Shoestring marketing tip #1: local online reviews

The culture of reviewing

I read an online review yesterday for a self-help book that actually said this:

I only read the first page. As a buyer with an obvious need, I was looking for an answer from the first page. guess i have to finish the book before my problems could be solved.

Fortunately, the site where the review was posted, also provided this useful information:

0 of 30 people found this review helpful.

This online retailer — all right, it’s Amazon.com — also gives reviewers the opportunity to comment on other people’s reviews, not that anyone bothered to comment on this particular, and, might I say, remarkably stupid review.  But I found myself spending a good half hour reading other reviews and the resulting back-and-forth discussions on the reviews.  For the most part, the conversations were thoughtful and respectful of the other reviewers, if not of the product being reviewed.

People always want to make their opinions known.  Now, research is showing that people’s opinions are becoming increasingly important to other people who are looking for information about something they’re considering spending money on.

The more information people need, the more online reviews matter

If your product is Mountain Dew or McDonalds, people probably already know what they think about what you’re selling.  They are already consuming your product or they know people who are or if they’ve just fallen off the moon they can get up to speed pretty quickly because your products are everywhere — on television, in print, on everyone’s lips.

But what if your product is plumbing services or residential painting or a new restaurant where that salon used to be?  A study published in the March 2010 Journal of Marketing suggests that the less well-known a product is, the more influential online reviews are.

The more niche-y your company, product, or service is, the more relevant online reviews can be.  Here are some tips for cultivating a strong local online review presence:

1. Check the local directories for Google, Yahoo, Bing, AOL, Yelp, etc., and add your company’s information, if it’s not already listed there.
2. Make certain that every one of your customers has an experience worth writing home about.  Literally.
3. Make it as easy as possible for people to post good reviews for your business.  I don’t mean just asking people to write reviews for you.  Even if they want to, even if they mean to, there are a lot of distractions between your door and their computer that might derail their good intentions.   Some ideas for getting them to the keyboard:

Post a sign at check-out that says, If you were unhappy with our service, please tell us. If you were happy, please write an online review for us.

Print the URLs of the sites where you’d like to see more reviews onto cards for cashiers to slip into shopping bags.  Make sure the cashier asks, first, “Would you be willing to post a review online of your experience with us?”

Follow up transactions with customer satisfaction surveys through an online instrument like SurveyMonkey.  At the end of the survey, ask if the respondent is willing to post a brief review online, and set up the survey to automatically take him/her there if the answer is yes.

If you belong to a referral-passing group like BNI that makes testimonial-sharing a regular practice, ask the people who offer up testimonials for your business to post those testimonials online where someone else can see them.

The good news is, the more niche-y your product is, the more salient reviews can be.  The bad news is that one review can take you down.  Here’s some advice about how to respond to bad reviews.

Have an approach for cultivating online reviews that has worked for you?   I’d love to hear about it!

Bonus:  If you have a few minutes to read some completely unhelpful and hilarious product reviews, check out some of the 1,700+ reviews for the amazing Mountain Three Wolf Moon Short Sleeve Tee on Amazon.com

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