Even though many entrepreneurs focus on just not losing money, a business is only good as its growth rate. If you want your project to have a good chance of succeeding, you need to constantly work on improving it and getting it to the next level.
A major component of this mission is increasing your website’s conversion rate, which will, in turn, drive your sales. So, how does one accomplish this? While marketers tend to ignore them, customer reviews play an important role in growing your business. By knowing what your customers think, you can decide what to keep and what to discard from your business strategy. To show the benefits of using customer reviews, we’ve assembled a list of seven key strategies that you can use. With them, you will get maximum results with minimal effort invested. Let’s explore the seven strategies.
1. Use Customer Reviews To Forge A Reputation
Word of mouth is still the most efficient and credible way of advertising your product. When a comment or an impression comes directly from another customer, people are more likely to believe it and give it a try. That’s where you can use the reviews you’ve received as leverage. Take the best unedited reviews and feature them at a prominent spot. The home page would be ideal, most precisely in the lower half of the page. To make the reviews seem more credible, add names and pictures alongside the comments. Remember, never post anything without the permission of that customer.
2. Respond To Reviews Quickly
“People like the feeling of being cared about,” says Phil Peterson, senior editor at EssayOnTime. “And there is no better way of causing this feeling to appear if you respond to reviews instantly. Customers will feel that you care about what they think and will stay with you, even if the initial review was negative.” Responding to negative reviews is also good for attracting non-customers. When they see that you aren’t hesitant to resolve a problem or to reward good promotion, your brand will be seen as a transparent and attractive one. Many entrepreneurs can’t process the fact that they’ve gotten bad reviews. Something can always go wrong, and you should never dwell on that. Instead, think about how you can improve and use the comments as motivation.
3. Make It Easy For People To Review
A good way to market your brand is to make it easier for everyone to write reviews. The more reviews and ratings you get, the better it is for you and your brand. To ensure that, you should eliminate any burden that people might face during the reviewing process. Review forms should be short and never require more than three clicks to complete the process. An automatic pop-up when someone makes a purchase is a good way to ensure customers will be writing reviews. Timely polls on social media and your website can ensure that people will share their experiences with your brand.
4. Make Your Customers Act As Brand Ambassadors
Due to a plethora of existing content, it’s become difficult to discern a difference between legitimate content and hoaxes. No amount of resources or money can help your brand become popular if there is no uniqueness about it. Instead, you have to provide something unique and authentic to break through the barrier. Customer ambassadorship is one method to achieve this. For example, if you have a section with blog posts being published frequently, hand that section over to your customers. By doing so, you will send a message that helps other perceive your brand as a transparent one, where participation is entirely possible.
5. Follow Review Sites
Local review sites are especially important for growing your brand. On these sites, people exchange views, impressions, and opinions about businesses or products. To follow what’s going on, you should create an account on a site like Yelp to help increase your business knowledge. After doing so, you can now advertise on these websites as well. Yelp, for example, allows companies to pick their most positive reviews and run them as adds right next to your competitor’s page. When advertising here, make sure that all the necessary information is visible to customers.
6. Don’t Be Afraid To Boast
If we already spend too much time checking our email, why not use that fact to establish a stronger brand presence? Having great reviews is excellent, but their full potential is only achieved if you brag a little bit. When sending out promotional emails, why not include some of your best reviews? The most important thing to watch out for is making sure that there are direct links to each review. Boasting is only good if you can back it up and people are going to want to see it, to believe it.
7. Share Reviews On Social Media
Creating a branding strategy on social media is easy, as there are no limits to what you can post and say about your own business. This includes showing off your best reviews on social media and this is beneficial for many reasons. For one, it rewards your customers and is a symbolic way of saying “thank you” for the positive input. Another reason lies in the fact that word of mouth is a powerful advertising tool, even on social media. Make sure you don’t overuse this strategy, as it will quickly make it seem that you’re shamelessly self-promoting your brand. Establish a once-per-week interval for starters and see how it goes.
To Conclude
Customer reviews are a valuable window into the mentality of your customers. By highlighting the good ones and not being ashamed of the bad ones, you are making seem that your brand is for the people. Since you provide services to them, posting reviews will be seen as a token of gratitude for their loyalty. Employing customer reviews in your strategies will grow your brand and drive your sales, simply due to the power of word of mouth marketing.
