How Online Reviews Can Make Or Break Your Business

Historically, word of mouth has been a powerful source for business referrals, and it still is today, but the Internet and online reviews has added a layer of information.

You should know that Bob will probably do some online research before reaching out to you– he’ll check out your website, read a few reviews and compare you to other potential like-kind companies.

Online reviews aren’t just for consumer products and restaurants anymore. These days, reviews are impacting revenue for all kinds of businesses and professional services including lawyers, roofers, loan officers, salons, boutiques, auto repair shops, rehab centers, doctors and everything in between.

What’s the big deal? We’ve uncovered the data, and the data tells us one thing– the power of online reviews shouldn’t be underestimated. Because reviews can hurt or help your bottom line, you need to know what people are saying about your business online.

With Jane’s recommendation and a few minutes spent online, Bob is able to form an opinion about you as a real estate agent before ever having met you. The majority of customers, like Bob, will read up to six reviews before forming an opinion of a business.

According to a Pew Research Center survey, as of January 2014, 87% of U.S. adults use the Internet and 58% of adults own smart phones. Worldwide, the United Nations reports 40% of the population is online. Who are the best bankruptcy lawyers in my area?

5 Reasons Online Reviews Matter for Your Business

1) 68% of consumers trust opinions posted online.

One of the most popular review websites, Yelp, has 207 million visits each month. Now factor in that customers are reading up to six reviews, both negative and positive, before ever having met you or stepped foot in your place of business. What is being said about your business should matter to you because it matters to everyone else.

I read it on the Internet, so it must be true.

2) 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

That’s right; today, the vast majority of consumers trust the opinions of strangers on the Internet as much as their own friends. While an online review coming from an anonymous user, a review that lacks detailed information or one that doesn’t seem genuine won’t fall into this category, online reviews can be thoughtful, personal and thorough, much like an exchange between friends.

3) Customers are more likely to share bad experiences than good ones.

Sharing a bad customer experience online is an easy way to release frustration. Sometimes even more importantly, to a reviewer, is the idea that a bad review might save someone else from having a similar experience!

What we can take away from this fact is that it is important for you to proactively ask happy customers to leave online reviews too. Whether you helped Jane Doe buy her dream house or gave her the perfect haircut, let Jane know that you welcome and would appreciate if she could take the time to leave a review on your behalf. A bad review is bound to happen at some point, but wouldn’t it look nicer surrounded by a whole bunch of good ones?

4) You can turn a negative review into a positive review.

When a reviewer says something negative about your business, you have an opportunity to excel at customer service. Many review sites offer a reply feature. Often times after a business reaches out, reviewers will provide an update to their negative review and let people know what happened.

With the trust that your potential customers place in online sources, negative reviews have the potential to substantially impact your business. Reviews are influencing the opinions of potential customers, but they don’t have to be a permanent black mark on your digital record.

5) 72% of consumers say positive reviews make them trust businesses more.

Reading a bunch of negative reviews isn’t likely to make someone want to take a chance on a business. Reading a multitude of positive reviews provides a potential customer with a sense that the business can be trusted.

Summation

How do your online reviews tally up? Are people saying bad or good things about your business?

In short, people are forming opinions about your business based on what other people are saying, long before you even get the chance to meet them, so it’s your job to take an active interest and convert your online audience into new customers.

As the world exists today, you have to care about online reviews. Positive reviews can help bring in customers, negative reviews can turn people away and not having any online review presence can cause someone to feel like doing business with you would be a gamble.

People are looking for reviews and putting trust in those reviews, so it’s time to take a proactive role in the process– provide customer comment cards, send out surveys and ask happy customers to share a review. You may even consider providing a way for people to leave reviews on your own website so people won’t have to look any further to find glowing testimonials.

Now factor in that customers are reading up to six reviews, both negative and positive, before ever having met you or stepped foot in your place of business. What we can take away from this fact is that it is important for you to proactively ask happy customers to leave online reviews too.

Often times after a business reaches out, reviewers will provide an update to their negative review and let people know what happened. Reading a multitude of positive reviews provides a potential customer with a sense that the business can be trusted.

You need to know what people are saying about your business online because reviews can hurt or help your bottom line.

LocalAd Connection
1700 E.Sunrise Blvd Ste 1213
Ft Lauderdale, Florida 33304
Call Us Today: (USA) 1-954-266-0078

Call Us For More Info: (954) 266-0078

 

 

 

Copyright Disclaimer:  Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

How Important Is Reputation Marketing To Getting New Customers

 

Today, Customers Tend To Trust Online Reviews From Their Peers More Than They Trust Advertising.

These reviews then directly correspond with your company’s reputation.

