Today's lesson
The importance of five-star -reviews. 

Gone are the days when advertising in the Yellow pages was all you needed to understand to put your offer in front of a local audience. 

The marketing world is changing so quickly it’s nearly impossible for one person to keep up. As a result, most marketers work with teams of experts, each in a different field. 

My experience in marketing spans 40 years. In that time I’ve seen a lot of changes. The most recipient shift in the market is to Reputation Marketing using an app. 

This is because 97% of your customers will check you out online before they buy your products making a five-star reputation the most important component of your marketing plan. 

If you are spending money on advertising without optimizing your reputation online first you are wasting your money. 

Thousands of customers everyday search on local business directories like Google+, Bing, Yelp, Yahoo Local, and dozens of other sites to find the most reputable company to do business with.  

If your company could not be found or is not properly set up on some of the most vital directories for your business then few people will even consider your offer.  

Back in the day, lots of business people could say they get most of their business through referrals. Today's research shows that 87% of customers that are referred to you go online to find your company information and the majority of them are looking for reviews about your company. If you have few or none or worse still, bad reviews you are sunk. 

If you are not found on Google Maps people will move on to someone who is. 
If you have no reviews on Google then you are cutting your business by ½ or worse. 
 

So here’s what I would suggest you do and I'll help you if you like. 

1. Research, Set Up, and Claim Your Storefront in Local Directories

Proper Industry Directory Research

Develop detailed research on local directories based on industry keyword research

Research top competitive companies to find directories they are listed on

Properly Set Up And Claim Your Business Listing

Create accounts on the best industry-specific directories

Proper setup of your company information and categories on each site

Claiming of your listings in order to control them and respond to reviews

Issue: No Reputation Monitoring System
Unlike the 100’s of different software that can monitor your social engagement, brand and company name, these technologies like Google Alerts cannot monitor your reputation. 

When people leave reviews on a directory site like Yelp, they never mention your name because they’re already on your business listing. Therefore, with dozens of review sites that are out there, there is no way for even the most sophisticated social or branding software to know if bad reviews are being posted and no way to follow up to get the bad reviews eliminated.

Solution:  

Create a monitoring process that daily monitors, tracks, and reviews your online review sites daily that notify you when bad reviews are posted. 

Develop a positive alert protocol so your team is notified about 5-star reviews so that they can follow up with the reviewer for a possible referral.

Issue: Not Enough Reviews To Be Trusted

Consumers will read an average of 10 reviews before making a decision and research shows  that customers do not trust a company that has less than 10 five-star reviews.   Therefore your company needs a strategy to quickly get more online reviews to show up on your directory listings.

Solution: Create A Print And Mobile Review Strategy

Create professionally designed media center with print media collect customer reviews

Create a professionally written email campaign to collect customer reviews

Design a customized mobile app for customers to provide a customer rewards program, deliver special one time offers, send special invitations and build a customer list that turns customers into raving fans.

Issue:  No Effective Online Feedback System For Surveying & Collecting Reviews
Employees and staff are motivated when they are praised and get feedback on the great job that they are doing.  It’s also critical for you and your team managers to understand your customer's experience and where your employees are falling short and need to improve.

Solution: Create A Customer Feedback Strategy

Create a professionally designed survey with important feedback questions

Ex:  –     Are you interested in discounts on our other services?

Is this your first time with us?

Would you refer us to others if they needed our products and services?

Create an incentive program for customers to leave feedback
Ex: Enter to win a prize when you give us feedback

Develop custom analytics to track the results and report them back to you and your staff
Ex: – What percentage of people gave feedback and reviews

What customers are interested in other services

Issue: No Review Posting Strategy
Companies that get reviews from their customers cannot post those reviews online because local directories like Yelp, Google, Bing, and dozens of others have proprietary filters and algorithms to delete reviews that are posted from the same computer IP network. Under no circumstances should anyone post reviews on behalf of a customer as it is typically against a site's Terms Of Service and possibly FTC regulations.

Solution:  Develop a proprietary strategy that motivates and inspires customers to leave reviews on local directories after they give feedback

Develop strategies that incentivize customers posting reviews after leaving feedback

Build a process that follows up with customers to leave reviews

Issue: No Control Over Bad Reviews Being Posted
No matter what strategy a company uses to collect reviews; your company does not have control over the fact that customers may post bad reviews.  Your business is only one customer away from getting a poor reputation online.

Solution:  Create A Review Posting Filtering System
Building a private feedback page will ensure that when bad reviews are written that they will never be public.  You will be notified and emailed these reviews so you and your staff can address them privately and internally.

Create a process that bad reviews get filtered and sent to your company's manager

Allow 5-star reviews to be left on your feedback page to be copied and pasted into photos posted to local directories

Issue: No Video Marketing Review Strategy
96% of customers polled said they find video helpful when making a decision to buy and 71% say that videos leave a positive impression on customers that visit their site. If You do not presently have any video reviews to be able to promote the great customer service and experience that you give on your website, social media, or on any of your business listings you need them.

