Have you ever checked Yelp or Google before going to a restaurant, just to make sure it’s going to be a good experience?
Customers do the same thing for businesses of all types- including your business. It’s important to maintain a positive online reputation. Online reviews are often the first things customers check before making a buying decision, and a poor online presence can make you lose business to your competitors.
Types of Online Reviews
The types of online reviews that can make or break your business fall into different categories.
- Third-party reviews exist on separate websites, like Yelp or Angie’s List. While you don’t have direct control over these sites, you can regularly encourage customers to leave positive reviews.
- First-party reviews are the reviews that customers themselves put on your website. It is easy for an e-commerce store, for example, to include a simple, automated comment box on every product page. That way, customers can instantly rate and describe their experience.
- Text reviews are the most common reviews, and are usually just one to three sentence descriptions supplied by the customers themselves. But a single text review can have a big impact.
- Video reviews are becoming increasingly popular, as platforms like VideoAsk make it easy and fast to record a short video review. These reviews are particularly compelling to new buyers, as they show real people with real facial expressions, as opposed to disembodied text.
Research About Online Reputation
Market research has shown that your online reputation as a business can have a huge impact on your success.
Almost half- about 49%- of consumers say they need at least a 4-star rating to choose a business. Anything below that is a glaring red flag.
On the plus side, 74% of consumers say that positive reviews make consumers trust a company more. Of course, the numbers here matter too- customers may prefer a 4.8 star restaurant with 500 reviews to a 5 star restaurant with 3 reviews.
How We Improve Your Reputation Online
Fortunately, there is a lot that you can do to improve your online reputation. The basic principle is to collect and project positive reviews while minimizing the impact and frequency of negative reviews.
Many businesses get plenty of positive reviews, but fail to use them. With every positive review you get, you can post in on social media and add it to your website. There are also many ways to collect reviews, and make it more likely that a customer will leave a review. For example, automated “drip” email campaigns send regular reminders to customers to help nudge them towards leaving a review. You can also collect reviews directly on your website or through social media.
Once you are getting enough reviews coming in, then the challenge becomes tracking, analyzing, and publishing these reviews. The goal is to select the best ones for showcasing, as well as to notice trends and common praises or complaints. This is a valuable tool for customer feedback. We use embedded widgets on your website and automated social media posts to make it easy to spread your positive reviews at the push of a button.
Want your brand to have a great online reputation? We’d love to talk. Invigilo is the experienced marketing agency you’ve been looking for. Feel free to reach out with any questions!
