6 Simple Steps to Market Your Brand Using Customer Reviews

Word of mouth advertising is the most powerful technique in the era of digital marketing. Thanks to social media and customer review sites, clients can easily voice their thoughts about your brand, service, or product.

Make no mistake—people read customer reviews. In fact, 94% of them do so. Similarly, 93% of consumers determine whether a local business is good or bad solely based on reviews. Finally, 72% of customers won’t take any action regarding a company until they have read reviews. These are staggering numbers, proving just how powerful online reviews are for any business.

6 Simple Steps to Market Your Brand Using Customer Reviews

Encouraging customers to share their positive experiences online can help your business generate social proof and a hyper-targeted promotion, as well as build trust about the credibility of your brand and the quality of your service, which, in turn, will result in new customers and higher rankings on Google.

However, you need to know how to leverage the reviews you get. They won’t do much for your business unless you utilize them efficiently.

How to Use Customer Reviews to Market Your Business

As we already said, you need to continuously encourage your customers to provide feedback and help you promote your business across multiple channels. Here are some creative tips to use customer reviews to market your business.

Feature the Best Reviews on Your Website

Make sure to present the best reviews on your website in a bold format and use them as a means of differentiating your business from the competition and engaging your visitors. Customer reviews validate the service offered, which results in increased CTR, sales, and revenue.

In order to get reviews worth being featured on your website, make sure to claim your business profiles on all customer review sites and let your clients know where they can submit their reviews; social media or customer review sites—leave their options open.

Then, streamline the process for leaving reviews—nobody wants to engage in a daunting task that requires a dozen steps to complete. Last but not least, collect the best reviews and promote them in your website, but also on social media.

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Consider adding the name and photo of the customer who wrote the review you plan on featuring on your website. This is an excellent way of making the review more credible and realistic. However, make sure to ask the customer for permission first.

Here is a great example from Main Street ROI:

6 Simple Steps to Market Your Brand Using Customer Reviews

Create a separate page dedicated to reviews and customer experiences. These pages also add credibility to your brand and encourage people to do business with you. They also answer many questions potential clients may have regarding your work ethic, quality of services, and customer communication.

Here’s how SEO Inc. does this:

6 Simple Steps to Market Your Brand Using Customer Reviews

Keep Track of the Review Sites

Review sites are an integral part of every marketing strategy. For example, when people search for the best SEO company in a particular city on Google, they’ll find several review pages in addition to Google’s local map.

So having an optimized profile on as many review sites as possible can only benefit your business. These sites have a strong authority and offer the perfect opportunity for link building, as most of these sites enable adding a link to your website, which results in increased traffic.

Of course, once you have set your profile on a review site, you should ask your clients to rate your service. You can do so via email or ask them once the service is complete. The equation is simple—the more reviews and ratings you have, the higher your business will rank on Google. Plus, if Google indexes a local business that’s rated highly, it will rank their profile on the first page.

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If you need a creative way to encourage your clients to rate your business, you can always offer deals. For example, you can offer discounts on the next service in exchange for a review on a specific site.

Take a look at how Homestadtax.com does this—similar pattern can be used for any business, regardless of the niche.

6 Simple Steps to Market Your Brand Using Customer Reviews

Show Your Customers that You Care

This goes for both positive and negative reviews. Monitor your reviews, acknowledge them, and respond promptly. Not only are reviews helping you get higher rankings, but they give you invaluable insight into what customers like or don’t like about your services.

Show gratitude for the positive reviews, but don’t ignore the negative ones. Instead, consider the negative reviews as helpers to improve specific areas of your business. They provide you with the opportunity to address your customers’ concerns and show them you’re willing to rectify the problem. If customers see this in action, they will have more trust in your business.

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Make sure to outline the steps you take to correct the problem so that your clients can be sure you’re keeping your promise.

Here’s an example:

6 Simple Steps to Market Your Brand Using Customer Reviews

Source: Vendasta

Also, you can offer a discount or free service as a way to make up for the mistake. The best case scenario is that your client changes the review or at least gives your business a second chance.

Share Reviews in Promotional Emails

According to the latest digital marketing statistics, over 124.5 billion business emails and 111.1 billion consumer emails are sent and received each day. Additionally, an average person spends approximately 30% of their working day checking emails. These numbers cannot be ignored.

You can use emails as a powerful tool in your digital marketing arsenal. Spice things up by adding customer reviews to your promo emails as a way of encouraging your prospects to do business with you.

6 Simple Steps to Market Your Brand Using Customer Reviews

Source: Marketing Sherpa

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You can go through the review sites, choose your favorite review, and then add it to your email signature. Don’t forget to include different reviews in each email you send in order to add credibility to it.

Share Customer Reviews on Social Media

Over the past few years, we’ve witnessed the explosive growth of social media. Social media statistics show that there will be over 3 billion worldwide users by 2021. This means that social media channels are the best places to reach the majority of your potential clients and share your best reviews to market your business.

Additionally, people who intend to do business with you will most likely search social media looking for proof of your credibility, so if you’re not leveraging it, you could miss out on a great opportunity.

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Whenever someone shares their positive experience with your company, like it and share it on all social media pages.

Make sure the reviews are appropriately displayed on social media. Use eye-catching images and highlight the best part of the review.

6 Simple Steps to Market Your Brand Using Customer Reviews

Source: Thrive Agency Facebook Page

Empower Your Top Customers

If you notice customers who continuously offer support and positive reviews, empower them by setting up a brand ambassador program. In turn, having a group of customers act as brand ambassadors can help you represent the authenticity of your company and show it delivers genuine results to clients.

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Start by creating content, which can include reviews and testimonials, and use them to promote your company.

Another way to make use of your ambassadors is to let them take charge of your entire blog or Twitter page, where they can post relevant stories that encourage potential clients to do business with you.

6 Simple Steps to Market Your Brand Using Customer Reviews

Source: Business2Community

Summing Up

When using reviews to market your business, make sure to choose those that are genuinely useful to your potential clients. Avoid the generic ones like “great service,” and focus on those that answer some questions about how your company helped them solve a particular problem and what the value for the money is.

Also, try and choose a review that isn’t too complimentary. Such reviews can cause a reverse effect—people become suspicious of the authenticity and won’t take it seriously. Finally, keep it short, sweet, and eye-catching. In the myriad of posts on the web, you need to create visually appealing content and make sure your audience actually reads it.

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