What is online reputation marketing and its major impact on local businesses?
You may have heard of ‘online reputation marketing’ and not be well aware of what it means or exactly what value it can provide. Maybe you are just hearing about it right now or wondering if this is something you need to implement as a strategy in terms of moving your local business forward. Then keep reading this post…
Online reputation marketing is mainly about building a 5 star reputation online by getting positive reviews (such as Google reviews) and then marketing your 5 star reputation to get more conversions and customers.
As you can clearly see from the above definition, the answer is of course a resounding ‘yes’ and let’s now go into more details regarding the impact reputation marketing has on local businesses and why every local business out there definitely needs to be applying this strategy.
(1) Monitoring what customers are saying
(2) Having an excellent working system that is driving in more and better reviews
(3) Syndicating existing positive reviews – by sharing or promoting them across multiple websites including business website, Ad campaign landing pages, social media platforms and so forth to use as a leverage to effectively generate more sales.
When done in the right way, reputation marketing builds a stellar online reputation and leverages that reputation across the internet to highly promote your local business and bring you new customers.
There are some major high-authority websites (such as Google, Trustpilot, Yelp, Trip Advisor etc) where people leave reviews about the local businesses they use. In other words, you can put a solid strategy in place to regularly acquire multiple 5 star reviews from these major websites or directories that display listings of local businesses.
In case you didn’t know already, the most valuable and most important website that lists local businesses and their reviews and even showcases their reviews in the local search engine results is Google.
This really matters because Google reviews carry the most weight in terms of reviews influencing consumers’ purchasing decisions. Besides, new prospective customers discover your local business online by mainly using the internet search engines and when they do, they see your reviews if you have any already.
Google is the KING of internet search engine results, and for this reason it is highly likely that more people find you from Google where your reviews are obviously showcased.
With all that being said, let me now give an example of the significant role that online reviews actually play with regards to influencing consumers’ purchasing decision in the local business space.
Blue arrows point to the star ratings of the business, showcased under their company name.
Green arrow shows you how many reviews they have. So, as of when this screenshot was taken…
Finchley Back Care Centre have 52 reviews.
Finchley Feet Ltd have only 3 reviews.
While Finchley Chiropractic Clinic have none.
Who Would You Call?
Going back to the Google search results above and putting yourself in the shoes of a prospective customer, which local business would you call?
Would you call the one with no reviews or the one with lots of reviews that is getting all the calls due to their solid reputation?
As you can see your reputation as a local business is apparent online and if people do not like what they see, they will end up going to your competitor.
That is why online reputation marketing is absolutely critical to move your business forward. Now that you understand this and how critical it is to your reputation, let me point out more of what that means, to you…
How really critical is your reputation online?
Regarding the above Google Maps example, let us assume your business is Finchley Chiropractic Clinic with no reviews, no stars and you have a marketing budget. Let’s assume your marketing budget is £1000 per month. So you are spending your marketing budget and it generates 65 brand new people to look at your chiropractic business. Then those people noticed you have no reviews, so they checked out your competition and noticed Finchley Back Care Centre has 52 reviews and 4.5 Stars, which appears much more appealing…
Based on the assumption that your business is Finchley Chiropractic Clinic, will people call you or call Finchley Back Care Centre?
I guess you would agree that majority of them that find you through your marketing will call Finchley Back Care Centre. So what just happened?
You have easily wasted your marketing budget because by having no reviews, you ended up having high cost per click and low conversions on your spending.
Your marketing budget just helped your competition MORE THAN YOU!!!
That is a prime example of insanity of the highest order!
Finchley Chiropractic Clinic may as well give the biggest portion of their marketing budget to Finchley Back Care Centre!
Absolutely insane, right?
That is one of the most crucial reasons why you should be working on your online reputation every day, as doing this really matters in the local business space. We highly suggest that you take 1/3 of your marketing budget and put it soley on working for your reputation – 1/3 at the very least. Because you don’t want to have the above scenario play out and you be the one that loses money, every day.
Maybe you are experiencing the above scenario already – whether or not this is the case, you can now start focusing daily on your reputation as a local business.
Yes, Every Single Day…
Why Work On Your Reputation Every Day?
Here is why, using the aforementioned (Finchley Back Care Centre) chiropractic business as an example…
Finchley Back Care Centre look good at first glance, right? 52 Reviews with 4.5 stars. They must be sitting pretty, and they are listed number 1 on the Google Maps screenshot (shown above).
Nope, they are not entirely in good nick. Let me show you why…
Finchley Back Care Centre problem…
Even though they have positive reviews. But you can see that the first review on the list was posted 5 months ago, the second on the list was posted 8 months ago and the third was 4 months ago.
That leaves people wondering…..if they are so good why has no one said anything for months? Are they frequently open for service or do they operate part time? Why are they getting reviews a few months apart?
This will make some people to keep digging to find a Chiropractor who appears to be frequently active and has more current and regular reviews that they would find more insightful, and more appealing.
Finchley Back Care Centre at first glance may appear to be better than Finchley Chiropractic Clinic from the above image examples, but upon investigating, even they are doing something WRONG.
As you can see now, based on the above points raised alongside the examples given, every single day you should definitely be focusing on strengthening your reputation. After all, what else do you have and how can you maximise results on your marketing spend/effort without having a solid reputation. So, it is as clear as daylight that…
But you are busy running your local business, right? You don’t have time to manage it all. So hire a professional to do this type of task on your behalf.
With our help, you can easily save yourself all the time and effort of having to do this kind of stuff yourself of marketing, building and managing your online reputation in order to maximise your conversions and drive more revenue into your business.
Hoping you actually find this information valuable and educational and should you have any questions about this or require our assistance, feel free to get in touch.