Online Reviews …What’s YOUR Plan?

Online Reviews Are No Longer Optional

Continuing on from my last post, now that you know what your online reviews reputation looks like, it is time to either turn things around and get some positive reviews or build on the momentum and start really standing out from the crowd with glowing reviews.

But how do you do it?

There is the typical ask your friends and family to leave reviews and other slightly questionable ways, but I prefer setting up a system which gets real reviews from real customers.

After all, people can smell B.S a mile away so you might as well get honest reviews from people who have actually experienced what your business has to offer.

The easiest way to get online reviews is:

1)- print out some business cards or postcards and hand them out to your customers Online Reviews while they’re in your business or send them mail if you have their addresses.

2)- Ask them to leave a review on a specific site of your choice (I suggest Google + Local to start and then alternate to another site once you’ve achieved your desired results.)

That wasn’t so hard now was it?

If you want to incentivize your customers for leaving a review you may do so, although some review sites frown upon this.

Another option is entering them in a contest.

There are more advanced strategies I can suggest that’ll encourage only those with positive feedback to leave reviews online and the less than stellar ones will be directed to a form which provides you with feedback in which you can improve and deal with the issue away from the spotlight. It also typically stops the negative reviews from ever seeing the light of day, but that’s more than I can share in a 300 word blog post.

What do you do to encourage postive reviews?

About the Author:

Nat Green is the founder of Revolution Marketing Strategies and Rev Mobile Marketing. Nat balances his time spent learning and implementing the latest and most effective marketing strategies to benefit business by enjoying quality time with his amazing girlfriend and their great dane.

Nat Green – who has written 13 posts on Owen's Byz Blog.

Christine

If you are encouraging only positive reviews to be published, your reviews will loose integrity, because people want honesty. Soon, potential customers with find you dishonest and that can ruin your reputation. Both positive and negative reviews are what consumers want to read. Each one has it’s own pros. With negative reviews, you get the opportunity as a company to improve your product or service.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=514033961 Nat Green
  
  Christine, I agree that having negative reviews make your business appear more authentic because, let’s face it, not everyone of our staff our perfect each day. That’s not realistic.
  
  There is very likely going to be a negative review sprinkled in here and there which is fine, but obviously, you don’t want it to be 50/50 or anywhere close.
  
  What I encourage is to get real reviews from real clients. There isn’t anything more honest than that!
  
  And yes, I also agree that getting negative feedback is good feedback that you can use to improve certain areas of your business. The thing is to get that feedback and not necessarily have it broadcast for all the world to see.
  
  The review system that I sie for my client’s has the ability to do this.
  
  Thanks for your comments.