Why Online Reviews are Important for Your Brand

Why Online Reviews are Important for Your Brand

Online reviews are a very important aspect of any business’s online presence today. Your potential customers have become adept at searching and researching products and services before making any purchase decision. Again and again, we find that consumers trust online reviews, as much as personal recommendations from real people. More than half of consumers will only use a business if it has positive online reviews. Online reviews are also critical for your business’s online visibility, for lead generation, and to achieve sales. 

Your business needs to make online reviews a priority. Consumers value what other people have to say about businesses, products, and other people. 90 percent of consumers read online reviews for local businesses. They are a very influential factor, where a positive review can truly set your business apart from your competitors. In essence, online reviews are the modern equivalent of word-of-mouth marketing. And as such, it is imperative that you engage in the conversation.

WHY REVIEWS MATTER

Online Reviews Build Trust – A review says a lot about your business ethics, service quality, and reliability. By helping customers learn more about your business, reviews build up a level of comfort in their shopping decision. Another reason consumers trust online reviews, as opposed to ads, is that the reviewer is seen as a peer that has shared the same shopping experience. Reviewing is a way of helping others.

Increase Conversion Rates – Online reviews can increase your business conversion rate. When consumers have trust in your reviews, they take action. They can be your gateway to generate new and repeat customers. Reviews are a way of taking a crowdsourced approach to decision-making, which allows the consumer to gather data, learn of potential problems, learn from other people’s experiences and spend their money accordingly.

Local Ranking FactorReviews (along with an owner’s response) show that consumers trust a business, and trust is a foundational factor in ranking. When you reply to reviews, it shows that you value your customers and their feedback. High-quality, positive reviews from your customers can improve your business visibility and increase the likelihood that a shopper will visit your location.

Learn About Your CustomersActively generating and interacting with your online reviews is a great way to analyze your market and make improvements to your business. Online reviews allow you to see your business from the outside and get to know what is working and what needs to be improved. When problems do arise, monitoring reviews will allow you to quickly rectify the situation and prove to customers that they are your top priority.   

 HOW TO GET STARTED WITH ONLINE REVIEWS

Before people can start aggregating reviews, you need to take control of your review pages and social profiles. You can request a customer to post a review on your Google My Business page, Facebook, Amazon, Yelp, or Trustpilot. These platforms are broadly trusted and can significantly improve your online presence

Studies have shown that asking for reviews will result in higher ratings than not asking, so make sure to be specific and personalize the request. Go through the review process and make sure it is as easy as possible for the customer. Make sure to monitor the reviews and respond to their comments, both positive and negative. Use the positive reviews to nurture new brand ambassadors and the negative reviews as opportunities to remedy the situation and improve your business. 

Consumers will judge your business based on online reviews, whether you like it or not. So take the initiative and cultivate positive reviews. They are a valuable asset that will serve as organic marketing campaigns and help make your business better. It will take some time and effort, but it’s worth it to grow your business. 

 

 

Digital Marketing Lessons 2020 Has Taught Us

Digital Marketing Lessons 2020 Has Taught Us

The pandemic of 2020 had a huge impact on everything from our private lives to how we work and communicate. Businesses large and small were forced to respond quickly to a new normal and the changing needs of their customers. As we approach the half-year mark of 2021, it is worth a moment to stop and look back at how the digital marketing landscape has evolved. With this in mind, here are some digital marketing lessons that we will continue to carry forward as part of a robust marketing strategy to reach customers.

Conveying Value Via Storytelling 

Businesses need a powerful story to grow because storytelling is essential for memorable communication. It is imperative for your brand to communicate the story of your history, your mission, and your values through your digital marketing. Consumers are more likely to connect with your products and services if they know how you got started and why your brand is beneficial to society. If you are successful in communicating your story clearly and consistently, you are more likely to earn customers’ attention, loyalty, and affection. The goal is to make the audience feel something. Decision-making is more emotional than logical. Telling a good story makes us think and feel, and will help your business stand out in the market.

Stop Taking Customer’s Trust for Granted

Taking care of your existing customers is just as important as attracting new ones. Businesses should not allow themselves to focus solely on growth. Businesses can not allow themselves to believe that customers that are there now will continue to be there tomorrow. No company or product is indispensable. It is time that you stop taking their trust and loyalty for granted and think about retention strategies. To retain customers, it is very important to customize your offerings to fit consumer needs and place an emphasis on service and value. 

