Reputation Marketing

You have a nice dinner to go to and your favorite outfit is in need of a trip to the dry cleaner. It would be inconvenient to travel more than a mile or two away, but then there are all those horror stories you’ve heard about clothes getting lost or destroyed. Trust is important. How do you make a decision on where to take your business?

92% of consumers are likely to check out review sites such as Google and Yelp to make up their minds.

reputationmarketing

Given the scenario above, where would you choose to take your dry cleaning? The option of a location with decent, consistent and recent reviews is going to be on the top of the list. But there are several factors to take into consideration when choosing where to take your business.

Key Factors in Reputation Marketing Analysis:

  • Review Rating Average
  • Number of Reviews
  • Consistency of Reviews
  • Quality of Reviews

Decisions both big and small are made daily with the assistance of online consumer reviews. From which hospital to take your child to during and emergency, to which restaurant has the best burger, the process of review sites is the same. With these factors in mind, how crucial is steady, consistent reputation marketing?

Reasons to Continue Reputation Marketing:

  • Suspicious Behavior: Suspicion arises when it appears that all of a business’s reviews were posted in a short time frame. This is a good indicator that reviews were paid for or incentivised, which is heavily frowned upon by the general consumer as well as Yelp and Google. No one wants to be lied to.
  • Consistency is Key: Lack of recent and continuous reviews may also leave consumers questioning the consistency of service and importance the company places on customer satisfaction.
  • Meeting and Exceeding Standards: Establishment of a strong online presence is an indicator that a company is concerned with keeping up with the standards of an evolving society. Review sites have quickly become necessary aspect of a business’s online accessibility.
  • No Quick Fix: Reputation marketing is a slow process, but well worth a little patience. Getting people to leave feedback in a way that is helpful and controlled is important to ensuring positive results. This is why it is crucial to continue reputation marketing over the long-term rather than stopping part way in. There is no “quick fix” without compromising the integrity of your business and ours.

Recent Statistics on Reputation Marketing:

When questioning your return on investment for reputation marketing you should know the facts. According to a study by the World Economic Forum, on average, more than 25% of a company’s market value is directly attributed to its reputation.

The statistics below were derived from a number of sources and reported by Forbes.com. They clearly demonstrate the importance consumers place on a company’s reputation when making purchasing decisions.

  1. 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business. (2016)
  2. Online reviews have been shown to impact 67.7% of purchasing decisions. (2015)
  3. 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. (2016)
  4. 74% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more. (2016)
  5. Every one star increase in a Yelp rating means a 5 to 9% increase in revenue. (2016)
  6. 82% of Yelp users said they typically visit Yelp because they intend to buy a product or service. (2013)

There are only so many factors you can control as a business owner. Your number one goal is to provide the best customer satisfaction possible in order to encourage positive reviews. After that, you are at the mercy of your patrons.

At Tree Ring Digital, we can take a lot of that pressure off through reputation marketing, but you have to make the commitment to see it through. That next star is very close, but it has to be properly earned as does the trust of your clientele.

Relax and slip into your freshly pressed dinner attire. Just keep being awesome at what you do. We can take care of the rest.