Online reviews can
make or break how your business appears online. It gives your customers the
chance to leave information on a public scale about you, your business, its
products, services and their experience.
With customers having more information and knowledge of the
internet than ever before they are prepared to shop around for a quality
product and service. We have all used review sites in some capacity – Google
Reviews, Trip Advisor, Yelp, Revoo and Trustpilot are a few of the most popular
Online consumers expect a quality, reliable service and over
70% of consumers search through review sites assessing their options before
purchasing with an online business.
Of course, there will be apprehension using review sites as
the power is in your customers hands, but the rewards are worth it. Here are
three key reasons why reviews can work for your business:
- Increased Sales:
Using online reviews is a Marketing activity, it helps your customers in their
decision making. With over 75% new customers happier to purchase online with
recommendations and positive reviews from previous existing customers.
- Gain Customer
Insight: Online reviews will be able to give you an insight into what your
business is or is not doing right. This will allow you to address any internal
issues, create a more positive shopping experience for your customers and
increase sales.
- Improve SEO Rankings:
The more quality content that is write about your website, the higher it
ranks. It also shows Google your business is authentic, getting clicked on and
actively engaging with customers.
Get it right online…
From a practical point of view, make sure you give your
customers multiple opportunities to review your business. Whether it is a
pop-up box, fixed bar or dedicated page on-site give them more than one
opportunity to review.
Leading sites such as Trustpilot and Yelp offer several
tools to embed on-site in a range of styles, just pick which suits your
business more and make this available on your businesses site.
But it is all well and good having these on-site, but the
next challenge is getting your customers to use them. Encourage your customers
to leave reviews offering special offers, bonuses and discounts in return for
their feedback.
One last thought, managing
reviews…
Not all the reviews will be 100% positive, there will be the
odd negative review and it is important how you deal with these.
There are 100s of online and in-store training courses
specifically aimed at how to deal with online reviews. But the solution is
simple - manage reviews like how you deal with customers in-store, be polite,
professional, balanced and offer a solution for that customer, quality customer
service goes a long way in-store and online.
In the last few years
the UK has begun adopting a few online trends from the US, namely Cyber Monday
and Black Friday.
Love it or loathe it
they are the biggest online shopping days of the year and offers online
consumers the chance to make huge savings in the build up to the festive
period.
With more and more small businesses jumping on board and
offering flash sales, bargains and discounts as part of their Marketing for
these events ensure your business has the tool to run a flash sale smoothly.
To get the most from
these promotions here are a few simple pointers to get you started:
Start planning now: Plan
your promotions in advance, build up suspense with your customer base and let
them know of any upcoming offers and savings in advance whether its in-store,
on Social Media or via an Email Campaign.
Create specific page
copy: Plan the products or services you are going to offer savings on.
Ensure your website is optimised with product pages for these specific items.
Point customers in the right direction and ensure your user experience is
customer focused, they are not afraid to shop around when it comes to huge
savings!
Create eye catching
content: Whether it is for your businesses website, Social Media or to be
distributed to your list of customer contacts creating eye catching content
significantly increases click through rates.
Plan for an upsurge: Ensure
your website can deal with increased volumes of traffic, too many page requests
can slow the site down or crash the site itself. Test your website using tools
like Loadimpact.com to ensure the server that your hosts your businesses
website can take the strain.
Test, test, test: Before
any of your promotions, artwork and copy goes live test your processes and
ensure your site is fully prepared, functioning and operating as you would
expect with the new pages, copy etc. Get another set of eyes from a team member
and gain feedback.
Some businesses go as far as offering loyal customers a first
glance ‘Exclusive’ access to a flash sale. This is used to gain customer
feedback, fine tune and tweak their offering to make sure everything runs as
smoothly as possible in time for the main event.
Whether you love it or hate it, Black Friday and Cyber
Monday are here to stay for the foreseeable future. The chances are if you are
not taking part, your competitors are. If you think it would be something that
would add value to your business dip your toes in, start planning and prepare a
campaign using these few simple pointers.
