In today’s digital world, reputation management should be a key focus within your digital marketing strategy. Online reputation management is essential to creating a trusted brand online, generating leads, and - ultimately - making sales. Even if you don’t have a strong presence online (you should, but we won’t get into that here), you can bet that someone has left a review about you somewhere.
There are review sites all over the internet, and people are scouring them before they reach out to you to find out what others’ experiences with your product or services have been like. Think of it as word of mouth for the online era. To complicate things further, once a review has been posted, it’s often very difficult to have it taken down - even if it isn’t true. So long as the language in a review doesn’t violate the site’s terms of use (usually, these are pretty broad restrictions on hate speech, foul language, etc.), that review is there to stay.
Even if you can’t control the content of the review, you can control how you respond to it. And sometimes, that makes all the difference to the people reading them to vet your company. But, as is true in most cases, being proactive is better than being reactive when it comes to your reputation management strategy. Sure, responding appropriately to negative reviews is a great start, but what about building up a portfolio of positive ones?
Not only does a positive online reputation build credibility with customers (and more revenue), it also means more visibility in search. Search engines value online reviews just as much as your customers do. Google offers up search results based on the quality and relevance of a given web page. A great online reputation signals to Google that your business and online content are quality enough to show. Not to mention online reviews provide fresh, organic, user-generated content, which Google just eats up.
We mentioned that there are review sites all over the internet; honestly, there are too many to count. And people are reading them. According to Statista, as of 2019, shoppers expected a minimum of 100 reviews when looking at products online. Of course, there are a few that are more important to monitor than others. Social media profiles and Google are among the most important for services, along with product reviews wherever your products are sold.
The good news is, you can still do your own reputation management. By focusing on only the platforms you know your audience is using (you know because you’ve developed buyer personas and have that kind of information in your marketing quiver), you can effectively manage and respond to reviews. And, of course, there are online tools available to help.
Reputation management software tools can make the process of attracting and managing online reviews easier. But like all things automation, there are both pros and cons.
Whether an online reputation management system is right for your business is up to you. But if your organization can afford it and it is managed by someone who is adept at marketing automation, it can go a long way toward helping you build the glowing online reputation you deserve. Not sure if it’s right for you? Check out some of the reviews (see what we did there) of ORM systems on G2, or give your friendly neighborhood marketers a call. We’re always here to help.
