Build & Market a 5 Star Reputation To Get Even More Customers
Your number one marketing priority should be developing a 5-star Online Reputation.
Why? All your other marketing efforts- online: SEO, social media, adwords and offline: direct mail, print, radio, or TV, will ultimately lead the consumer to learn more about you online. Then, your less-than-impressive or non-existent reputation drives them away.
5 Star customer reviews are a Major Force
leading new customers to the doors of local businesses today.
You could say people trust reviews—but that’s not all.
- 88% of respondents read reviews to determine the quality of a local business; an overwhelming majority of respondents (93%) said they checked reviews before dining or shopping. This means no matter how good your website is or how compelling your offering your customers will seek out other opinions. Having a strategy to earn, manage, and respond to reviews is a must.
- 85% of respondents to the BrightLocal survey read up to 10 different reviews while researching their purchase, pointing to the fact that customers aren’t blindly accepting the first review they read, but triangulating the feedback they find to get the real story behind a business. (That ought to be encouraging for businesses, as it means one terrible review is unlikely to sink you. But shoppers do weigh reviews heavily.)
- 88% of respondents said they trusted online reviews as much as they’d trust a personal recommendation (overwhelmingly the most trusted form of advertising by consumers, according to Nielsen’s Trust in Advertising Report), though the caveat is reviews had to be authentic, and there had to be enough of them to make a judgement call. Six to Ten reviews per listing location within the last six months should be your minimum requirement.
It’s not a question if reviews can have an enormous impact on your business and your bottom line – they do.
Whether it will be a positive or negative impact is mostly up to you.
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