The power of Google reviews

These days, most small and midsize business owners understand the importance of reviews but often feel that they don’t have the time or the know-how to get them.

Here’s the thing, sometimes I think people aren’t aware of just how important they are. For example, according to BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey, 91% of 18-34-year-old consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

Reviews play a crucial role in helping consumers to feel able to trust a business and are a handy tool in influencing opinions. Many potential customers decide whether to use or avoid a business before ever getting in touch with them. Companies with a poor review profile could be denying themselves many new leads without ever knowing a consumer considered them.

When generating reviews, you have the option of doing it yourself or using a paid service. I’ll share my tips on setting up a review system for both options, for any skill level and budget.

DIY Email Campaign

Many business owners opt to create cost-effective email campaigns. Many email platforms have all the functionality you need to set up an automated campaign to encourage your customers to leave reviews.

To generate the most reviews from an email campaign, here are my top tips:

• Create an email template with a visible and easy-to-follow link that will take customers to a landing page where they can leave a review.
• Keep it short and simple. Ensure the formatting of the email is appealing and don’t overdo the content. The key message here is that you appreciate their business and want them to leave a review.
• Remove any distractions and be specific. You ideally want to lead your customer to the exact location where they can submit their review. Don’t leave anything to chance.
• Follow up. Program your email campaign with some degree of automation to prompt people to respond who didn’t open the email the first time.

If you’d prefer to streamline this process and automatically receive headache-free quality reviews, you might consider investing in a low-cost review platform.

The right tools for the job

If you decide to use a third-party tool to assist with generating positive reviews, here are the features that you should ensure are included:

• Excellent user experience.
• Easy-to-use templates and best practices for review generation.
• In line with Google standards for review generation and email best practices.
• Capacity to email thousands of customers if your mailing list is extensive.
• Offers responsive customer service, and the leadership team demonstrates a solid grasp, not only of review generation but also other concepts such as local SEO.

The great news is that Smart Reviews offers all these features and many more! Smart Reviews automates the collection and promotion of your best reviews… in four easy steps.

Invite

Your customers receive a perfectly crafted sequence of automated SMS and email invitations to review their experience. All you need is their name, mobile and email. And yes, we can do this in bulk!

Collect

Your 5-star reviews are uploaded to your chosen public platform, such as Google or Facebook. If you receive any negative reviews, we make sure these are emailed to your nominated inbox to be taken care of offline. How cool is that?

Engage

We encourage you to respond to your reviews. This shows customers you care about their experiences and generates repeat business.

Amplify

With powerful reviews in hand, we help you to promote these to new clients. The beauty here is that your fav and ideal customers will encourage more people just like them to engage with your business.

Sounds good right? Click here to take a behind the scenes tour of the Smart Reviews platform.