When deciding to make a purchase or not, a massive 70% of consumers trust online reviews. You are losing business if your company has negative reviews. LocalAd Connection, can help you improve your company’s reputation by using advanced reputation marketing skills.

Creating and maintaining a 5-star reputation online should be your company’s number one priority. All of the other marketing efforts done by your organization will mean nothing if you don’t have the reputation marketing to back it up when your customers go to look your company up online. Many business owners overlook reputation marketing.

Why is Reputation Marketing Important?

If they value customer service, but your company has several negative reviews about customer service, then they may choose to make their purchase from another company. When deciding between companies or products, they turn to reviews before making their final decision.

It’s ideal to have positive reviews across several review outlets. Many people tend to favor one review medium over another, i.e. Yelp over Yahoo. By ensuring that your company has a wide range of reviews then you are sure to have the greatest reputation marketing range possible.

One of the best things you can do for the reputation marketing of your company is to encourage your customers to post real reviews with specific details. You should always be encouraging your customers to leave positive reviews as a steady flow of positive reviews will greatly improve and maintain your reputation marketing. Customers are more likely to overlook a one-star review if you have hundreds of positive reviews than they are if you only have ten positives.

Customers want to see several high rated, recent, real reviews. This assures them of the quality, consistency, and reliability of your company. Reputation marketing then takes these reviews and builds upon them to create more business for your company.

Building upon Reputation Marketing

Many reviews appear locally to the area around the business in searches. If you want to expand your reach further then you will want to build your reputation marketing strategy to include more aspects to reach more customers. When people are searching for what your company offers, by using SEO to boost your company’s search engine rankings in the desired cities you will reach a larger audience.

It’s also vital to ensure that your company features a mobile-friendly website as many people now access information via a mobile platform. Having a site that is easy to navigate and read from a mobile view is extremely important. If you have a business that people may be looking for while they are out and about, this is especially true.

Other Benefits of Reputation Marketing

Reputation marketing has other benefits that come along with having a strong review base. When you set your company apart from others with consistently high reviews, you prove the worth of your company and your product.

With a large amount of consistently positive reviews, you will drown out the few negative reviews that your company will naturally receive. You can learn from negative reviews, but for the most part you want to focus on the good and ensure that your company’s reputation marketing is ahead of the game.

If they value customer service, but your company has several negative reviews about customer service, then they may choose to make their purchase from another company. It’s ideal to have positive reviews across several review outlets. You should always be encouraging your customers to leave positive reviews as a steady flow of positive reviews will greatly improve and maintain your reputation marketing. Customers are more likely to overlook a one-star review if you have hundreds of positive reviews than they are if you only have ten positives.

With a large amount of consistently positive reviews, you will drown out the few negative reviews that your company will naturally receive from some people who just can’t be pleased or your competition that wants to tarnish your otherwise stellar reputation.

LocalAd Connection
1700 E.Sunrise Blvd Ste 1213
Ft Lauderdale, Florida 33304
Call Us Today: (USA) 1-954-266-0078

Best Marketing Tips For Boosting Business After The Holiday Season

 

The holiday season usually provides a big sales bump for a lot of small business.

How can you boost post holiday sales? Here are some useful tips.
The holiday season usually provides a big sales boost for a lot of small business. After the presents have been exchanged and the parties have come to an end, those sales often slow down significantly.
Still small businesses don’t have to just accept that
post-holiday slump.

Indeed, there are plenty of ways you can take advantage of that extra time after the holidays have wrapped up to increase your sales
throughout the year.

Here are a variety of useful tips for enhancing your sales after the holiday season:

Include Post-Holiday Coupons
Since more customers make purchases during the holidays, that offers businesses a unique opportunity to get more sales after the holidays as
well. To leverage those holiday shoppers, you can  include coupons with holiday purchases that people can only use after Christmas or the New
Year. And if you didn’t start that type of promotion during the holidays, you could potentially send out a coupon or discount code via email.

Be Ready for Returns
The post-holiday season is also usually full of exchanges or returns. And you can also just provide people with a good experience when making
returns so that they’re more likely to come back throughout the year.

Show Your Appreciation
Since the holidays are so busy for many businesses, you might not have had a chance to properly thank your most loyal customers or clients.
But when sales slow down, it can be a perfect time to host a thank you event for loyal customers, offer an exclusive deal via email or do something really special for those who helped your business a lot
over the past year.

Follow Up With Holiday Shoppers
You can also simply follow up with anyone who made purchases with you throughout the holidays. Send out an email asking about their experience
and then include any new products or promotions
as well.

