BrightLocal Report: Simply Ask, And You Shall Receive Reviews

ask for reviews

Remember to always ask for a review.  Here’s why.

Do you have customer reviews for your business?

Based on a report by BrightLocal, getting reviews from your customers can be as simple as asking them.

Here are some of the report’s key findings:

1) 7 out of 10 consumers will leave an online review if they’re asked to.
2) 50% of consumers have been asked to leave a review about a business and actually did leave a review.
3) 20% of consumers asked to leave a review did NOT leave a review for that business.

In short, you can give your customers the opportunity to leave you valuable feedback by simply asking them to leave you a review. Odds are, they will, and then you can use this feedback to promote your reputation.

This report shows the enormous potential of reputation marketing.

It’s important for every business to have a reputation marketing strategy in place to capitalize on it.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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How To Beat Bigger Brands And Grow Your Business

beat bigger brands

Looking to beat the bigger brands?

Are you a Small Local Business?

Being small doesn’t matter when you are offering bigger value and personalized services. What you need is to become more visible online to people looking for what you provide.

What are the advantages of being a small, local business that will enable you to compete with bigger businesses.

Here’s a short list:

Technology Tools

In no other time has technology made it easier for us to do business, communicate, promote, and expand our businesses on such a far-reaching scale. The Web, SEO, Social Media Marketing allow us to market our businesses in the same way bigger brands do.

Flexibility with Changing Conditions

Small business owners have way more flexibility to make immediate and necessary changes that are essential to dealing with changing local market conditions. Most often than not, observation, analyses, and recommendations go through many levels bureaucracy before decisions are made at the top. Execution suffers the same delays going down to personnel on the ground.

Personalized Customer Service

You have the opportunity to deliver personalized, unexpected and exceptional customer service.

How does it feel when you are served by the owner of a restaurant you often dine at, and get asked if the food is good and what can they do to improve their menu?

There is something very warm and fuzzy feeling about local interactions for both owners and customers.

Access to Digital Marketing Expertise

There are no longer barriers to access digital marketing expertise when you can hire an expert by the hour to oversee your marketing strategy and activities.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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Get Customer Reviews To Rev Up Your Revenue

customer reviews increase revenue

Something as simple as customer reviews can increase your revenue.

Online reviews are crucial to managing your reputation, gaining trust and building confidence. After all, trust is a key element to gaining and maintaining customers.

Do you remember asking for a friend’s opinion about a product before deciding to buy? Didn’t you become more excited after hearing encouraging feedback?

That’s exactly how online reviews work.

Let’s take a look at these statistics from BrightLocal:

• 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation
• 7 out of 10 consumers will leave a review for a business if they’re asked to
• 90% of consumers read less than 10 reviews before forming an opinion about a business
• 54% of people will visit the website after reading positive reviews
• 73% of consumers think that reviews older than 3 months are no longer relevant
• 74% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more
• 58% of consumers say that the star rating of a business is most important

Your potential customers are now checking what others say about your products or services before buying!

You need to always provide a good experience, earn those positive reviews, get them published, and see more repeat and new sales coming to your business.

There are additional benefits to getting positive reviews and 5-star ratings:

Improved Organic and Local Rankings
Google gives priority to businesses with stellar reviews on rankings.

Increased Click-through Rate
Consumers will most likely click on a business with impressive reviews in the search results.

Create Consumer Loyalty
Your customers who take the time to leave a 5-star rating are far more likely to feel a certain bond with your business.

Let your Customers Do Your Marketing for You
Even just a handful of positive online business reviews are worth a great deal and can attract new customers to our business.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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Take Advantage Of Reputation Marketing And Gain Customer Trust

gain customer trust

What do you do to gain customer trust?

Any smart business that is keeping up with current business trends will know all about how reputation marketing can affect their business, and how it directly affects things like customer retention, brand awareness, and most importantly, consumer trust.

And if you aren’t taking advantage of online review sites for your business, you could be missing out on gaining more customers and clients.

Having a good reputation marketing strategy where you have someone manage the aspects of online reviews can be very rewarding especially when it comes to building trust for your brand.

Getting listed on these review sites is the first step in “wowing” potential customers, and at the same time showing these future prospects that you care about your brand, and the customer experience. If you don’t do this, your competition will, and are already likely taking advantage of getting positive reviews.

Don’t wait a minute longer to find out that your business has unchecked reviews online. Take control of your reputation marketing strategy now.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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5 Ways to Better Engage Your Audience

better engagement with your audience

Looking for better ways to engage your audience?

Every time a user comes to your website or social media page you have the opportunity to interact with them and turn them into lifelong customers! We want your customers to enjoy coming to your page and to look forward to viewing your content. So that leaves us with the question, what does your target audience want to see on your page?

Here are some of the top ways that you can encourage viewers to get involved on your page:

Trivia Questions

Give your followers a chance to show off a little bit of their knowledge! Also, if you can come up with interesting bits of trivia for them, it will spark a lively conversation on your page and give viewers a reason to share your post.

Interactive Infographics

These are a great tool because they are visually pleasing and eye catching, but they also can pass along useful information about your business or industry to your potential customers.

Polls

A poll shows your audience that you want to hear what they think and gives them a chance to make their voice heard on your page.

Live Video Streaming

There isn’t a better way to make the viewer feel like a part of your company then by giving them a live window right into your office! They can feel confident knowing exactly who you are and what you do!

Interactive Mobile Apps

Make an easy to access App for your customers to use. It will allow them to stay constantly connected to your business.

