Why Reviews Should Be A Key Part Of Your Marketing Plan

There are various parts of a marketing plan that everybody knows you shouldn’t be without. However, many of us seem to think that the marketing plan ends with the customer buying the product or service. In fact, this can be when the best and strongest part of your marketing plan begins. Happy customers and what they have to say about your business should be a key part of your marketing plan. After all, people are far more likely to trust the words of people who have experience with your business than of the business owner themselves. This is how to ensure that not only do you get great reviews but that once they start flooding in, you know exactly how to squeeze the maximum benefit out of them.

Professional Reviews

Getting professionally reviewed is a brilliant way to reach a wider audience. Review sites are often the first place people go to when they’re looking for advice that they can trust, as they know that reviews will be factual, and impartial and tell them everything that they need to know.

For example, those looking for an online casino would receive a better quality of review by going to a dedicated site, over sifting through Google reviews. This review of JackpotCity is professional and features everything that a casino fan might need to know. They’ve included lots of information on the bonuses that new players could benefit from, as well as the variety of games that are available to play and a little history about the website. When you compare this with a Google review, there is far more detail, enabling potential players a better chance to choose a casino site that’s right for them. Of course, the downside to professional reviewing is that they are good at their job. That means that if your business is lacking in a certain area then it will be picked up on, so make sure your business is at the top of its game before getting yourself onto professional review sites.

The final bonus of this is that your business is going to be seen by far more people, thanks to the huge draw that review sites have. Whilst you might not rank highly on a standard Google search, you could be drawing in the clicks from appearing on a review site that does rank highly.

Customer Reviews

Little things like gift wrapping can take the customer experience from good to great

Once professional reviews are out of the way, it’s time to make space for great customer reviews. Word of mouth is undoubtedly the best way to secure a customer, but the next closest thing is a customer review.

The first step is to make sure that you are on any review site that makes sense for your business. Restaurants should be on Open Table, Hotels should be on TripAdvisor, Tradespeople should be on Checkatrade and absolutely everybody should be on Google Business. Once you’ve signed up to each review site and spent plenty of time filling in the information for your business, make sure that you advertise to your customers that you are available to be reviewed. People don’t tend to go out of their way to leave reviews, so pop it in your email signature, your shop window, and your business cards. Tell those customers that you know are thrilled with your service that you’d really appreciate a review.

In order to get the best possible reviews that you can, remember to add value wherever possible and always deliver top-quality customer service. Your added value could be anything from gift wrapped goods to freebies for returning customers and always service with a smile. If you get any particularly outstanding reviews then ask if they’d be happy for you to feature them on your website under a testimonials page. One of the best things that you can do for your SEO is to make sure that your website is regularly updated with relevant images, so ask if your happy customers could send you a photo of themselves with your product to accompany their testimonial.

Negative Reviews

From time to time, you’re going to have to deal with negative reviews. This thought puts a lot of business people off using online sites like Yelp, or Trip Advisor, but rest assured, there are ways of dealing with them. The first thing to remember is that if you deserved that bad review then you aren’t going to be getting rid of it. Customers who had a genuinely bad experience have a right to let others know, but if they did make a review up then sites like Yelp will remove it for you. Be paralyzed into doing nothing, fight your corner, provide evidence that the review is false, and get it removed. You might not have a perfect five star score, but far more people will trust a business with four and a half stars and thousands of reviews, than a business that doesn’t have any reviews at all for fear of bad publicity.