How to mine your customer reviews for marketing gold

My favorite show of all time is always a back and forth battle between Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

I tend to lean toward Breaking Bad because of the characters and the action but Better Call Saul is an absolute masterclass of slow-burn perfection.

My favorite scene in BCS is when Saul is working at the mobile phone store.

No one is coming in to buy the phones.

He’s absolutely bored out of his mind.

That is, until he has a chance conversation with a professional burglar he hires to help him with a side job.

“New job. New phone. You never know who’s listening.”

After hearing that line, Saul has what can only be described as a moment of marketing clarity.

He paints the phrase “Is the man listening? Privacy sold here” across the front windows of the store

Then hits the streets of Albuquerque slinging burner phones and business starts BOOMING.

All because he heard the desires of his market.

Which is a nice segue into this week’s issue.

Buckle up, this is going to be a “get your hands dirty” issue.

Why Great Marketing Always Starts With Real Market Research

It’s easy to get lost in a sea of marketing hacks and apps that promise 10x your results overnight.

But when you strip all of that hype, and you really look at what separates great marketing from average marketing…

It always comes back to one thing:

Understanding your market better than anyone else.

When I worked at two huge marketing agencies, I was shocked at how little real market research actually happened.

Most of the time, I’d hand a copy brief to a writer who maybe spent 10 minutes reading the client’s website.

As a result I’d get back super bland and generic emails.

The client expected a Michelin star meal and we gave them McDonalds.

And now, in the AI Age where anyone can generate polished, surface-level copy in minutes…

it’s painfully obvious when someone hasn’t done the work.

AI is an incredible tool. But it’s not a substitute for getting your hands dirty.

That’s why I always create a Review Goldmine for every client I work with,  and why I still spend about an hour each month digging scrolling inside them.

Because if you want your marketing to connect…you have to go deeper than everyone else is willing to go. 

(Lot’s of mining puns in this issue…)

So today, I’m going to show you exactly how to create your own Review Goldmine. And then give you the exact AI prompts I use to take that Goldmine and make a marketing cheat sheet.

How To Set Up Your Review Gold Mine 

1. Export all your customer reviews.

Export reviews from wherever you collect them: Shopify, Okendo, Yotpo, Trustpilot, wherever. Get it all into a .csv file.

2. Clean up the spreadsheet.

Delete everything you don’t need.

I usually only keep:

• Star ratings
  

• Review title (if available)
  

• Body of the review
  

• Product name
  

• Customer’s name or email (this way we can use the name in a review)
  

3. Add a Passion Score column.

Create a new column with the =len function to count the number of characters in each review.

(Longer reviews usually = stronger emotional reactions.)

BTW - full credit to Daniel Throssell for the name and technique. 

4. Sort reviews by Passion Score.

Sort your sheet from longest to shortest reviews.

5. Read through the reviews.

Next set a timer for 33:33 (copywriting nerds will get this one…) No distractions.

Just read, scroll, and highlight anything that makes you stop.  Emotional stories, vivid language, real struggles.The goal here isn’t to overthink. It’s to immerse yourself in the voice of your customer before you even touch AI.

How to Use AI to Build Your Market Research Cheat Sheet

Now that you have spent real time inside the reviews, let’s get to the moment you have been waiting for…

…or you just scrolled to this part instantly. No judgment. I would do the same.

It is time to invite our AI brethren to the party to help organize and summarize everything hiding inside the raw reviews.

The goal here is simple:

We are building a clean, organized document that pulls out:

 • Core desires and objections

 • Identity and self-image insights

 • Before and after transformations

 • Common phrases and language patterns you can borrow for copy

 • New angles and email ideas you can build campaigns around

Think of it like creating your own shortcut for deep market research.

Something you can use every time you sit down to write an email, an ad, a landing page, or a new offer.

Here is how to do it:

• Take batches of about 100 reviews at a time and run them through AI.

(DO NOT dump  the whole .csv file into ChatGPT. If you try to paste everything at once, you will hit token limits and it will not work.)

• Start with the highest character count reviews first, then work your way down.

• You do not need every single review. Maybe a few hundred good ones is plenty to start.