Improve Your Online Reviews
When following up with those holiday shoppers, you
should also use it as an opportunity to improve your
online reviews on sites like Google, Yelp and Facebook and any specially tailored Citations and Directories. Simply remind those who bought from you that they have the opportunity to share their experience,
give their feedback to allow you to better serve your customers in the future or correct any unpleasant experiences and then provide them with links. Then if you get more positive reviews from those holiday
shoppers, you can potentially benefit from that throughout the rest of the year.

Keep Holiday Campaigns Going
In addition, your actual holiday campaigns don’t have to stop just because Christmas is over. There are plenty of people who might have some last-
minute purchases to make or who want to spend some of those holiday gift cards. So keeping the holiday promotions going for an extra week or so can potentially help you squeeze even more sales out of the holiday season.

Host a Fun Contest
Your business isn’t the only one feeling the post- holiday blues. Consumers could also use a bit of fun after the season. So hosting a fun contest where you ask people to submit holiday photos or plans for the new year could be a great way to increase engagement or even sales.

Put Extra Profits to Good Use
You could also use those extra dollars you made during the holidays to good use. You could run some advertising campaigns or invest in other
marketing activities to keep your sales up throughout the rest of the year if you have extra money.

Start a Retargeting Campaign
For online businesses, one way you can really take advantage of the increased holiday traffic after the fact by launching a remarketing campaign. So you can target those who made purchases or visited
your website at some point throughout the holidays.

Stock Up on Content
You can also take the opportunity to simply tackle some marketing activities that you might not have time for throughout the rest of the year. You can spend time creating social media and blog posts that you can stockpile while business is slow so that you don’t have to rush to create that content when you’re busy later in the year.

Create Unique Visuals
Or you could focus on creating a series of unique visuals for your marketing campaigns throughout the new year. That way you can make sure they’re all cohesive and set toward your main business goals for the year.

Start a New Social Media Campaign
The new year is also a perfect time for you to try something new. Since many people see it as a fresh start, it will seem natural for you to introduce new branding or a new style for your social media
posts. You could even launch a new campaign aimed at increasing your engagement or followers so you can continually boost your sales throughout the year.

Launch a New Product or Service
It’s also the perfect time to work on launching new products or services. Since you’re not likely to be as busy during this time, it can be easier to work on new product launches. And those new offerings can
also lead to sales increases. Think About New Year’s Resolutions
During this time of year, many individuals also decide to try new things or set new goals. And for some businesses, there’s an opportunity to market
products or services to those customers who are focused on specific new year’s resolutions. For example, if you sell an app or product that could be
used for tracking fitness activities, the new year is a perfect time to market to goal setters to increase sales.

Budget for the Year Ahead
You can also use the end of the year as an opportunity to look back at your finances throughout the past year and then make plans for the year
ahead. Creating a budget for the year might not increase your sales notably right away. But it’s an essential activity that can help you optimize your marketing efforts throughout the whole year.

LocalAd Connection
1700 E.Sunrise Blvd Ste 1213
Ft Lauderdale, Florida 33304
Call Us Today: (USA) 1-954-266-0078

Call Us For More Info: (954) 266-0078

 

 

 

 

Copyright Disclaimer:  Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

Small Businsses Crush The Competition With Local SEO

Local SEO is an Integral Part of Selling Services & Products to Local Customers.

Local search engine optimization (LSEO) is a powerful digital marketing strategy for business owners selling products or services to local customers, because if you’re not showing up in local search, you’re missing out on new business and hemorrhaging money.

Increased Web traffic, brand visibility, and an increase in revenue are all advantages of investing in SEO. To take control of your local search results, here are some tips on how small businesses take advantage of local SEO best practices:

Keyword Research

Keyword research is a fundamental step for every successful SEO campaign. It involves discovering and analyzing phrases and terms that people are actually typing into the search engines to find local businesses like yours.

So, how do you discover which keywords to rank for?

To start, brainstorm keywords yourself or ask customers, friends, or family what keywords they would use to find a business like yours. Take your list and input them into Google’s Keyword Planner to find new keyword ideas and to get the estimated search traffic for those keywords.

True keyword research is an in-depth and detailed process, and best left to the professionals that do online internet marketing as their business so you can run your own business.

NAP Information:  Next to SEO, N-A-P are the three most important letters in local search. NAP is short for Name, Address, and Phone Number.

If you want to show up in local search, it’s crucial that Google understands where your business is located. Google is able to pick up NAP information on your website as well as on other sites around the web. It uses the consistency and quantity of NAP mentions as a ranking factor for local search.

The more often your business information is found on the web, and the more consistent it is, the higher your visibility will be in local search.