All of these tactics are going to give your targets the opportunity to engage with your business. This will show that you care more about just making the sale; you care about your customers and want to hear from them. This will go a long way towards building followers that will stay with your business for a lifetime.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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5 Ways You Can Use Reviews as Marketing Content!

online reviews as content

Using your online reviews is a legit way to create content!

Are you struggling with coming up with content for your marketing? If so, look no further than your reviews.

Your reviews can be a source of inspiration. Using your reviews as marketing content can help promote your reputation, which in turn helps you to gain the trust and loyalty of your customers.

Here are five tips you can use today:

1. Write a backstory of a review to showcase your values, feature an employee, and to appreciate the customer.

Gain the trust of your target audience by showcasing your values, featuring employees and appreciating the customer.

2. Create a storyline around a sequence of reviews and publish it as an article

Storytelling is a great way to get the attention of potential customers. Formulate stories that are relatable and attracting to your target audience. Leave your audience wanting more of your company.

3. Create videos based on your reviews

Create short videos thanking your customers for their positive reviews.

4. Post your positive reviews on your website

Feature your positive reviews on the front page of your website.

5. Post your positive reviews on social media

Post your positive reviews on social media for everyone to see.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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Why Digital Marketing Campaigns Fail

reasons why digital marketing campaigns fail

Digital marketing campaigns fail for specific reasons.

Do you recognize any of the following 3 signs?

1. You’re not visible on search engines and if you are visible, no one clicks to visit your website.
2. If visitors do click through and visit your website, they leave almost immediately.
3. You’re getting clicks, and website visitors aren’t leaving your website, but they’re not buying anything!

Sound Familiar? I’m sure you’re asking, “What can I do?”

It’s all about understanding who your real customers are, their search behaviors, and the digital channels they use – and having the right product.

Luckily for us, online marketing allows your potential customer to be matched with your service to ensure that your product is the perfect one for them!

Here are three additional tips:

1. Make sure you are doing SEO. This includes optimizing the titles and description of every page and optimizing your content to match the intent and context of the search.

2. It’s not just about getting potential customers to visit your website. You want them to become engaged with your content.

3. Make sure your written content (the actual words/explanation/description of the product or service) is engaging, interesting. Relevant content will build trust and increase the probability of a visitor becoming a buyer.

So, know your audience, decide on your strategy and use the correct tactics. If you are unsure, seek advice.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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How Much Should I Spend on Digital Marketing?

digital marketing budget

What is your digital marketing budget?

Why do companies engage in digital marketing? Companies invest a lot in online marketing, mainly because it is effective in more ways than one. It leads to better and faster return on investment, enhances the company’s overall image, and increases your customer base on the Web.

It’s recommended that you invest about 15% to 20% of your monthly profit into online marketing. Internet marketing agency pricing varies, as does the online marketing cost for different strategies and packages.

Your budget will depend on many factors:

– What you are selling
– How intense the competition is
– How easy or difficult it is to find potential customers
– How important brand exposure is to you
– Your business type
– Your profit margin
– Your growth plans

It will take much testing to determine an optimum online marketing cost, and it is best to consult an expert. However, spending less than 10% of your available monthly profit is not going to make much of an impact on your competition. This is especially true if your business is in its growth stage when you need to invest heavily in the strategy and tools that will promote, sell and create revenue.

How much of your available profit do you re-invest in digital marketing?

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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How Long It Does Take to See the Results of Digital Marketing?

digital marketing results

Are you impatiently waiting to see the results of your digital marketing efforts?

This is a frequently asked question. The answer depends on what you are looking to accomplish and the strategy that you have put together.

Are you looking for short-term results or are you planning for next year?

If immediate short-term results are your aim, then you should choose pay-per-click advertising (PPC). The results can be seen in 2 days or in a week.

Comprehensive keyword research and continuous monitoring and optimization of your PPC settings will maximize performance and yield ongoing positive results.

If your vision is for longer-term gains then consider search engine optimization (SEO). A comprehensive and thorough SEO campaign will start to yield results after a few months. This may take 4-6 months or 6-9 months.

Successful results mean not only increase your website ranking on search engine results but also receiving leads that lead to sales.

Visit our website to learn more about our marketing audit and blueprint consulting services.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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Monitoring Your Online Reputation With Google Alerts

google alerts for your online reputation

Google alerts is a great way to manage your online reputation.

Promote your brand along with its good reputation on social media and other platforms. However, things get a bit complicated when you have to deal with bad reviews.

First, keep a good reputation by being honest, transparent, setting clear expectations for your customer, and by being in business because you genuinely want to help people around you. It goes without saying that shady practices are a no-no.

Second, you have to prevent any dissatisfaction by a customer from escalating by addressing every complaint you get. It has to be fixed at this level immediately while the customer is still trying to reach out to you. Because once they have felt frustrated and think they have to warn others about your practice, things can get messy.

Nonetheless, you have to set your radar for negative reviews. One good way to do this is to set up Google alerts for your brand terms and name.

What else can you do to safeguard your brand?
  • Claim your brand name
  • Build a consistent identity

Whether your brand is your name itself, your business name or your product name, you need to make sure that no one else can misrepresent you online by owning a piece of your brand. Make sure that you own domain names and usernames associated with your brand.

Suggested tool:
NameChk.com
Build a consistent identity on major channels:

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
YouTube
Pinterest
Tumblr
Quora

Publish content regularly:

The content you publish will define and reinforce who you are, what you stand for, and what your business is all about. This will make up the values associated with your brand. Anything inconsistent with these values will not be immediately convincing to your customers who know you.

Let me know if you need more information. We’d be glad to help.

Are you ready to grow your business now? If you’re ready to take the next step and make your business more profitable, please reach out to us.

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