5 Techniques to Make the Most of Your Online Reviews

5 Techniques to Make the Most of Your Online Reviews

Customer reviews and testimonials play an instrumental role in your lead generation strategy. On the one hand, reviews offer anyone interested the possibility to better understand how your product or service fits with real customers.

On the other side, positive reviews act like endorsements from your existing customers. And they can be a powerful tool for persuasion. For instance, 93% of consumers say that online reviews influence their purchasing decisions. So, you can see why harnessing the power of positive customer feedback can become a game changer for your business. If you don’t know how to do this, here are a few tips and methods to try.

How Customer Reviews Help with Lead Generation

Reviews and testimonials are factors that can help boost lead generation through connection, openness, and building trust. Let's begin with the connection. Reviews help you connect with your target audience. They provide an avenue for customers to share their experiences and thoughts about your product or service.

Moreover, good or bad, every review is a learning opportunity. This is particularly true for negative reviews. While we understand no business wants negative reviews, it helps to see them as valuable insights into areas of your operation that might need improvement. Lastly, the impact of positive reviews is truly impressive. They work like magic when it comes to attracting new leads. This is why reviews are often focal points for SEO strategies – interested users tend to include words like ‘review’ or ‘rating’ in their search queries when considering a product or service. 

Here are some of the techniques to Make The Most of Your Online Reviews

If you know how to use customer reviews to your advantage, you can build meaningful social proof. Positive reviews are one of the best forms of word-of-mouth advertising, so it’s in your business’s best interest to learn how to make the most out of them.

1. Encourage Customer Reviews

Of course, you can’t design strategies around your reviews and testimonials if you have none of them. However, most people don’t feel compelled to leave a review if they had a positive experience with your brand. At best, they’ll leave a 5-star rating. So, how can you convince them to leave a review?

The answer is simple: ask them to!

Many business owners are afraid not to seem too pushy, so they’ll avoid asking for feedback. But there is a way to be elegant about it. For instance, the best time to ask for feedback is immediately after a business transaction.

You can either send an email or a notification to remind the customer(s) to leave their opinion. In the email, include the link to where you want them to leave the review. This way, it will be a lot easier for them. You can also use specialized platforms, like pulseM, to keep track of all your business transactions and customers. These platforms will automatically send out review requests and reminders.

2. Make Your Reviews Visible

There’s no point in being shy about customer reviews (unless they’re not great). If you have an abundance of positive opinions from happy customers, show them off and push them as in front as possible. Place some of the best ones on your home page, and make sure you brag about them (tastefully) on social media as well.

3. Keep the Discussion Going on Social Media

Social media is a great place to get reviews from your customers. That’s because almost anyone who is online has at least one social media account. So, it’s a lot more natural to leave a comment or send out a message using a platform you’re already familiar with. But you have to encourage and support this form of engagement. To do this, be proactive about responding to comments or messages on social media platforms. Also, create content that stimulates conversation and encourages customer engagement.

4. Keep Track of Your Brand Mentions

Customers can leave reviews on a wide range of platforms, including sites like Yelp, Google Reviews, or Reddit. And, unless you have a huge marketing budget, you can’t keep track of all of these in real time.

The good news is you don’t have to. There are plenty of tools you can use to keep track of your brand mentions. Whenever someone talks about your brand online, these tools should notice and send you a notification. When you receive this notification, show customers you care and want to be involved in their conversation by posting an adequate reply. 

5. Don’t Shy Away from Negative Reviews

As we already mentioned, negative reviews can be a great learning opportunity. They’re not pleasant, and they may not always be useful, but if you pay attention to why customers aren’t happy, you may get some valuable insight.

It also helps to reply to negative comments. But only if you can be courteous about it and present a solution. Where warranted, apologizing for the inconvenience also helps.

Conclusion

Positive customer reviews can be extremely helpful lead generation tools. So show off the ones you have and encourage people to leave more by keeping the discussion open, accessible, and friendly.