You have invested many years establishing your company. You’ve spent energy, sweat, and tears. You’ve have missed dance recitals and soccer games as you have labored to help develop it. You at last feel as though you can take it easy… until the day when the phone calls stop, your new customer base vanishes, and you are not able to figure out why.
You are nonetheless delivering outstanding service and your present clients love you, but your business is having difficulties. Subsequently, you discover from an current client that your business has some very damaging reviews posted about you online. It occurs to you that your reputation on the web is representing a distorted perception of actuality that is seriously destroying your business.
Seem like the plot of a B-movie drama? Regrettably, it’s dead on target for hundreds, if not innumerable amounts of businesses across the nation.
Local Business Reviews = Reputation
What people say about your company online has become the single most important reflection of your company’s character, dependability, and competency. It doesn’t matter if you are a dentist, a plastic surgeon, a carpet cleaner, or a painter. In Nielsen’s most recent Global Trust in Advertising study, 70% of worldwide consumers revealed they trust online ratings from people they don’t know when making buying decisions.
Boosting Your Reputation is Your #1 Marketing Concern
Your number one marketing and advertising consideration should be establishing a 5-star internet based reputation. Why? All your other marketing initiatives, whether they be online such as SEO, social media, PPC, or off-line such as direct mail, publications, radio, or TV, will eventually lead the customer to find out more about you on the web. There, your less than impecible or non existent reputation drives them far away.
The majority of business owners neglect to recognize is that what customers need is facts that will help them feel secure they’re making the very best, most well-reasoned buy. Nowadays, quite a bit of that self-assurance occurs in the shape of online opinions reflecting others’ experiences.
The 3Rs and 2Qs of Local ratings and Reputation
When it comes to taking an active part in developing, generating, and protecting your online reputation, you want to keep five guidelines in mind:
Range – While it might seem as though acquiring a few great reviews on Google+ or Yelp is all that is needed, we advocate a wide-ranging strategy to online review management. Just visit this Facebook page, We Hate Yelp, or read this thread on Google, and you will discover why. Your company is too worthwhile to you and your loved ones to let its fortune be determined by one or two companies with no vested importance.
Real – Make sure real client reviews are getting posted. It’s tempting to game the system and pen some glowing reviews, however, it’s not only unethical, you’ll undoubtedly get caught, and that can have some unintended consequences. Encourage your customers to be as specific as possible. A hallmark of fake reviews is vagueness.
Recent – It seems that more current reviews weigh more greatly by the search engines in terms of ranking. For this reason alone, generating a steady flow of latest, positive reviews makes common sense. Furthermore, the reality that more current reviews pack more efficient social proof with prospective customers than older reviews, and you essentially must put programs in place to constantly accumulate reviews.
Quantity – Ask yourself: If one dentist has 25 reviews with a 4-star average and the next best has one 5-star review, just who are you going to call? Dependability is proven with consistency, especially where reviews are involved.
Quality – This one is quite clear: The greater your reviews, the better your reputation will be – within reason. A business with practically nothing but 5-star ratings can look suspicious but, in general, the more positive your reviews, the better.
Make Reviews Part of a Complete Reputation Marketing Strategy
While review and reputation building without a doubt may be the single most crucial online marketing tactic for local businesses in 2014 and beyond, the most prosperous businesses will not stop there. Since reviews are most plainly displayed in combination with the hyper-local maps of search engines, they do not generate many prospects outside this area.
For the vast majority of businesses servicing numerous cities from a one location, reviews should be just one building block in a larger reputation marketing and advertising solution. That strategy should utilize SEO to ensure the company’s website rates near the top in all the cities they service for their most relevant buying phrases. The good news is there is a positive, synergistic relationship between a strong review presence, well-optimized local web pages, and an well-respected website.
With the prominence mobile devices highlight in local purchasing, companies should make sure their websites not only rank highly, but are also mobile-friendly with click-to-call, click-to-map, and other navigable engagement capabilities. You want to remove as much friction as feasible between your customer’s desire and his ability to get a hold of you.
One Secret – but effective – Benefit of Positive Reviews
Clearly, your business requirements to put a review-gathering, reputation marketing culture, and plan in place. The investment you make will return out sized income from the new customer base {you’ll|you will} draw in. But there is one other “hidden” advantage that an exceptional online reputation will bring: pricing power.
For years, almost every business has battled to defend its price in a world of “me too” competition. Envision how effortless it will be to answer to “Why should I pay more for your service?” when you can plainly respond, “Have you taken a look online to see what our customers say?”
Companies need to take advantage of the power a 5-star reputation brings. You have worked hard to build your company and sacrificed loads along the way. Are you eager to let that hard work get flushed down the drain because of a single disgruntled customer or competitor?
Formulate a program to guarantee your greatest fans are louder than your biggest enemies; the reward is well worth it.
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