Online reviews can impact your reputation and eventually your whole business.
That’s a fact. Want proof?
According to research, a massive 80% of consumers can change their purchase decision after reading a negative review online. (more…)
Word of mouth is still a very powerful marketing tool, which has now modernized itself in the online world as online customer reviews.
Online reviews left by consumers who have done business with you are just as influential as a personal recommendations from a friend or family member, especially when they are detailed and specific to their experience. Your prospects are actively researching these reviews about you.
To quote a study performed by Bright Local:
“88% of buyers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations.”
People are giving a HUGE amount of trust to each other when it comes to deciding who to do business with and what purchases to make. The thought process behind it is, “If this guy on Yelp had the worst Rum & Coke ever, maybe I will too.” Most people are not willing to take a chance on the business to have a different experience. They scan online reviews assuming they will have a very similar experience.
Here is a restaurant, Smith’s Bar & Restaurant in New York City, that was actually able to make light of a bad review and use it to their advantage. We thought it was clever and funny, and it’s obvious that this restaurant stands behind their products.
Source: http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/smiths-bar-and-restaurant-new-york#daLjVjSyNDL2ern1aG3PPQ
Looking into other very credible sources, we find more evidence that online reviews should no longer be ignored.
According to Bill Tancer, New York Times Bestselling Author, “more than 80 percent of consumers check online reviews before making purchase decisions.”
During his research, spanning more than a decade, Tancer has studied how consumers interact with over one million websites to determine their behavior patterns.
From that research, it has been shown that online reviews play an undeniable role in a consumer’s purchasing decisions. If local businesses are not giving proper attention to review sites and local directory sites, they are missing out on a huge, untapped opportunity to build and promote their reputation as well as gain more customers.
As stated on Marketing Land:
“No other social media channel is as influential as online reviews.” – Bill Tancer
The reason many local businesses aren’t putting their efforts into marketing themselves on review sites and local directory sites is because, to them, it seems out of their control.
“If a customer of mine leaves a review of my business, good or bad,” a business owner wonders, “what can I really do about it?”
Managing your customer’s feedback may seem nearly impossible to do since not all review sites allow the business owner to interact and reply to each reviewer.
Maybe business owners are afraid of the kind of feedback they’d receive if they put themselves out there to be reviewed, especially when they feel like they can’t do anything about it.
If that were really the case, I could totally understand their hesitation. Thankfully, there are some strategies available to provide assurance and allow for better interaction when it comes to your customers’ online reviews.
According to Tancer, “The biggest mistake most brands make is to not engage with online reviews.”
The second mistake would be not treating the online customer the same way would you in a face-to-face interaction. If a customer came up to you in person to complain about your business, you surely wouldn’t walk away and ignore him, so why do it online?
We couldn’t agree with him more.
If you are ready to find out how you can take control of your online reviews and use them as a powerful marketing tool, then I suggest you click the link below to schedule a no-cost 15-minute call with me. I am happy to discuss the options available to build your reputation, engage with your reviewers, and skyrocket your online reputation to new heights.
In the past, before company reviews and reputations were so visible, a good marketing strategy might have been to market the business using SEO, pay per click, social media, branded websites, TV and radio spots, and other similar marketing channels. Then, we would help them to build a five-star reputation. That no longer works. In fact, any company that still employs this methodology is certain to have a significantly diminished return on their marketing investment. This much I can almost guarantee.
Myles Anderson, the founder and CEO of BrightLocal stated that “79% of buyers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations.” This was an increase from 72% in the 2012 survey, so it is obvious to see where the trend is going. This type of data provides indisputable evidence with regards to the growing influence and importance that online reviews are having on consumer attitudes and ultimately whether or not they purchase from you.
In a survey done last year, DemandForce found that most consumers look at up to 10 reviews when researching the company before they make a decision to do business with them. Even more important, they found that 70% of consumers trust a business with a minimum of 6 to 10 reviews. That means if your business does not have at least 6 to 10 five-star reviews, that prospect will most likely go to your competitor who does. Without the proper reputation marketing strategy, including a sufficient number of five-star reviews, you are giving up your bottom line profits to your competitors and you are most likely not even aware of it.
