BIZZ & TECH

HOW TO USE ONLINE REVIEWS TO YOUR BRAND'S ADVANTAGE

Introduction.
Advertising is one of the most powerful tools in the digital marketing arsenal. Thanks to all the free social media and blogs with free online customer reviews consumers and B2B consumers can share their sentiment of your brand, product or service quickly and easily through customer reviews. Whether you like it or not, customers love leaving their online reviews about a certain product, and potential customers love reading them. In fact, that's most of the time the very first thing that potential customers do before purchasing a product or service. Especially considering that customers are relying heavily on it. This also gives a business plenty of opportunities to increase brand exposure and influence potential buyers to grow your business. However, for some brands online reviews may seem daunting and difficult to control.

Now online reviews can make or break your business, but are you using them to your advantage? Many of your prospects or existing customers check out Facebook reviews and they even read Google reviews about local businesses before they even pick up the phone the call you. So now that you know why online reviews are important, let's learn how to leverage online reviews with your best advantage and use them to improve our marketing, sales and customer experience.

Benefits For Online Customer Reviews:

Free Advertising.
Online reviews cover many more businesses than other media sources ever would. Each review posted online by a customer is a form of advertising for your business. It helps increase awareness of who you are and what you do. Customer can also provide the kind of mass exposure that you might never be able to afford through traditional marketing channels.

Better Search Engine Results.
You might've never known that search engines like Google take into account how many time your business name is mentioned in reviews. If your name is mentioned a lot of times, you're likely to appear higher in search engine results for a particular type of business.

Peer Recommendations.
Research shows that peers are most likely to follow and trust peer recommendations more than they trust advertising. That being said, every online review that recommends your business is a powerful form of marketing.

A Closer Relationship With Customers.
Online review sites give you the chance to develop a closer relationship with your customers. You can also reply to both positive and negative reviews, demonstrating that you are interested in what the customer has to say. Also, through your replies, customers can get to know you as an individual, not just a business. Many customers also enjoy knowing the person behind the business, and may become more loyal to you as a result. In fact, some business sites post a clear personal paragraph before they are allowed to respond to the comment.

Constructive Criticism & Suggestions.
Some reviews may raise concerns or suggest improvements related to your business. This could be good opportunity to resolve a customer's problem or improve business practices. After all, many customers who rather prefer not to post online reviews may complain about your business to other people. At least, if the complaint is published where you can see it, you have the opportunity to address your customer's concern and respond publicly. Many customers have better suggestions of how to do things, or new products that you could offer. So review sites can be a free source of great business ideas.

Manage Yelp Reviews To Build Credibility.
Yelp was specifically designed to grow local businesses. It has gained a lot of credibility with over 100 million users and over 42 million local businesses registered on the website. The sites helps prospects quickly find reputable companies in your area. Here are some ways to win with Yelp reviews: