Do you rely on word-of-mouth marketing? Have you ever looked at your star rating on Google? Are you aware of what people are saying about you?
Back in September 2016 the internet and marketing people were abuzz about the new weighting that Google was putting on customer comments and star ratings. Suddenly, one of the oldest forms of marketing was going to impact your page ranking. Nowadays, we are so used to seeing the star ratings and comments that many of us underestimate how much influence this has on our decision-making process. (It has a huge influence, in case you were wondering!)
Are you leveraging this for your business? Many people ignore the whole topic due to a lack of understanding. Doing this is to miss out some incredible insights and opportunities. Try this:
1. Google your business.
2. See if you come up under "maps" and/or the "Google-my-business" feature section on the right-hand side of the search results page.
3) Additionally, open any social media and/or search directory listing you come up in (Hotfrog, Searchnz, Localist, Yelp).
4) Open any social media pages you have - Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter.
5) Specifically, look at the reviews/comments and star ratings.
This gives valuable insight into your business. You can also do this for other businesses in your industry to get insights into them. Follow up this exercise with these action steps:
1. Have you replied to all the people who have left a review? (Please always be professional. Thank people for taking the time to give feedback and respond in a way that aligns with your brand.)
2. If you need reviews, consider asking for them. Make it part of your process. Motels do this well. Pop into a local motel and you will usually see they have a TripAdvisor business card on the counter asking people to leave a review.
3. Get some training on how to leverage this free resource through CEDA, doing online training, asking the Chamber of Commerce and your networks.
As well as asking for online feedback remember to collect testimonials to share on your marketing channels. Ideally, use people's names and photos if they are comfortable with that - it makes it more authentic. A great testimonial has three parts:
1. What was the reason they were looking for your product or service? Did they have a problem they wanted to overcome?
2. What was their desired outcome? What were they hoping to achieve?
3. How did you, your team, product and service help them get what they wanted?
In a world with ever-increasing options people rely on shortcuts to make decisions. The recommendations of people we trust and people who we see as similar to us, carry a lot of weight. Ensure you maximise the impact this can have on your business success.