15
May
2018
Increase Marketing Performance With Reviews
The Importance Of Local Reviews
Many local businesses are making investments in their website, their marketing, their organic rank, and social media to drive leads but way too few are spending time doing the one thing that would help get all of those areas to convert at a higher percentage…online reviews.
Most every business knows that the importance of reviews but few understand the impact of no reviews or few reviews. Here at ReachLocal, we work with thousands of local businesses to help drive visits to their website and what we know is that less than 10% of those new site visitors are going to turn into a lead on the first visit. 90% walk away to look at your competitors and your REVIEWS.
Of that 90%, how much is coming back to convert? 5%? 10%? More? The number all depends on what they are reading and seeing in your reviews and comments. If they don’t see any reviews, that number is going to be low. There are a number of steps that you can take to help increase review.
Local businesses here in the Philadelphia area need to have a strategy to get more reviews. This is something that every business owner and marketing professional knows but putting it into action is the challenging part. Below are four steps to get more reviews and build your online word of mouth.
- Ask!
- Pretty simple, most businesses that I work with here in Philly don’t ask for the referral. It’s not natural for them because they don’t do it often enough. The more that you ask, the better you will get at doing it each and every day. Make sure to help your employees overcome this simple barrier by writing out a script for them or write the email out so that you know it’s what you want said.
- Create Reminders That You See
- After every job or service provided, leave a note asking for a review. I work with a lot of HVAC companies here in Philadelphia and the surround area and one great idea is to leave a sticky note on the newly installed unit asking for a review. You know that they are going to go look at the new unit, why not have a visual reminder for them as they are looking at it.
- Use Social Media
- Everyone is on social media in some fashion and it is were people go to engage with each other. As people are liking your page, you can connect with them and ask for a review. Have them put it right there on your social media page that they follow. You can then use that review and share it with the rest of your network and ask for even more reviews.
- Email, Email, Email
- Email marketing is something that a lot of local Philly businesses use to drum up leads but it can also be used to get reviews. You can create simple and easy emails that will direct people to review your business to whichever platform you are looking to increase. Do NOT direct them to Yelp though…Yelp has a policy that they are against asking for reviews. Booooo Yelp.
It is extremely important that you monitor and improve your reviews online so that you get the most out of your SEO and search engine marketing. Many local Philly businesses are spending a lot of resources to drive traffic and leads so make sure that you are doing the work to convert them after they leave your website and visit these review areas. If you need help or have questions, feel free to set up a free consultation session today!