How to Get Good Reviews from Your Existing Customers for Local Marketing
Utilizing features such as the integration of Google maps with local reviews as a way of marketing is an idea that is just starting to be put into action by many businesses. Unfortunately, the way many businesses are utilizing those local reviews may be lacking in many regards.
One very effective strategy to getting good reviews on Google is to ask your existing customers to write reviews. There are certain things that you should request of them, if they are going to do this, that can make your reviews a lot more credible to the people who may make a business decision based upon reading them.
Skip the Long Narrative
Take a look at some local reviews and you’ll find plenty of them that have very long narratives that are essentially so personal that other people would likely have a hard time relating to them. One of the most clichéd examples will start out with something along the lines of “At first I was skeptical, but…”.
Some of the reviews that you’ll find along these lines are actual, spontaneous reviews written by customers. The problem with them is that they have the appearance of being a fake. They sound like every other review, in essence, which makes it sound like they were professionally written or that they were requested reviews that the business asked the person to write.
If you’re going to ask people to write reviews of your business, ask them to include specific points about your business. For example, instead of just putting up a flyer in your business requesting people to ask reviews, asked them to write a review about your customer service, your return policy or something else that doesn’t appear on Google at the moment. This prevents your reviews from being so generic that people either think that they’re just made up or people get very little value out of them for having read them.
Be Consistent
Local marketing is becoming such an important part of Internet marketing on the whole that it’s worth it to extend yourself a little bit to get good local reviews. Consider offering an incentive to customers who go ahead and write a review. This is a good way to encourage them to do so and, of course, to get them to remember that you asked when they walk out the door.
You may want to even consider asking people to write a review on the spot on their mobile device and offer them an incentive right away. Just be sure that the review that they do write sounds authentic and that it gives customers valid information about your business.
