Your Standout Business. She outlines a set of building blocks that you can use to build sales pages and basically any marketing content you need to write. So you could create a set of tags that match those building blocks.

Types of Social Proof 

I alluded to this a bit, but there are different types of social proof. Scott Oldford has a great video about 5 types of social proof and how you can use them in your marketing. The ones he mentions that apply here are basically

1. This helped me.
2. YOU are good/cool/trustworthy/worth listening to.
3. Classic testimonial/Case study stories.

You could create a separate tagging group for this, or just incorporate it into the copy group above. 

Other Category Groups to Consider 

• Source of the feedback (Email, facebook comment, facebook message, survey, conversation)
• Product or service it’s referring to (So you can pull up feedback specific to a certain service/product)
• Date it was received (So you can do things like sort for most recent quotes or know when it’s time to follow up again with someone)
• Currently In Use/Not In Use (Just to keep track of what quotes/stories you have currently published)

Getting Started: It’s Supposed To Be Your System 

I hope these ideas are enough to encourage you to give it a shot. You don’t have to create some grand elaborate system. It can be as simple as you need it to be, as long as you actually use it.

Start with a few recent pieces of feedback and one set of labels. As you setup and use your labeling system, you will start to see the possibilities and it will become more clear which labels work for you, and which ones you really don’t need or use.

Reminder: Tag it as you enter it. If you tag it when you get it, you’ll always know that everything in your library of feedback is labeled and ready to go.

Start from where you are. And let me know how it goes!!!