Online Marketing - Swimming Through Online Reviews

Online marketing for summertime tourist season has begun in earnest! As tourists pass through your location and use their smart phones to Google the best place to eat, sleep, and play, be sure your online reputation makes your business...swim to the top of their list!

Online reviews determine whether potential clients will walk through your doors. When you have a solid star-rating and the supportive words of your top clients, consumers are willing to trust your services and try your products. For more information on online review managing and how IRM can help with your online marketing, visit www.impressionsrm.com.

#onlinemarketing #onlinereviews #webmarketing #impressionsrm

Online Marketing - Why Should You Track Your Reviews?

Tracking reviews is an important component of online marketing. Knowing what your customers are saying gives you insight into why they are (or are not) visiting your business, what they are looking for in products and services, and what you can do to improve your business.

As you read through your online reviews, here are some things to note:

• Positive comments - What are people saying they appreciate about your business and how can you use that to attract and/or keep more customers? For example, do they notice how friendly and helpful your staff are? Let your workers know that people notice and encourage them to keep it up!
• Wouldn't it be nice if... - Are people expressing anything they wish you had? More flexibility in hours? Additional services? More variety?
• Negative comments - Do you notice any trends? It's normal to have a couple of negative reviews that represent people who had an unusual experience, but if you see multiple negative reviews all saying the same thing - e.g. the receptionist was rude, the help was unfriendly, the secretary was snippy - then you have a bigger issue and need to address it. 

Knowing your reviews is a great was to know your customers' wants, needs, and concerns so you can cater your business (and your online marketing) to match!

Impressions Review Managing, LLC is a company committed to empowering businesses to manage their online reputations. For more information visit www.impressionsrm.com or email Ann at impressionsrm@gmail.com.

Promoting Your Business with Free Positive Web Content

Promoting your business online does not have to be expensive. When people search for your business online, in addition to your website, you want all sorts of positive web content and great reviews to pop up. There are many free ways you can promote your business through generating positive web content:

1. Online reviews - Ask your top clients to write reviews for your business on the top websites like Google+, Yelp, Yahoo, Foursquare, and any others specific to your business type (see some of my other blog posts for a more comprehensive list). Generating 4-5 new reviews every month will increase your search engine optimization and keep the online word-of-mouth advertising going. 
2. Blogging - Choose an area of your business about which you are passionate or surrounding a topic about which your clients frequently have questions and start writing. The search engines LOVE new web content. Writing a blog article 2-3 times per month will increase your web presence, address questions of your clients, and establish you as an expert in your field. Write on a blog website related to your business field or start a blog on any of the free websites - be sure to link your blog to your business website and give the link to your website each time you blog.
3. Informational videos - Think about DIY videos you could produce about your field that would help your consumers. Again thinking back to questions you are frequently asked can be helpful here in choosing a topic. Create a YouTube channel under your business' name and upload your videos. When people search your business' name, your YouTube channel will be in the search results.
4. Social media - Create and be active on one or more of the social media websites. Facebook and Google+ are great places to post pictures of your business and events or participation in community service projects. Consider Twitter for short news notes or Pinterest for pictorial advertising. 
5. Industry specific forums - Many online conversations are taking place in a wide variety of industries. Look for and participate in one that is related to your business. You can network with others through these forums, stay current on trends, and post information that can link back to you and your business.

Many other online advertising options are available. You don't need to do all of them, but you should find a couple that you can do regularly to continue to promote your business with positive web content. 

Ann Pearson is the CEO of Impressions Review Managing, LLC - a company committed to empowering businesses to manage their online reputations. For more information about the services IRM offers, visit www.impressionsrm.com or email Ann at impressionsrm@gmail.com.

Promoting Your Business - Offline to Online

We talk a lot about promoting your business through interacting with clients in online reviews, but your connection with your community is a great starting place for building your online marketing.

It is likely that you and/or your employees participate in various forms of community service. From acting in community theater to donating blood, running in 5Ks or even marathons benefiting charity, being an active and contributing member of your community is the norm for responsible citizens. 

Prospective customers like to see that the business they are supporting gives back to the community. For example, our family regularly opts for our locally owned grocery store over chain stores because we see the owner in the community, helping the 4-H club, contributing to youth and participating in the community events. Walmart is cheaper, but I never go there because the locally owned store is the one I want to support.

We see this preferential treatment of businesses regularly as people become aware of all the things the business owner and his/her employees do in the community and it leads to a healthy online reputation too. 

Using my grocery store again as an example, the weekly shopping trip is not all that exciting and while I may not think to write a review for the store because they had superb eggs that week, I do notice every time they show up as a community sponsor and contributor and THAT made me take the time to write them a stellar review online. I talk them up both on and offline and new community members will hear it all around - shopping local keeps our community strong.

