5 minute read
Publilius Syrus famously said, “A good reputation is more valuable than money.” When it comes to business, a good online reputation can help you make money.
Buyers in all industries are using digital content and internet searches to make their purchasing decisions. This shift in the commerce landscape has made online reputation powerful enough to make or break a business.
Disturbingly, far too many brands are still mismanaging their online reputation or even outright dismissing elements of it. While the old saying goes that you should not care what others think of you, when it comes to business, you should care very much.
Every Opinion Matters
The next time you are tempted to write off your company’s online reviews as a trivial matter not worthy of the limited hours in your day, consider the following review and reputation statistics, and how they relate to sales:
- 95% of consumers read online reviews before making a purchase.
- 88% of customers read a review that influenced their buying decision.
- 35% of buyers state that 1 negative review can make them decide against buying a product.
- It takes 40 positive reviews to undo the damage of one negative review.
- Buyers are 270% more likely to purchase a product with 5 reviews than a product with 0 reviews.
Peer-to-peer is arguably the most powerful form of marketing, and online reviews are its modern iteration. People want reassurance that they are investing their money wisely. This is especially true for B2B clients, who are under significant pressure to stay within their allocated budget.
The Written Word
Let’s face it: When it comes to business, people are not exactly receptive to phone calls these days – especially if you are calling to ask a favor. However, they are generally okay with emails. And they are very open to the convenient and nonintrusive nature of text messaging.
In fact, 94% of consumers prefer to communicate with companies via text messages.
Sitting around wishing for an increase in positive online reviews will not result in anything but frustration. Instead, take a proactive approach. Reach out to customers via text message and ask them to write a review of your brand, product or service.
You read that right. Ask them. If executed correctly, they will not be offended or annoyed. In reality, they will be receptive to the idea, especially if it is proposed at the exact moment they have interacted with your company or made a purchase. You provided a valuable product or service to them and now they can help you by taking a minute to spread the word at their earliest convenience.
The Power of the Post
Social media is a critical cog in the reputation management machine and is often used as a customer service platform.
92% of respondents in a 2018 TripAdvisor study said social presence is important to their business.
In addition to shaping your online reputation, active social media profiles keep you top of mind with prospects who have demonstrated an interest in following your channels. This is important because B2B buying decisions are typically made over time and you want to make sure leads do not forget about your products or services.
Creating and maintaining social media profiles that promote your brand and engage prospects requires a delicate balance. You want to provide content to your target audience that they find valuable and engaging, sharing industry trends, the latest news, and show off your company’s personality or culture.
Make sure you are active on a variety of platforms. Audiences will vary across LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. You do not want to miss out on any potential opportunities. The best way to do this is by automating some of the publishing, especially when it comes to posting positive 4-5 star reviews.
Making You Look Good
At this point you may be thinking to yourself, I get it, but who has the time to send text messages and post on social media all day? The good news is, it DOES NOT have to require a significant time commitment from you.
At Tag Marketing, we automate the collection and promotion of your reviews as part of our reputation management services. We do this by leveraging cloud-based software to send review requests through text messages and/or emails.
Our platform is also great for surveys regarding feedback on products or services, commonly seen if you have ever purchased something from Amazon. This helps prevent the bad reviews in the first place and keeps you more in touch with your customers, which leads to an increase in sales and better product or service advancements.
Requests are automatically sent to your existing customers (only the ones you choose) and all of the reviews generated are collected into one dashboard for easy access. Review monitoring alerts will let you know immediately when someone posts a negative review and even hides it from your business’s review page, giving you a golden opportunity to problem solve before it hurts you. Also, goal reporting is setup so we can see what our efforts are actually accomplishing.
We also monitor and manage your social media accounts to ensure optimal engagement and reinforce your brand as a trustworthy thought leader in your industry. And we do so efficiently by automating the ability to post to multiple social media channels at once and schedule posts ahead of time. Even limiting the amount of reviews posted on any given day for our high volume clients.
Our clients have reaped the rewards of our efforts. We elevated ratings for a home repair service client from 1.3 stars to 4.2 stars – a 223% increase! Not to mention, improving search engine rankings and profits all at the same time.
We have so much faith in our strategies, we use them to handle our own online reputation, and with great success. Targeting three review platforms over the span of just 30-days, we increased our overall rating to 21% ABOVE the industry average.
Positive reviews are harder to come by than negative reviews. The fact is, customers who suffered a bad interaction were 52% more likely to share their experience online than customers with a positive experience.
So when we drove a 14% increase in positive review conversions utilizing our text messaging and email platform, with a 70% open rate, we were thrilled!
Learn more about how we can show the world just how great your company, products and services really are.