Customers Reviews

Over 92 percent of consumers read online reviews to find local businesses and services. On top of that, 60 percent of consumers judge a local business on its overall star rating with 43 percent find 3 out of 5 stars to be the minimum rating before consulting with that business and usually you need at least six 5 star reviews to be considered trustworthy.  It’s as high as 97 percent of consumers aged 18 – 34 read online reviews to judge a business. With so many people resorting to online reviews for business recommendations, it is imperative to get positive reviews.

The quantity and quality of your online reviews play a direct role in our search visibility. The more 5-star reviews your business has, the more online exposure it will receive.

To get positive reviews you will need to focus on creating an amazing customer experience, publishing and parading those reviews, best with video. After every job is finished, politely ask for feedback.

Google My Business, Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare, Houzz, and Angie’s List are great places to receive and reply back to reviews. Read more about how online reviews affects your business and it’s online presence.

Mobile Friendliness

Having a Google Mobile friendly image is crucial. If users are feeling frustrated when visiting your website due to a poor mobile experience like small text, needing to pinch the touch screen to zoom in, slow loading time, then you should update to a mobile friendly website.

Most mobile-friendly websites feature responsive web design, meaning that it is able to adjust to fit the screen size of any device. Responsive websites are easier to manage from an SEO perspective. Alternately, you can develop a separate website designed specifically for mobile.

Failing to comply with Google’s Mobile Friendly guidelines will result in a major loss in mobile search traffic.

Citations and Social Profiles: Social media icons

A citation is an online mention of your business with all or some of your NAP information. They generally take the form of a local listing in an online directory like YellowPages.

A social profile is like an upgraded version of a citation in that it is often more trustworthy, unique, and customizable. A few of examples of social profiles are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

To build your website’s visibility, you will need to create as many relevant and high-quality citations and social profiles as possible.

Follow these basic SEO guidelines when building citations and social profiles:

Be 100 percent consistent with your NAP information. Always use the exact same business name, address, and phone number. If you move locations, you will need to update your NAP information on your website, citations, and social profiles.

Write unique business descriptions that summarize your company’s history, niche, products, and services. Upload at least 5 relevant, high-quality images, not including your company logo.

Select up to 5 relevant business categories with the first 3 being the most important.

Google processes over 3.5 billion searches per day. If you’re not listed on Google, you’re missing out.

Be found on Google Maps and help customers find directions to your business.

Respond to customer reviews and promptly to any negative reviews (preferably before they are published) with reputation management software from LocalAdConnection.com.

To list your business, go to Google My Business and type in your business name and address into the search bar.

You can also upload images that will be shown in the local search whenever someone searches for your business.

LocalAdConnection.com, are experts in online marketing, reputation marketing and reputation management and local SEO, helping local businesses dominate their industry, rank highest in searches for targeted keywords, with positive and massive exposure branding them as leaders in their niche and getting them more customers.

 

LocalAd Connection
1700 E.Sunrise Blvd Ste 1213
Ft Lauderdale, Florida 33304
Call Us Today: (USA) 1-954-266-0078

Call Us For More Info: (954) 266-0078

Local Ad Connection Your Online Reputation Marketing Solution

Reputation Marketing is an Absolute Must for local businesses…

 88% (Of Consumers) Say They Trust Online Reviews As Much As Personal Recommendations.
But here is the REAL QUESTION?
“Do reviews affect consumer buying habit?” …YES, of course!

97% (Of Consumers) Aged 18-34 Read Online Reviews to JUDGE a Local Business Online RATINGS.

92% of consumers look at online reviews before a purchase.

Consumers read an average of 10 reviews or testimonials before making a decision to buy from a business.

If you don’t have at Ten 5 Star Reviews, your business is losing customers to your competition…. Lost Sales and Lost revenue.

Question:   Why Reputation Marketing?

Answer:  To Crush your online competition and brand your company as an industry leader in your field.  In short, it gets your phone ringing and video 5 Star Reviews go a long way in building that positive online reputation.

88% (of consumers) stayed on a website longer when there was a video.

Since Google acquired YouTube, and approximately 80 million videos are watched each day, just having 5 Star Video Review Commercials will boost your ranking in searches done by targeted audiences.  Hence, it is also an effective SEO technique as well as solving your reputation issues.

Want A Video Like This for your Company?

Online_Reputation_Marketing

Call For a “FREE STRATEGY CALL” Session with one of our Senior Producers Today!   Be part of this Limited Time local business beta program.

Call Us Today:
LocalAd Connection
1700 E.Sunrise Blvd Ste 1213
Ft Lauderdale, Florida 33304
(USA) 1-954-266-0078

Call Us For More Info: (954) 266-0078

 

 

 

 

Copyright Disclaimer:  Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.