It's good people helping out and making a difference right where they live. What do you do in your community? You are building your reputation and you can make a bet that it will end up online too!

Local Online Advertising: The New Phone Book

Advertising used to begin with a phone book ad. Your local online advertising plan still seeks to let people know who you are, your services, products, and the quality of your company and staff, but now that information needs to come up on the person’s computer or smart phone to reach prospective customers.

Hopefully you already have a web-friendly written, original content website with your business' basic information. Beyond your website, there are many things you can do to increase your online marketing. 

Your business' information is already online on many different websites, but how do you go about making sure your information is correct, your star rating is good, and your reviews encourage new clients to come through your business’ doors? The good news is, it’s not an expensive process and, if you are moderately tech savvy, you should be able to complete the process with minimal difficulty.

1. Start by looking at your business page on each of the major review websites (see the list on the infographic) especially paying attention to the sites that are also major search engines. Go through the process of claiming your business on each of the websites so that you can update the information and password protect it so that no-one else will accidentally upload inaccurate information. Most of these websites allow you to claim your business' page for no charge.
2.  Once you have claimed and password protected each of your pages on these sites, check each site for new reviews regularly. When you receive a new review, reply to the reviewer whenever possible – a nice, personalized thank you when it is a positive review and a request that the customer contact you by phone when it is a negative review. This shows your customer service and personal connection with your customers.
3.   Start asking customers to write reviews for you. The decision-making of today's consumer is based on reading the reviews your customers have written. Encourage your top customers and your happy clients to share their experiences online. This word-of-mouth advertising is an exceptionally powerful piece of your online marketing plan.

There are many time-saving strategies and tools to assist businesses in this process – feel free to check the other articles in this blog or on my website for more help with your local online advertising!

Ann Pearson is the CEO of Impressions Review Managing, LLC - a company committed to empowering businesses to manage their online reputations. For more information about the services IRM offers, visit www.impressionsrm.com or email Ann at impressionsrm@gmail.com.

Online Marketing Services: Reputation or Faҫade?

When you are looking at selecting an online marketing service to help manage your reputation, it is always important to choose a company that will help you grow your reputation and not just play the numbers game or try to create a faҫade of excellence. After all, you want people to see how truly excellent you really are!

As you will see in the infographic and descriptions below, there are three major areas to consider when you evaluate a company that offers review managing services.

Empowerment
This is YOUR reputation we are talking about, not any other company's reputation. It is vital that YOU are involved in the process and that you are given the information you need to solidify and grow your reputation online. This typically means there should be an educational component to the program.

Look for a program that includes staff development training and ongoing consultation services to help you work with the feedback your customers provide you through their reviews. Any company that encourages you to just let them handle it all, while they may be very well-intended, runs the risk of misrepresenting your business.

Impact
Think about where you go to research companies and products. Chances are, your customers are going to similar websites. You want reviews and customer feedback to be posted where potential customers are going to see it - this means on the major review websites and the major search engines' review websites - Google+ and Yahoo Local for example.

In order to have reviews on Google+ and Yahoo Local, your customers must post directly on these websites. NO third party company can post directly on your Google+ or Yahoo Local business page. They can only post to a website that that company owns and controls - this may produce more positive web content for your business, but it will not impact your Google+ star rating or the star rating on any of the other major review websites.

Ownership
Third party companies that are gathering your clients' reviews and posting them on their own website often retain the power to remove those reviews if/when you cancel services. Make sure that you own the feedback that is gathered from your clients.

Grow Your Reputation and Not Just a Faҫade
You work hard to make your business a quality and reputable place for your clients. Make sure the company you choose to manage your online reputation is committed to transparent and meaningful practices too.

Ann Pearson is the CEO of Impressions Review Managing, LLC - a company committed to empowering businesses to manage their online reputations. For more information about the services IRM offers, visit www.impressionsrm.com or email Ann at impressionsrm@gmail.com. 

Online Marketing Ideas: Grow Your Reputation

Building your presence online through claiming your review website pages, monitoring for new reviews, interacting with your clients online, and generating new reviews is one of the most effective means of local online advertising.

People turn to Google to find businesses and to research their quality as well as the quality of the products they provide.

Taking an active role in managing your business' online reputation will help you keep the customers you have, attract new clients, and grow your presence online.

Ann Pearson is the CEO of Impressions Review Managing, LLC - a company committed to empowering businesses to manage their online reputations. For more information about the services IRM offers, visit www.impressionsrm.com or email Ann at impressionsrm@gmail.com.

Client Surveys or Online Reviews? - Marketing Tips for Promoting Your Business

When you are looking at promoting your business online, you want client feedback that will be seen by many people and that will impact your star-ratings on review websites. This may seem obvious, but many businesses make the mistake of conducting client surveys to gather feedback not realizing that this can impede your ability to generate new online reviews.

