In the age of online shopping, reviews play a key role in brand discovery, making them an essential consideration for all digital marketers. It all starts with search engines using online reviews as one of the factors for ranking a business in the local search results. This helps gain visibility with 99% of the people who use the world wide web to make purchase decisions.
93% of consumers reveal they trust online reviews as much as referrals. 89% of people avoid interacting with businesses with ratings lower than two stars, and 92% feel encouraged to support businesses with more positive reviews.
As the modern equivalent of word of mouth, online reviews provide impartial and authentic insights no other marketing campaign can replicate. They can easily make or break the reputation of a company while having a significant impact on the sales of local businesses.
While the benefits of online reviews are many, knowing how to get them for a client’s business can be challenging. Since there’s no magical formula, let seasoned professionals at Rocket Driver create meaningful social proof and build brand love for your clients.
Outsourcing reputation management services to us means your agency gets an expert team of seasoned professionals for a tiny fraction of the cost of hiring an in-house team. The outcome? Earn huge profits, save money and time, and expand your client base tremendously by outsourcing to us.
Consult our strategists to build, correct, or elevate your client’s online reputation at ultra-low rates!
Key Benefits of Online Reviews
Online reviews act as social proof, validating the services and products of a business for skeptical shoppers. On top of an excellent marketing strategy, social proof has become a psychological phenomenon providing additional context, resulting in reduced returns or refunds if the buyers are satisfied with the purchase.
When customers write a review, the story acts as an unbiased source of information with a convincing power that surpasses that of a well-written and optimized production description.
The benefits of online reviews don’t end there! Loyal customers reviewing products can influence prospects to follow the lead. They build trust, help businesses stand out in highly competitive online marketplaces, and establish the prowess of a brand by providing reliable facts about the business, resulting in higher SERP rankings, website traffic, and click-through rate.
Keen shoppers looking for online reviews to learn more about a business from past customers are likely to spend more time on a website, significantly lowering the bounce rate and improving the conversion chances.
And then there’s social media engagement. When users post rave reviews and recommendations on any social media platform about a particular business, it’s shared with numerous other frequent users, which could drive significant business to your client’s website.
How to Get More Online Reviews for Your Clients
#1- Set up Profiles on Relevant Platforms
As marketers, it’s our job to know the client’s industry better than anyone else. Using experience, tools, and insights, our knowledgeable experts can shortlist pertinent review sites that attract dedicated users and make sense for a particular business or industry.
With so many unique platforms offering value to users, you need to provide lots of options for clients to provide honest feedback. Expanding the options increases accessibility, enhancing the chances of customers leaving a review even if they’re not logged onto the client’s website.
Research the platforms your client’s audience uses more frequently. With over 3 billion active Facebook users and over one-third of them active daily, there’s a high chance that your client’s customers are browsing their Facebook page instead of their website.
Online reviews on Facebook give businesses added exposure because of the platform’s popularity. When someone reviews a business, the metrics automatically help the review appear on the newsfeed of many others.
It can encourage prospects to tap the profile link, which helps you win half the battle of getting them on the client’s page without additional costs. This naturally increases website traffic, resulting in improved conversions.
Also, don’t limit your efforts. Your social media strategy must include all relevant platforms, from Instagram to Google Local to Yelp and Trip Advisor, among other germane platforms. Data shows Yelp alone receives over 26,800 new reviews per minute. Meanwhile, Tripadvisor surpassed one billion reviews last year.
Google, Facebook, TripAdvisor, and Yelp are collectively home to 89% of all online reviews, with Google being the clear winner, housing nearly 74% or over six times more reviews than all the competitor review platforms. The takeaway is that people love reviewing businesses they interact with; all you have to do is leverage that for your clients with Rocket Driver’s holistic white label reputation management services.
When customers have lots of options to rate a business, it helps generate some social proof with increased reviews.
#2- Ask Directly
Find the right time and ask for the review once the transaction is complete and the customer seems satisfied. The idea is to ask them for reviews as soon as all loose ends and post-sale issues are tied up so they can detail their fresh experience rather than a fuzzy story that seems made up or outdated.
You can ask through different ways, from texts to phone calls and postcards to emails. Be polite in your approach and explain to them how their reviews are critical for helping the business grow. Platforms like Etsy and Amazon asked people to leave a review with text messages or follow-up emails. Consequently, over 20% of their purchases get reviewed just because they asked.
For relevance, online retail giants allow customers to review purchases within 100 days of making the purchase, so the reviews are legitimate. Meanwhile, Amazon allows people to leave reviews even when they haven’t bought a product through their platform. However, it won’t be verified.
#3- Make it Easy to Leave Reviews
Even if customers have a great experience with a business, they’re not as likely to leave reviews as those who may have had a negative experience. Make it easier for customers to review their purchase by including a link on the website that redirects them to review platforms such as Yelp, TrustPilot, and more.
Send emails prompting feedback with links for the preferred review platform so they can post reviews with just one click. But ensure the email’s subject line has a high open rate because open rates and click rates have a direct correlation. The greater the open rate, the higher the chance of customers tapping links within a message.
#4- Request Validating Images
Pictures validate reviews and give the impression that they’re from real people. Some platforms allow people to include their photograph and name in their profile, automatically backing up their statements.
Users can also see the number of customer reviews, establishing them as legitimate information sources. When the user isn’t anonymous, people know a real person is offering their opinion about a particular service, product, or business.
Many companies add these features to their websites. You can encourage and incentivize your client’s audience to include high-quality photos and videos in the testimonial, which will lead to an improvement in its credibility.
#5- Offer Incentives
While loyal customers may already evangelize about your client’s brand to their family and friends, some may need a friendly nudge to leave reviews.
Offer them coupons, discounts, and other incentives to leave reviews after discussing the possibility with the client. Ensure you don’t offer incentives only for positive reviews, as Google can consider them forged, which can hurt website rankings.
Change Your Client’s Business Trajectory with Online Reviews
People take online reviews incredibly seriously! You need to be proactive about each client’s online reputation to take control of the image being crafted for a particular brand. Rocket Driver can help take control of the online reviews for your client’s business.
When you partner with us for our white label online reputation management, you’ll get access to our client-facing dashboard that offers advanced reporting, analytics, and store. Flexibility is the key to our partnership’s success.
Rocket Driver is the right fit, whether you are a start-up or have hundreds of clients. From monitoring your client’s listings using our proprietary Reputation Management software to fully-managed SMS and email marketing campaigns to get reviews, you can rest assured that your clients will get a holistic reputation management solution!
The seasoned professionals at our white label reseller agency possess the skills and tools needed to improve the overall reputation management strategy for your clients, no matter what industry or niche they belong to.
Apart from white label reputation management, we offer SEO, content marketing, social media management, SMS marketing, web design, business listings, graphic design services, and sales funnel marketing.
Call 212-548-4433 for more detailed information about our white label solutions. We take pride in our proven record of helping businesses fetch long-term results based on objective insights.
White label partnership with Rocket Driver provides marketers instant access to the latest tools, technologies, software, and infrastructure needed to boost an agency’s profitability, expand clientele, and unlock opportunities to scale like a Fortune 500 titan!
Schedule your one-on-one demo today!