Solution:  Create professional 45-60 second  video “Review Commercials” to promote
you as a market leader each month.

Produce an “On-Site” location shoot of someone reading you're 5-star review on an iPad

Create prime time graphics and animation with a call to action

Take a Photo of your office and drop a spokesmodel into your office to tell your story

Professionally optimize and geotag videos to rank for your company name and reviews

Syndicate videos to YouTube, Daily Motion and other social media platforms

Issue: No Web 2.0 Review Images
Customers engage in social media and engage in sites like Pinterest, Foursquare, and photo sharing sites and local businesses need to create top-of-mind awareness and engage customers where they are.

Solution:   design professional “Review Images” that immortalize

your 5-star reviews in a graphics format for posting.

4-6 professional “Review Image” graphics each month with your branding

Size photos to be used with Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter

Issue:  No Reputation Marketing On Your Website
Almost 3 out of 4 consumers say that online reviews are a major factor in deciding or not deciding to buy a product or service. If on your website, you do not have the authority or social proof to show the customers who have visited your site that you are the leader in the marketplace they will keep looking.

Solution:  Harnessing the power of written and video testimonials and adding them
directly to your website for new and existing customers to see.

Branding of your company as a market leader with written and video testimonials

Posting written and video 5-star reviews to your websites home page for visitors

Create a “Testimonials Page” that displays dozens of 5-star reviews from around the web

Collect and market the number of 5-star reviews you have from around the web

Set up a “Feedback Page” on your website to allow customers to leave reviews, ask questions, and voice concerns. 

Issue:  No Reputation Marketing To Your Social Media Sites
Facebook is the #2 app used to find local businesses and social media is a vital part of every business's need to engage their prospects and customers in proving that they are a market leader.

Solution:  Daily post written, image and video testimonials and adding them
directly to your social media to create top of mind and brand authority.

Post written, image, and video reviews to your Facebook timeline

Post written, image and video reviews to your LinkedIn profile

Post image and video reviews to your Google+ Local profile

Post written and video reviews to your Twitter profile

Issue: No Reputation Reporting Process

It’s important that you and your team keep up to date on the progress of creating and maintaining a 5-star reputation online. Therefore, you need a detailed process that will inform you of both the good and unfavorable reviews in a report that you can share with your team.

Solution: Develop and maintain a reputation reporting process

Create a monthly reputation reporting system that tracks reviews

Create a comparative report that compares success every 90 – 120 days

Develop Reputation Marketing analytics to track our reputation marketing efforts to all your social outlets and customers.

Create branding for the report so that you can use it to share with your staff and others to encourage them on the great job that they’re doing

Note: It can also be used as a learning tool to educate them on issues that arise when receiving bad reviews

Issue: No Reputation Marketing Staff Training (Reputation Marketing Culture)

It’s important to remember that every company is only one customer away from having a bad reputation. It isn’t enough to create and manage a 5-star reputation. It’s important to be proactive in creating a reputation marketing training process for your staff.  The most successful companies create a Reputation Marketing Business Culture.

Solution: Build a reputation marketing training center for your staff

build a customized and branded reputation marketing training solution for each one of your staff. This will educate and inspire them to engage in developing and maintaining a 5-star reputation.

create individual training videos in order to educate your staff on why your online reputation is vital to your marketing strategies. This will ensure that each one of your employees will have a clear understanding of how they can contribute and ensure that your company emerges as the market leader.

create a quizzing system where your staff can log in, watch the training, and take a short quiz on what they’ve learned. This will help us make sure that each of your staff is on the same page.

then have the system notify you on how they performed with the training so you have an understanding of which of your staff has a clear understanding of your goals and which ones might need a little more support.

Developing a training system for your company ensures a proactive approach to creating and maintaining your 5-star reputation and will almost guarantee your seat at the table as being a market leader and the most reputable company to be doing business with.

I’m Bob Polan.
My business is helping you build yours.
You can reach me at 1 905 954 5622 

Starting with the truth takes the relationship in an entirely different direction. When you begin with honesty your prospect is going to find it easier to get to know, like, and trust you. 
Don't you think? 
 

Instead of saying something like 
"Just reaching out as I was reviewing your profile and thought you’d be the ideal person …..”

Why not begin with: 

“Thanks for accepting my offer of friendship.” I hope we can actually get to know each other and become real friends.

In truth, I'm looking for some help. 
 

I'm launching a new product and hoping to get some Five Star Product Reviews before I spend any money on marketing. 

In all honesty, I don't know if this is something that would interest you but with your permission, I'll shoot you a link regardless. 

There will be no charge and I will owe you a debt of gratitude if you take the time to give me some honest feedback and maybe even a Five Star Review! 

Can I send you the link?