Reputation marketing is a way businesses can position themselves among the market leaders in the eyes of their consumers. The goal of any business is to become a beloved household name. You want your customers to like you, respect you, and recommend you to their friends. Reputation marketing makes your glowing reputation more visible to potential customers, opening up doors that you have never dreamed of.
Managing your company’s reputation is important but reputation marketing moves it into the public eye. Now, more than ever, consumers are closely watching companies to make sure that they provide superior products and services while maintaining ethical business and social practices. However, having a great reputation can only take your company so far.
Reputation marketing involves making your company’s reputation work for you. Portside Marketing can guide your company through the steps required to become a leading force in your industry.
The Importance of Reputation Marketing and Reviews
You have a great company. Your customers are thrilled with what you do. Now it’s time to get all of the hard work you’ve spent on building up your reputation to pay off. The first step in reputation marketing is getting your customers to talk about how great they think you are. The best way that you can do this starts with your employees. Train your employees on the importance of and encourage them to ask their customers to share their great experience with others through a review. Your most satisfied customers would be more than happy to help your business out.
Publishing reviews in visible spaces such as Yelp, Facebook, Google, and Yahoo, helps entice other consumers to give your company and products or services a try. Superior reputation marketing requires a steady flow of strong reviews shows that your company consistently provides superior service time and again. It’s important to feature your excellent rating in any way that you can, this is a big part of reputation marketing. Consumers tend to flock towards companies that show outstanding ratings over those with mediocre reviews. In fact, according to The Economist, 70% of consumers trust a business that has at least 6 to 10 positive reviews.
On the other side of positive reviews, there will be the occasional negative review. It’s not possible to please everyone all of the time. Reputation marketing also means handling any negative reviews with professionalism and respect. The fatal mistake that most companies make when it comes to dealing with negative reviews is doing so in a public forum. While it may just be one person complaining, thousands more are watching your responses. Instead of handling them in a public forum where things can quickly become heated, it’s much more effective to handle negative reviews offline. Poorly handled reviews have gone viral, causing business to plummet. If you do receive a negative review online, the best thing you can do for your reputation marketing and your company is to politely respond saying that you are sorry for the problem, and ask them to contact you or ask for their contact information. You also want to avoid admitting guilt during this initial point of contact while still being respectful. From here, take the conversation offline for resolution.
The Key Steps in Reputation Marketing
There are a few steps you should follow for reputation marketing. The first step is building your company’s reputation. You can start working on this by finding your reviews online and claiming your listings on Yelp, Facebook, Google+, and any other social media platform. You’ll want to highlight the positive reviews and repairing any damage done by negative reviews. Read the reviews to see if there’s a pattern reflected and look for ways to improve your overall ratings. This can include asking your employees to request your customers to leave reviews for more input. Remember that reputation marketing isn’t just about marketing your reputation, but building and maintaining your reputation as well.
After you’ve built your reputation then you’ll start showcasing those excellent reviews that you have worked so hard for online. Step three is continuing to monitor and manage your reputation. While it’s great to have amazing reviews, reputation marketing is about keeping those great reviews rolling in. The last step is celebrating your reputation. Revel in the excellent service you provide and make sure everyone knows that your company continuously provides great service.
We all strive to have our company top the charts in our field. We want customers to be led to us on a path of good reviews. Reputation marketing is about laying those reviews down on that golden road to help lead customers right to your business. Acquiring customers through good reviews gets you started on the right foot with your new customer and begin the circle of excellent service and excellent reviews all over again. And with each review, your customer base grows a little more. With the right guidance, reputation marketing can help your customers and their reviews work for you and make your business a beloved household name.