Your customer can be your greatest marketing resource – believe it or not! Your customers know the value you deliver. They know what your service is like and how well you fulfil your promise. In this age of instant everything, reputation is the new currency. The first place people go to check you our is your website through Google (it does carry over 80% of the world’s search engine traffic now), and you can bet that they will have a quick scan of any reviews that are there. In fact, 92% of consumers now read online reviews and the star rating is the number one factor that consumers use to judge a business. Do I have your attention now? There is no doubt that those reviews will impact their opinion of your business and its ability to fulfil their needs.
Here are four quick tips for leveraging your existing customer relationships:
- Referrals
The best type of advertising or marketing you can ever have is a customer referral. That is an external party with no perceived benefit in talking you up, recommending you to a potential client. Talking about their actual customer experience with you positively. That is a very powerful experience for the potential client and puts you in a very powerful position with them compared to your competitors. Your customer has done the majority of the hard work for! Obviously you still have to close the deal and make sure your online reviews are top notch. Question:
“Do you have an effective referral system in place?”
- Google / Online Reviews
As mentioned above, Google / online reviews carry enormous weight. Yes, it’s a fact 92% of consumers now read online reviews and the star rating is the number one factor that consumers use to judge a business. Not only are the reviews and star ratings so influential, they must be current with the expectation of 44% of consumers being that a review must be less than one month old to be relevant. And as we all know, trust is one of the biggest factors in the buying decision-making process. 68% of consumers say they will trust a local business more after reading a positive review about it. If you love stats, or you don’t believe me, check out this great infographic in the VENDASTA BLOG. Question:
“Do you have a process for gathering and promoting google and other online reviews?”
- Testimonials
Testimonials are an amazing way to leverage the goodwill of your customers in areas that you chose. Even with very good systems and processes, you only have a certain amount of control over Referrals and Reviews. Testimonials however, you can place strategically in your marketing to guide your prospects to the conclusion you seek – and order / sale / subscription. The format of the testimonial is important. Writing a good testimonial can be tough. It’s often a good idea to assist your client through the process with a template. As good as good testimonials are, poorly written ones are a terrible waste of time.
And just remember, in this age of instant everything, being available for your clients so their first experience of your business is a positive one is paramount. They will hit your website 24/7 to check you out. I just happen to know a managed live chat service that can engage your website visitors the way you would if they walked in your front door. Now that’s a WOW for them!