Some of the best digital marketing strategies for successful customer retention are: 

  • Promoting your brand value and commitments 
  • Pivoting your product or services into a unique offering
  • Offer virtual services 
  • Create helpful content (blog or video promotion)
  • Run an offer or discount to increase loyalty and client retention

Contest promotion 

Contest marketing strategy persuades people to interact with your brand through the use of contests, giveaways, and sweepstakes. Contest marketing is effective because it entices individuals into interacting with your business by offering prizes. The hope of winning is powerful and exciting. Gamifying promotions are also a fun and exciting way to create brand engagement. They involve tapping into people’s natural competitive instincts through contests and leaderboards.

How do you decide on your contest type? In order to be successful, you need to choose a contest that aligns with your overall strategy and goals. You must make sure the planning for the contest is thorough, taking into account the process for determining winners, delivering prizes, and tracking the performance of the promotion. Some of the most affordable contest marketing formats are event-based contests, polls, giveaways, reward-based quizzes, and trivia contests. 

The Verdict

The past year brought forth a significant change in consumer behavior along with many changes in the marketing industry. People found that many aspects of their lives were forced onto online platforms. Brands that were able to cultivate long-term relationships with their customers & clients will continue to thrive in the post-COVID-19 era. There is no time to lose in planning and implementing a strong digital marketing campaign. Please feel free to contact us if you have questions or would like to learn more about making an impactful marketing approach.

 

 

Tips for Creating Social Media Images That Get Noticed

Tips for Creating Social Media Images That Get Noticed

A successful social media marketing campaign is one of the most effective ways that a business can increase a customer or audience base. However, social media is overrun with an unbelievable amount of different brands and companies, all vying for the attention of a potential consumer. So how, exactly, can you make your social media images get noticed from the thousands of other ones online? With a little bit of hard work and these tips and tricks, you’ll be able to create attention-grabbing images on all of your social media accounts.

Lighting Is Key: The secret to almost any great picture is lighting. Well-lit pictures are more aesthetically pleasing and better display your content. The right lighting can completely change the mood of your content and tell a narrative through the images. Social media images with good lighting are much more likely to be noticed than content with poor lighting.

Keep Your Feed Consistent: Rather than radically shift the style of your pictures with every new post, keeping the atmosphere of your feed similar is an effective strategy to improve social media images’ performance. Keep color schemes and contrast at similar levels from post to post, in order to create a cohesive brand image online. Therefore, if you enjoy pastel tones and low contrast in your images, try to consistently use similar levels in other posts as well.

Know Your Audience: It’s important to keep careful track of your social media image’s audience and demographics. Ensuring that your content suits your target audience is an essential step in receiving more online engagement. Determine what performs well with potential customers and try to post similar content. However, good balance is key. Simply following current trends will make your pictures seem repetitive. Instead, take inspiration from well-performing posts but try to add your own, unique twist to truly capture attention from viewers.

Visual Balance: Visually balanced pictures capture attention and garner more genuine interaction with viewers than unbalanced pictures. Pay careful attention to how lines, text, and colors interact in your social media images. A good rule of thumb is to center the most important content to increase interest and convey essential information about your brand or product. Overall, a social media image should not be overwhelming, but merely intrigue viewers to explore more.

With just a few simple changes and a heightened awareness of style and design, it’s easy to completely boost your brand’s online presence. By following these easy tips, your social media images are much more likely to be noticed than before and truly make a significant impact on your company’s success on social media platforms.

Ways to Turn Around Falling Website Traffic

Ways to Turn Around Falling Website Traffic

Your website traffic has suddenly hit a slump —now what? On online business needs a consistent stream of traffic in order to stay relevant and generate revenue; therefore, it is essential to continuously attempt to boost your website traffic. Luckily, there are a variety of different techniques that online business owners can use to turn the tides in their favor. Read on to discover some of the most effective ways to increase your brand’s website traffic, today!

Check for Penalties: If your content is plagiarized or uses other unfair or irrelevant marketing techniques, such as invisible text or links to non-relevant content, then Google can penalize your site. This penalty can create a huge loss in traffic. It’s easy to check if your site has a penalty or not by looking at the notifications on Google Search Console. Revising your content to fit the standards set by Google can increase your website traffic again!

Add Quality Backlinks: Backlinks are one of the many essential components that drive traffic to your website. If your traffic is falling, try investing in developing quality backlinks. Content that is organically connected to other sites generates more website visitors and often ranks higher on search engines. It’s also important to remove bad backlinks that connect your site to undesirable or irrelevant sites.

Purchase Niche Ads: Purchasing or renewing relevant ads is a great way to turn around falling website traffic. Ads can be costly but highly effective in generating more views to your pages. When creating an effective ad, it’s important to consider your target audience and create ads that directly appeal to them using relevant keywords and content. Additionally, if your current ads are no longer as effective, try looking for new places to advertise or revise your current ad campaign.

