How to Get More Reviews

If your Review Strategy is : Boy, I sure hope they go and give me a review. You will wait a very long time to get any benefit (SEO or otherwise) You must create a Review Funnel and consistently implement it to benefit from the power of reviews

Review Funnel - anticipate what will motivate customers to write a review and funnel them from their experience with your service through completing the review process. The trick is to let your happy customers know you value reviews in a cool way, then make it easy for them to complete the review Lets look at the stages of a review funnel

Stage 1 – Get customers into the funnel (let them know you value reviews) No matter the motivation it is typically not strong enough for people to seek out a review site and write a review (unless its negative) The reality is that most of our borrowers never even thought of writing a review But you can do things to encourage them to do so This is getting your clients into the funnel

There are three main parts to getting your customers into the funnel 1.Invite customers to give feedback 2.Craft the right message 3.Offer an incentive to engage

Invite the Customer to Give Feedback – A survey by TripAdvisor of the top rated hotels and inns asked how they got so many ratings when competitors in the same area did not – every hotel and inn had one thing in common, the invited guests to write reviews either with signs, a take away at the front desk, follow up thank you card or . Amazing what the simple act of asking can do

You can invite customers in many ways – them a nice a message after closing that says – “Thanks for choosing us. We’d like to invite you to share your experience with us. Your feedback not only helps us, it helps other potential customers” Send a Greeting Card in the mail that says – “Thank you for allowing us to help you with your home purchase. We’d like to invite you to share your experience with us. Your feedback not only helps us, it helps other potential customers”

Face to Face is by far the best place to invite customers to share – If you go to your closings you can ask them to write a review of their experience with you Have a printed “invite to review” that you can hand to them as a take away This gets their wheels turning about what they will say The take a away stays with them until they either write the review, or they throw it away or loose it

Crafting the right message – Asking customers for reviews can be very effective. But you must get your ask just right to work. Being to pushy can cause people to not only ignore your invitation but could cause an opposite effect Remember that happy customers generally want to help others find good products and services (altruism) and they want to help business owners who served them well (reciprocity)

Use verbiage that incorporates altruism and reciprocity “Help us. Help others. You’re invited to review…” “Your feedback helps other first time buyers like you find the best home buying option for them.”

Offer an incentive to engage – Do not mis-understand this. This is NOT a bribe to leave you a good review. The inventive would need to be available to anyone who saw it. A coupon to a local restaurant A round of range balls at the country club A car detail coupon Having this incentive present when you invite people to review you will increase the number who complete the review

Stage 2 – Guide the customer through the review process (show them how easy it is) You want to get customers leaving reviews where they count the most: on the third-party sites others use to discover, evaluate and compare companies, products or services like yours. We have spent some time going through the set up of different review and business listing sites (Google+, Facebook Fan Page, Yahoo small Busines, Bing Business, local Business Directories) But are they all where you want people to leave reviews? Where do they count the most?

Focus your efforts on the big 2 that can provide the most impact Google + Facebook Fan Pages In your message inviting your customer to review your services tell them exactly where to go and how to leave a review “To leave a quick review, just click HERE. That will take you to my Google Business review page (it will require you be logged into your Google account). Or you can go HERE and leave a review on Facebook (this will also require you to be logged in)”

Stage 3 – Monitor and Respond to Reviews (create conversations with your fans) Turning customer reviews into an effective marketing channel is about being: 1. Proactively getting customers to share the word about your business 2. Responsively addressing reviews publicly or privately even when they don’t reflect the reputation you aspire to

Make sure to set the notifications for the review sites you intend to drive traffic to You don’t need to set around and watch for reviews but you don’t want days to go by with acknowledging them either

A couple of good rules to live by when responding to reviews 1.Don’t respond to every review – yes respond to every negative review, but for the positive respond to aspects that point out a specific detail that customers would otherwise not know about 2.Always thank the reviewer for taking the time to provide their feedback. Good or bad, right or wrong, they took the time, thank them for that. Look at each review and reviewer as they are trying to help you and your business

What would your Review Funnel and strategy look like if you put a little technology behind it? What if you used videos and a landing page to encourage those happy customers to relay their experience What if you could automate the whole thing?

Join me tomorrow for that exact thing We will – Build a Review Landing Page Create materials for getting that landing page to our customers