It’s no secret that consumer reviews are important; not only for consumers, but for your marketing efforts. To give you an idea of just how important consumer reviews are, here are a few quotes from experts around the web…
Earning a steady stream of customer reviews is one of the most important pieces of a local business’ online marketing campaign. – Moz.com
Approximately 72% of consumers surveyed said that they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, while 52% said that positive online reviews make them more likely to use a local business. – Search Engine Land
How do you create interest and trust in a product that someone can only see a picture of? For e-commerce retailers, customer reviews on their company website or social media pages has become a big part of answering this question. – Business News Daily
Knowing that reviews are so important to the growth of your business online, and the trust consumers put into your brand, it’s no surprise that you’re looking for ways to get more and more reviews from your customers. So, today we’ll talk about some of the things that you can do to increase the number of consumer reviews surrounding your brand. However, before we get into that, let’s talk about a few mistakes we’ve seen businesses make in this sector so that you can avoid them.
Ways You SHOULDN’T Solicit Reviews
In the process of soliciting reviews, there’s a fine line between positive and pushy. Here are some pushy tactics that tend to turn out bad for the businesses that take part in them.
In House Review Stations - Some businesses have set up a computer in house for customers to leave reviews. Although this may seem like a good idea upfront, there are a couple reasons you’ll want to avoid this strategy…
- It’s Pushy - Adding an in house review station and asking your customers to leave a review on their way out doesn’t give them much of an opportunity to decline and feel comfortable with that decision. Instead, they may feel obligated to leave a review because if they don’t want to, they’ll have to tell you face to face; creating an uncomfortable situation for all involved.
- It’s Traceable - There are tons of checks and balances in place to make sure that reviews displayed on sites like ours, Google+, and Yelp are not forced or spam. One check often used is IP detection. If all of your reviews are coming from the same IP address (i.e. your office’s IP), it will be obvious that you’re using an in house review station; which by the way is completely against most online review policies!
Paying A Third Party - There are tons of services out there today that promise that they can post tons of great reviews about your company. Obviously, those writing the reviews were never a customer of yours, so this poses a bit of an ethical issue. Beyond that, as I’ve mentioned above, most review sites have checks and balances to avoid these types of services from being effective. As a matter of fact, if you’re caught taking part in them, this practice could have a detrimental effect on your online marketing efforts.
Writing Fake Reviews Yourself - This is another tactic I’ve seen that really gets under my skin. Along with the last mistake, it’s important to remember that this practice is far from ethical, and most great review sites have ways to weed these fake reviews out of the reviews they choose to publish.
Now that you know the most common review mistakes, let’s get into a few positive ways to get customers to leave reviews about your business.
How To Get Your Customers To Leave Reviews
Link To Your Profiles - One of the most effective ways to get reviews without being pushy or spammy about it is to add a few links to your website. Often times, businesses will create a page on their website dedicated to review solicitation. If you take part in this strategy, the page you create should include the following…
- A short snippet about why reviews are important to your business. Include language like “We use consumer reviews in an effort to continually provide exceptional services.“
- Links to your profile on review websites.
- Also keep in mind that the two words “Thank You” go a long way. So, make sure to thank the customer for taking the time to review your services.
If You Want Something, Just Ask - It’s amazing how often creating a strategy to ask for reviews produces positive results. To do so, all you’ve got to do is train the staff that has the most interaction with customers to ask for reviews at the end of the interaction.
Send Emails - Tons of businesses send follow up emails to find out how much their customers like their services. For instance, have you ever gotten an email survey from a company asking you how they did? Of course you have; we all have! When sending follow up emails, link to your review profiles within the emails and ask your customers to leave reviews online.
Final Thoughts
Well, there you have it! Getting reviews really isn’t all that hard. Thanks for joining me today! I’ll see you tomorrow for the next local marketing tip of the day!
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