• After you have dropped your batches into AI (I use ChatGPT), you can start using the prompts.

👋 Stop scrolling. Here are the Prompts. 👋

 PROMPT 1: Desire Deep Dive

Objective: Understand the real reason people are buying this product — not just what they want, but why they want it.

Instructions:

Analyze the review text and identify the underlying desires customers have for trying and continuing to use this product. Go beyond surface-level wants like “I want low-carb bread” and unpack what that actually means in their life.

Use the “so I can” ladder to dig deeper into each desire:

• I want to…
  

• So I can…
  

• So I can…
  

• So I can…
  

This structure helps you dimensionalize the benefit — revealing the emotional or lifestyle reasons behind the desire.

Group similar desires into themes. For each theme:

• Give the full “I want to / so I can…” ladder
  

• Include 3–5 real quotes or examples pulled directly from the reviews
  

⚠️ Important:

• Do not summarize or generalize.
  

• Do not make up examples.
  

• Everything must come directly from the review text — even if the desire is implied, the quote must support it.

 PROMPT 2: Objection and Tradeoff Mapping

Objective: Uncover what hesitations or sacrifices customers had to make and how they overcame them.

Instructions:

Scan the review content and extract any objections, hesitations, or tradeoffs customers mention — either before buying or after trying the product.

For each theme, include:

• What was the objection or hesitation?
  

• What helped overcome it?
  

• What tradeoff were they willing to accept?
  

Group into themes (e.g., “Texture differences”, “Price concerns”, “Shipping issues”).

Include 3–5 direct quotes or examples from the reviews for each theme.

 Only use language directly from the reviews. No made-up insights.

PROMPT 3: Sticky Phrases & Copy Gold

Objective: Find natural, vivid language you can use for headlines, subject lines, ads, or copy.

Instructions:

Go through the reviews and pull out emotionally charged, specific, or memorable phrases.

Organize into these categories:

• Phrases describing the problem (before using the product)
  

• Phrases describing the product 
  

• Phrases describing the result or benefit
  
  

• Phrases reflecting emotional tone or lifestyle change
  

Provide 3–5 examples per category.

 Only include exact language or very close paraphrases. No rewriting.

PROMPT 4: Identity & Self-Image Insights

Objective: Understand who the customer believes they are or wants to become by using this product.

Instructions:

From the review text, extract insights about the customer’s self-perception and aspirational identity.

For each identity theme, include:

• Statements or clues about self-perception (e.g., “I’m a diabetic,” “I’m a sandwich person”)
  

• Aspirational values (discipline, health, freedom, joy, etc.)
  

• Emotional triggers tied to how they want to feel or be seen
  

Include 3–5 examples per identity theme.

⚠️ Only use real quotes or clear references from the text. No assumptions.

PROMPT 5: Before & After Snapshot Generator

Objective: Capture the emotional and practical transformation the product delivers.

Instructions:

Create before vs. after examples based on the review content.

Each example should show:

• The customer’s problem or frustration before using the product
  

• Their experience or benefit after using it
  

• A quote that illustrates the transformation
  

Group examples into themes (e.g., “Missing bread”, “Guilt-free eating”, “Blood sugar control”).

Include 3–5 before-and-after examples.

 Only use real customer experiences. No invention.

 PROMPT 6: Extract Campaign Angles

Objective: Turn your review insights into an endless stream of content ideas.

Instructions:

Based on everything you pulled from the reviews (desires, objections, sticky phrases, before/after stories), extract 10–15 campaign angles you could use for marketing emails, ads, or content.

Each campaign angle should include:

1. A short, punchy headline or hook style phrase
   

2. A sentence or two explaining the insight behind it
   

3. A real quote or detail from the review that inspired it
   

Good campaign angles are:

• Rooted in something real from the reviews
  

• Tied to a core benefit, emotional driver, or transformation
  

• Flexible enough to be used across different frameworks (story, problem/solution, benefit-driven)
  

 Every idea must be tied back to something real customers said or felt.

Well I hope you folks enjoyed yourselves. I’ll catch you later on down the trail.

Got a topic you want me to cook up a recipe for? Drop me an email or a DM.

- Ben

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