It is imperative that the first critical step of any marketing strategy is to develop a 5 star reputation. That is what your prospects will see mixed in with the search results when they research your name or the name of your business. It is not possible to delete negative reviews and I would not trust any company that claims they can do so. However, by encouraging your customers, clients, and/or patients to post their five-star reviews as a result of the quality service you have provided, those negative reviews can either be pushed further down on the page or to a 2nd or 3rd page where your prospects are less likely to see them. It is also likely that the negative review(s) will be so outnumbered by 5 star reviews that they lose their damaging powers and people may view them as isolated incidents and still choose to do business with you.
The process begins with developing and promoting a reputation marketing culture within your organization so that each of your staff members fully understands the importance of delivering first-class service and the vital role that five-star reviews play in the continued success of the organization.
The next step is to actively solicit reviews from all of your current and former customer/client base. A variety of online and off-line channels should be utilized to maximize the effectiveness and capture the most amount of reviews. The easier you make it for your customers to leave reviews, the more likely they are to do it. It is important to have specific workflows, processes and strategies in place to accomplish this. After these elements have been set up, reputation management can be implemented to monitor, engage, and report the activities related to the other phases of the strategy.
The real magic comes into play by actively and aggressively marketing your 5 star reputation by utilizing a strategic mix of online and off-line marketing channels. The proprietary system and processes we utilize are able to accomplish that for our clients.
With thousands of new websites coming online every day it is becoming increasingly difficult to rank well in the search engines, which has driven up the cost of SEO and other similar strategies. The bid prices of pay per click (PPC) advertising has increased significantly because of the number of competitors trying to get their marketing message in front of their prospects. You are already investing marketing dollars on SEO, pay per click ads, social media marketing, print ads or other off-line promotions because you want your prospects to learn more about you. Doesn’t it make sense to squeeze every penny of profit out of those campaigns by making sure when you are driving visitor traffic from your marketing channels, those prospects view your company as the market leader and the one they should do business with? That can only be accomplished by developing a reputation marketing culture within your organization, actively engaging your customers to get five-star reviews, and marketing those reviews online for maximum effectiveness. There is no shortcut.
There are 2 other significant benefits of attaining and marketing a five-star review online that some business owners don’t even consider. The first of these is a pricing advantage. People inherently expect to pay more for five-star products and services so you should be able to charge more than your competitors with little or no reduction in the amount of customers. You can leverage that five-star reputation to brand yourself as the market leader and let your prospects know they can expect first-class service and great value for the money they spend with you. Another hidden benefit of having a five-star reputation relates to search engine optimization (SEO). A business that has a very strong reputation online is considered more of an authority in the eyes of the search engines, especially Google. This alone can boost your organic search rankings for that website. The number of citations (mentions about your business, especially in a positive light) can also have a positive influence on your search engine rankings.
Want to discover how to create and market your 5-star reputation and become THE business choose first for your products and services? Click the link below to schedule a FREE 15 minute phone consultation and learn how our proven strategies can out you WAY ahead of your competition! Schedule now.
In a very enlightening TED presentation, Rachel Botsman stated that “The currency of the new economy is trust”, and I could not agree with her more. The online transparency of your business’s reputation is now easily visible. Therefore it is more important than ever to not only minimize the occurrence of poor customer service, but also consistently strive to deliver a first-class customer experience and actively solicit reviews from those customers, clients, and/or patients to enhance your online credibility and reputation.
A study done by Nielsen Media (Global Trust and Advertising Survey) revealed that 70% of the people polled trusted consumer opinions posted online. This is the 2nd highest level of trust just under recommendations from people they know, at 92%. ALL other forms of advertising such as editorial content in newspapers, branded websites, ads on TV, and others fall way below that. This means your prospects are likely to check your online reputation before they even consider doing business with you. In fact, a recent study done by Real Strategic Inc. found that 87% of the respondents searched online to find information about a company EVEN if they were referred to it by a friend or family member. With Google now including your reviews and reputation score right along with the organic listings, your online reputation is naked for the world to see.
One of our newest clients shared an experience with me that he recently had, which reinforces the statistics shown above. He had just run a 60-second TV spot that aired during the 12 o’clock news segment. This was obviously not a cheap commercial and it produced a moderate number of phone calls. One particular viewer called and scheduled an appointment upon seeing the commercial, and the very next day called back to cancel that appointment because she found an unfavorable review online. Even though there were other positive reviews, the negative one is what she read, which prompted her to cancel her appointment and visit a competitor for the service she was seeking. This client is in the medical field and his patient value is over $2000 so you can see how critical reputation is.
