Building a rapport and feeling of trust with your client base is the most important task for any business owner, small or large. The building begins when a client become aware of your brand whether it’s by word of mouth, a Google search or via social media. A recent study concluded that businesses that have local listings with reviews garner a larger share of clicks from potential customers. What this means to your business is that you can increase or lose your client base depending on the strength of your reviews. In this ever changing digital landscape, the new word of mouth concept is now reviews.
Reputation Is A Commodity
In the age of Angie’s List, Facebook, Yelp and other review portals, reviews can make or break your digital marketing impact. When people consider what the biggest asset a company owns, they fail to remember that the biggest asset a company owns is their reputation. Trust in a brand will be the first thing a potential client considers when making a decision. This may seem obvious to you reading this, but many CEO’s don’t realize or flatly ignore simple steps that can be taken to bolster their reputation. Take for example some takeaways from the study that paints a pretty clear picture of the importance of a good reputation:
- A company with a 5-star review average gets nearly 40% more clicks than a competitor with a 1-star review average.
- Over 80% of consumers put as much faith in online reviews as they do a referral from a personal friend.
- Roughly 70% of customers will leave you a review if prompted or requested to.
The fact is reviews and social media provenance are now deciding factors that many customers use to decide which company to give their business to. No longer do people rely on just one person’s referral of a business because they can go online and see a cumulative review of many consumers and get a more accurate picture of a company. The internet age and social media have created communities in which opinions on many businesses are discussed and your image can flourish or flounder depending on how you handle it.
How To Build A 5-Star Rated Business
The best way to build a solid 5-star business is to be in the habit of requesting a review. This can be accomplished with email, in person, or using social media outlets such as Facebook or Yelp. The best timing is immediately after having a successful interaction with a customer as the freshness of the review is one of the ranking criteria. That being said, it is important to keep accumulating new reviews as often as possible.
You want to submit and maintain a page on as many review and social media sites as possible and maintain a solid review average. We recommend starting with Google business pages, as well as Yelp to gain a good foundation. Once you have that built up some, seek out as many review sites as you can such as Nextdoor, Facebook, Zagat and more. Each of the sites has their pros and cons that can be a challenge at times. For example one of the challenges with Yelp is that its algorithm suppresses the reviews of clients who are not active in their reviews so some of your best reviews can go unseen if the reviewer is not a frequent user.
The overall end game is to have a deep review profile that will consistently return search results with reviews of 5-stars. This is what “social provenance” is, and it will, in turn, convert more prospects into actual customers.
Don’t Try And Cheat The System
With this new found knowledge one might be tempted to take a shortcut and post multiple fake reviews with 5-star ratings. But beware, reviews that seem like spam will get flagged by users or removed. You can’t underestimate consumer intelligence as they will see right away when a review is planted. The irony is when you have a negative rating surrounded by dozens of 5-star ratings, it actually lends more credibility to your other reviews.
The BrandNation Difference
What this all boils down to is almost 60% of consumers make their choices based on positive reviews and ratings of 5 stars. The more 5-star reviews you get, the more clicks you get. The more clicks you get the higher your site ranks in organic search results, which because of your reviews typically, in the end, means – More Clicks, More Leads and that is exactly what BrandNation offers you, we do all the hard work you enjoy the growth. Contact us today to manage your online presence and make you into a 5-star business.