Boost SEO Ranking: A decrease in your SEO ranking can cause a big drop in website traffic. Maintaining relevancy in the search result rankings is important to capturing the attention of potential visitors to your site. SEO can be improved in a variety of ways, such as using accurate keywords and original content that relates to your site.

Check User Experience: A bad website design can drive away your customers completely, causing a drop-in website traffic. Effective user design is well-organized and simple to use. Navigating your website should not be difficult for the user to complete. A long loading time can force impatient visitors to abandon your site before it even loads. Check that all of the different processes on your site are easy to use and attractive to customers.

Don’t worry if you’ve noticed a sudden decrease in your website traffic! Improving your website traffic is important, but there are a number of different techniques you can try to use in order to revitalize your business and attract more attention. Try using multiple different methods mentioned on this list in order to best increase your online presence and website traffic.

 

Why You Should Invest in a Custom Website

Why You Should Invest in a Custom Website

Investing in a custom website might be the last thing on your mind when it comes to improving your business —but it shouldn’t be. There are numerous reasons why you should invest in a custom website as soon as possible. Not only does it create a stronger brand image and attract customers, it also can help your company be more easily discovered.

Serious Image: In our modern society, most people’s first impression of a company occurs the moment they click on the website. When browsing online for products and services, consumers browse through any number of different companies’ websites to try and make a decision. Oftentimes, a low-quality website looks unprofessional and can turn potential customers away before they even read more. Having an attractive interface signals that your company is professional and serious, which in turn can help persuade people to use your brand.

Improve SEO: A custom website designed specifically to improve SEO and audience traffic can boost interaction and sales. Recently, Google’s website ranking has expanded the factors it uses in its algorithms to determine high ranking websites. It now includes new factors such as time spent on website or pages interacted with. Therefore, a more unique and attractive looking website will entice visitors to spend longer browsing through your content which will boost your SEO.

Stay On Brand: Maintaining a cohesive brand is an essential part of modern marketing. It can help attract new customers by showcasing an attractive design that seamlessly fits in with the other aspects of your business. A custom website can ensure that your information is presented in a manner that reflects both what might attract your target audience as well as what prior customers expect when interacting with your business. Whether chic, serious, playful, or modern, a custom website can use design elements to easily set the tone for your business.

Be Flexible: A rigid website template doesn’t allow any room for creativity, which can be problematic when the design doesn’t best suit you and your business. Don’t let yourself become trapped in an inefficient layout. By seizing creative control of your website, you can make custom changes that are more attractive to your client base. It can be as simple as adding in a new element that highlights new products, a help page with increased customer service potential, or more. The ability to be flexible is essential to creating the best online experience possible for your clients.

The reasons why you should invest in a custom website are endless. Business owners looking to treat their brand seriously and attract more customers can benefit from ditching the cookie-cutter website templates and exploring a custom style that best showcases their products and services.

Advantages of Having a Website for Small Business

Advantages of Having a Website for Small Business

In our increasingly modern and technological society, having an online presence is no longer just recommended for small businesses —it is required. Marketing has the potential to reach a greater audience online, and brand recognition is truly solidified through a company’s digital interface. Big businesses aren’t the only ones who benefit from a well-curated website. There are multiple distinct advantages of having a website for a small business.

1. Build Your Audience: Every business needs customers. For large businesses, sometimes new customers can be reached simply by name-brand awareness; however, small businesses do not have that luxury. To find new customers for your products and services, having a website is essential. The majority of consumers discover new brands through online searching; therefore, if your company is lacking an online presence, it severely limits the number of people finding out about the services you offer.

2. Build Your Brand: An effective company has a consistent brand. Customers come to learn what to expect from your business and can trust the product or service provided. While there are many ways to build brand awareness, a website is one of the most wide-reaching, professional ways to begin solidifying your small business’s image. The more information available about your company, the more reputable your company appears in the eyes of potential customers. Additionally, a well-designed website can signal to clients that you take yourself —and your business— seriously.

3. Business Growth: Traditionally, small businesses used to grow by word-of-mouth through a smaller community. Now, due to the fast-paced nature of the online world, a link can be shared in a matter of seconds and a product can be viewed from nearly anywhere across the globe. This can be an opportunity for small business to grow their company more quickly than before. Your website can reach new clientele in different locations or with different demographic backgrounds, which might suit your business better than the local clientele.

4. Separate Yourself from the Competition: If your small business is competing with other local businesses for the same subset of potential clients, having a professional-level website to show off your services and portfolio is one simple way to separate yourself from other businesses. Potential customers generally trust companies with a legitimate website design over a company with little to no online presence. Additionally, by presenting information clearly on your small business’s website, it is easier for customers to determine why your products and services are superior to the competition’s.