I can virtually guarantee there were other potential patients who viewed that same commercial and also researched the business online. They may also have seen that unfavorable review and decided to not even pick up the phone in the first place. These scenarios could obviously determine whether that particular campaign even produced a positive return and the client was not even aware of it.
Researchers at University of California, Berkeley published their results of a study conducted to analyze how a restaurant’s Yelp rating would affect the nightly reservations. It was determined that just a slight improvement of one half star could increase the amount of business a restaurant does during peak hours by 19%. How would you like to increase your bottom line by 19% by doing nothing other than increasing your online reputation?
Unless you have been off the grid for the past year or more, you have probably noticed the explosive growth of online reviews and reputation scores. Google now includes the company’s reviews and/or ratings right along with the organic search results. They also appear in the maps listings as well as any pay per click ads. If that wasn’t obvious enough, you have probably noticed that the coveted first page of Google now contains numerous results from third-party review sites like Yelp, Trip Advisor, Insider Pages, Yahoo Local, and many others. One of Google’s core philosophies is to deliver the best possible end-user experience and there’s no better way to do that than making it easy and obvious for consumers to see which companies will most likely provide that level of service.
Barry Craft is the founder and CEO of Your Marketing Crew, LLC and has been providing graphic design, web design and Internet marketing services to clients since 1998. To get access to your FREE Reputation Analysis Report, please visit www.YourReputationReporter.com or call us at 727-210-5046.
Do you know what people are saying about you and your business online? I mean, do you REALLY know? The answer might surprise you. Many of the businesses I consult with are shocked when I show them some of the less than favorable comments and reviews about their business. They simply had no idea. This is a common situation that stems from the fact that small business owners usually do not have the time, expertise, or desire to research and analyze this type of data. Additionally, they may think they have a very good reputation, and in general that may be true, so they are not looking for bad reviews or comments.
The problem with that mindset is that your receptionist, sales rep, or anyone else in your office might have been having a bad day or a bad week and could have delivered less than a first-class experience to your clients or customers. Even 1 or 2 bad reviews can seriously undermine any of your marketing efforts and drive your potential customers away from your business, and over to your competitors. The really scary part is, you may not even know about those reviews.
Many small business owners do not even think of looking online for bad reviews because in their mind they always provide first-class service to their customers. Usually the only time they become aware of a bad review is if one of their prospects or customers calls it to their attention, like the incident that happened recently with a new client of mine.
Further complicating the entire research and monitoring process is the fact that directory sites frequently aggregate results from other directory sites. So a bad review can self-perpetuate across the entire web, silently robbing you of profits without your knowledge. Is this how you want to be rewarded for all the years of sacrifice and dedication you have invested to build a good name for yourself? I hardly think so.
If you would like a FREE Reputation Analysis Report, you can click here for instant access.
In today’s ever-changing online world, marketing strategies often reach a point where they no longer produce the results they once did, calling for new strategies to emerge. For the past few years, many small business owners have utilized reputation management services to monitor their brand and track comments or feedback related to their business, in an attempt to mitigate the effects of negative posts and reviews. The inherent flaw with most of these types of services stems from the fact that when somebody is posting a review on a site such as Yelp or Google+, they do not normally mention the name of the company or the CEO because they are already on that company’s page. Therefore, many of these reviews will go unnoticed. This is especially detrimental if the review is unfavorable, whereby if the owner had addressed the customer’s concern in a prompt fashion, it could have been reversed. It is no longer effective for a business to simply “manage” their online reputation, since it is really a defensive position. More importantly, you don’t make money by managing. You make money by marketing.
According to Wikipedia, “The reputation marketing field has evolved from the marriage of the fields of reputation management and brand marketing.” Reputation management is certainly a vital component of an effective reputation marketing strategy, but there are several other considerations. These would include other vital strategies such as developing a reputation marketing culture within your organization, having systems and a process in place for delivering first-class service and soliciting reviews, and most importantly strategically marketing those reviews on a multitude of online and off-line channels. We will be covering this topic in more detail in an upcoming article in this series, so make sure you follow us to receive this vital information as soon as it is released.
Barry Craft is the founder and CEO of Your Marketing Crew, LLC and has been providing graphic design, web design and Internet marketing services to clients since 1998. To get access to your FREE Reputation Analysis Report, please visit www.YourReputationReporter.com or call us at 727-210-5046.
