The Best Free Advertising in the Age of Digital Word of Mouth
We give away free marketing tips all the time with ideas for promoting a business that don’t cost a thing, including tip no. 23 in this list of twenty-five free advertising ideas.
Free Advertising Ideas: 25 No-Cost Ways to Promote Your Business
When it comes to marketing, what could be better than free advertising ideas? Small cost, big impact marketing ideas are the best!
Fitsmallbusiness’ list of 25 Free Advertising Ideas has more than two dozen solid ideas for business promotion that can be done with an investment of time and little more. You’ll find our contribution to the list at number 23, where our own Elizabeth Kraus reiterates something she’s said here before: Online reviews are the new word of mouth.
Online Reviews are the Best Free Advertising
Online reviews are the new word of mouth. Not only do consumers trust online reviews just as much as they trust recommendations from people they know, many won’t even consider buying from brands with negative reviews. When comparing two similar items, those brands with positive reviews are far more likely to win the choice war over brands that don’t have reviews or stars. In the 2015 BrightLocal Consumer Review Study, the number of people willing to buy from a brand dropped from 94 to 57 percent when the brand’s rating dropped from 4 to 3 stars.
You might also like: The Long Shelf Life of Bad Word of Mouth Marketing Reviews
Word of mouth marketing used to happen one to one. Today, word of mouth can travel the circumference of the globe in seconds, in the time it takes to type a few characters into your computer or mobile device.
They say that bad news travels fast. Indeed, bad news does tend to travel faster and farther than good news. Why? Simple: Human nature. Bad news gets shared more than good; in fact, it may get shared nearly twice as much (College of Marin). Negative news – including negative reviews – is captivating and intriguing in ways that positive news can’t match.
If someone posts a social update, video or some other free advertising about your business that presents it in a positive light, you want it to live forever. If that update is negative, however, you’re going to hope it goes away fast.
According to the BrightLocal study, 4 out of ten consumers formed an opinion after reading 1-3 reviews, up from just 29 percent the year before. Given that people may pay more attention to bad reviews than good, it’s doubly important for you to develop a proactive strategy that produces good reviews and ratings for your business.
One bad review isn’t likely to hurt your business when it’s evaluated in light of a number of positive reviews. Likewise, if you respond quickly to a bad review in an obvious attempt to resolve the matter, a bad review or poor rating might not hurt your brand.
In my article on the Cintas blog titled, Bad Customer Reviews Don’t Have to Hurt Your Brand I share five specific ways you can be proactive in monitoring your brand’s reputation and responding if a customer chooses to express their displeasure with your company online, instead of giving you a chance to make things right.
5 Ways to Get the Free Advertising Benefits of Online Reviews
Ask!
When was the last time you specifically asked a happy customer to leave a review for your business online? Most patrons who praise your business in person will be only too happy to do so online.
Test
If you think you’ve got a winner, give some of your most loyal customers an opportunity to test new products or services and leave a review online.
Tag
Interacting with your customers personally on social media increases brand engagement. Invite these network influencers to give your posts or pages a like or 5-star rating.
Trust
Maybe you don’t ask customers to leave online reviews because you can’t be sure someone won’t say something that’s critical of your business. However, no reviews could be just as bad for your business as a poor review.
Follow
End customer visits with a link on the receipt or in a follow-up email that directs them to a review, survey or feedback site.
Online reviews can help you build your business, bringing new customers to your website, into your business and turning browsers into buyers more often. Make sure you’re taking advantage of what might be the most important free advertising tactic of them all.
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Do you need help building a customer email strategy that produces good online reviews and helps you gauge customer satisfaction? We can help! Ask us about options for customer surveys and email marketing services that can help you build your business.