Asking your clients to fill out a survey can give you great information, but once a customer has completed the survey, they are MUCH less likely to also wander out to Google and write you a review. The tendency is for your customer to feel that he or she has done you a service by completing the survey and giving you the specific feedback you wanted. Writing an online review would be just redundant.

Don't get me wrong, surveys are great and they can give you specific feedback on your business, facilities, employees, products, and more, but the results are only seen by you. Until you have a solid star-rating and presence on all of the major review websites, hold off on conducting surveys and ask your clients to write reviews for you instead. You will still get the feedback you need AND you will be promoting your business online.

Everyone wants quality customer feedback for business improvement, but if you are going to ask your clients to give you feedback, why not also let that information and their praise promote your business to prospective consumers too?

Ann Pearson is the CEO of Impressions Review Managing, LLC - a company committed to empowering businesses to manage their online reputations. For more information about the services IRM offers, visit www.impressionsrm.com or email Ann at impressionsrm@gmail.com.

Online Marketing Help - What Someone Else Can and Cannot Do For Your Business

Who has time to manage all of the online marketing that needs to be done to adequately promote your business?! From social media websites to online review websites to constantly changing SEO (search engine optimization) to blogging and YouTube and Pinterest... there are a ton of different ways to promote your business and many third parties willing to help you do so.

How do you know who to trust?
It's important to know what third party businesses can and cannot do for you in each of the online marketing arenas so that you can make wise decisions in what you outsource and what you handle in-house. Let's take a look at the online review options.

I like to end on a happy note, so let's start with the no-nos. Third parties can NOT:

• Write reviews for you. All reviews must be written by consumers. This is a good point to keep in mind when you are tempted to have Gramma or your brother or your hunting buddy write you a review. It's not only unethical, it's illegal and can land you in significant trouble. Just ask McMillan Law Group in San Diego.
• Post to review websites on behalf of your clients. If one of your clients fills out a survey for you and leaves fabulous feedback and the highest recommendations, a third party company cannot take those words and put them up on Yelp or Foursquare or any other review website. Only your client can do that. The review websites require that a person sign in with his or her account information and write the review directly on the site. 

• Post reviews on Google+. Let's say you are dentist in Chicago. Prospective clients looking for a dentist are typing in a Google search bar something like "dentists Chicago IL." What comes up in a search like that is a list of all the dentists in Chicago. Under each business name is a star rating and a link noting how many Google+ reviews the business has. Just like what was described in the previous bullet point, the only way for Google+ reviews and star ratings to be changed is if your clients write reviews directly on Google+. No third party company can post reviews on your clients' behalf. 
• Remove negative reviews. Wouldn't it be great if you could control every negative thing that someone wanted to say about you? How reliable would review websites be if they let businesses silence the people who didn't like them or their products? Not very. The idea is to give you an opportunity to right wrongs, mend bridges, and grow your business by listening to and responding to your clients.

Before we jump into the good things that third parties can do... third parties should NOT:

• Post replies on your behalf. Clients are posting to your review websites and describing situations of which only you are going to be familiar. The idea is to build relationships with your clients. Just like you couldn't build a friendship by having some un-involved person represent you, you cannot build client trust and loyalty if you are not the one doing the interacting. (Side note: Social media sites are different in this respect and it can be very helpful to have a third party posting there on your behalf because they are starting the conversations)
• Keep log in and password information from you. If a third party is acting on your behalf on the review websites, you should still be able to fully access and make changes to your account whenever you desire and without having to go through that company. 

Now what you've been waiting for... third parties CAN:

• Assist you with the claiming and updating of your business listings on most of the major review websites. A few are fee-based, but the biggest and most frequently used sites are free to access and a third party company can save you considerable time in this process. 
• Save you time monitoring the review websites for new reviews. It takes time to keep an eye on all of the different review websites. For any business, there are at least 9 general review websites and then a host of industry-specific review websites to monitor as well. Every site needs to be monitored a bare minimum of once per week, but preferably every day. Many services have advanced software that can automate monitoring for you.
• Consult with you on encouraging clients to write reviews. There are many strategies to encourage your top clients to leave you valuable feedback.
• Consult with you on responding to review posts. Both positive and negative reviews benefit from replies. While a third-party should not write the response for you, they can provide guidance and help you evaluate the tone and potential repercussions of your posts.

Obviously this is a short list, but my hope is to equip you to carefully evaluate the third party you are considering using for your online marketing needs so that your business gets the most value for your marketing investment. 

Ann Pearson is the CEO of Impressions Review Managing, LLC - a company committed to empowering business to manage their online reputations. For more information about the services IRM offers, visit www.impressionsrm.com or email Ann at impressionsrm@gmail.com.