Reputation Marketing is, in the simplest terms, using your five-star online reputation to influence customers to do business with you. Here you’ll learn how to use customer reviews to market your business.
Got Questions About Your Reputation & Marketing? We’ve Got Answers.
Q. So, how do you get a five-star online reputation?
A. By collecting and promoting stellar online reviews on the websites and networks your customers use to research before making their buying decisions.
Q. And why isn’t it called Customer Review Marketing?
A. Because even though customer reviews are the most visible and sought after confidence signals for prospective buyers, there are other visibility and SEO factors that make up your online reputation as a whole.
Q. Is Reputation Marketing hard or expensive?
A. NO and NO. Customers give their reviews for free, on websites, prospects use for free. You just need a system in place to encourage those reviews and get them out there where your next customers are looking for them. It is without a doubt one of the easiest, cheapest, and effective ways to market your business, service, or product.
Enough with the Q&A. Here are some great articles that will help you learn more so you can be more effective in using customer reviews to market your business:
The Value of your Business Reputation
2017 Reputation Management Checklist – Downloadable PDF with Actionable Links
Reputation Marketing in 5 Steps
Why Customer Reviews are a Game Changer – Here’s the Facts
No salesman, account manager, or marketer is going to be as trusted or persuasive as a real-life customer’s review. After all, your employees are paid to say your business is the BEST choice. Ads are just more money spent telling people “Pick Me!” Everyone knows that so there is a lack of trusts in both your sales team and advertisements.
You know what people do trust? The words of a customer who received nothing for giving their opinion of your business.
Customer Review Facts:
88% of consumers say that they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. – BrightLocal.com
40% of buyers form an opinion of a business after reading just 1-3 reviews. – BrightLocal.com
72% of buyers will take action only after reading a positive review. – BrightLocal.com
Customers spend 31% more with a business that has “excellent” reviews. – Invespcro.com
Buyers consult reviews early in the search, with 68% reading reviews as they build their shortlist. – SoftwareAdvice.com
44% of consumers say a review must be written within one month to be considered relevant. – BrightLocal.com
89% of users will make a purchase within one week of reading reviews. – ReachLocal.com
How to Use Customer Reviews to Market Your Business
At this point, you should be convinced that you need to continuously encourage your customers to give you feedback so you can get your best reviews online promoting your business where it matters most.
That might sound like a lot of work, but technology rides to the rescue once again with ways to AUTOMATE your customer review management. Automatically handle everything from gathering reviews and weeding out dissatisfied customers to promoting only the best reviews and monitoring review sites. I’d suggest using ReputationLoop™, but I may be biased. Check out the ReputationLoop™ reviews to see what others think.*
*BAM!!! Did you see what I did there???
That is how you use customer reviews to market your business. It’s just that easy.
Now let’s talk about how you are going to use customer reviews to market YOUR business.
1. Use Customer Reviews to Build a 5-Star Online Reputation
- Have a system in place for monitoring, managing and promoting your customer reviews online.
- Respond promptly to both positive and negative reviews in a way that influences future review readers.
2. Be Where Your Customers Are Online!
- Claim and optimize your business profiles where you customers search for reviews for your type of business. (List of Customer Review Sites)
- Encourage customers to leave their positive reviews online to help future customers.
- Make it easy to leave a review. One or two clicks from your website or email create a quick and simple process for customers.
- Claim, optimize, and monitor your business profiles on the most popular social media networks. (Picking Your Social Media Networks)
- Promote your best reviews on the social media networks that matter in your industry.
3. Make Reviews the Star of Your Ads
- The copy in your ads is very important. But what is going to sell you better than a highly satisfied customer review?
- Save precious ad copy space for “features” and “specials” and use customer reviews to highlight the “benefits” your business or product.
- You can also add them to your email marketing campaigns!
4. Empower Top Customers by Making Them Brand Ambassadors
- Set up a brand ambassador program. (How To Create a Brand Ambassador Program)
- With guidelines in place, build an incentive plan that is easy for you to package, track, and disseminate. This could range from a company T-shirt and free memberships to big discounts or free products – things that won’t hurt your budget.
- Create content your ambassadors can use to market your business. Include testimonials and reviews they can promote.
- Find potential ambassadors by looking at your customer feedback, reviews, and social media conversations. Find customers who show a love of your business, but remember they will need to be monitored.
This is the part where I tell you about what we do!
But I already did that (reference the smooth reputation marketing in the middle of this post). We want to help you build a stellar online reputation and show you how to use customer reviews to market your business. ReputationLoop™ makes it as easy as possible to generate more leads and attract new customers. That’s what we do. But don’t take our word for it, you can read our reviews or get a free demo and see for yourself how ReputationLoop™ can grow your business.
Zach Anderson is the co-founder of Reputation Loop (helping small businesses grow by generating customer feedback and online reviews) who loves online marketing and golf.
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