I’m predicting that 2020 will really be the year of trust so reviews are important. When looking at your marketing strategy and deliverables it really has to be tightly in line with your sales funnel. The quicker you can get the prospective customer to trust you, your brand and it’s services, the better.
Plan, plan and plan some more
It’s time to nail that marketing strategy down for 2020. My last blog 2020 Vision will give you plenty to work on. But let’s take this plan to another level of action by incorporating your sales lead generation and sales funnel into this. How do you plan to get your prospective customer? Once they have taken the bait, it’s time to get them hooked with your reviews.
So why do companies hide from review services? The simple answers are;
- They are afraid of a bad review
- Service or products may not be up to scratch
- Scared of asking customers what they think
- Scared of what customers may say
You have to be thick skinned to be in business and not take a review to heart. The positive reaction to a negative review is to do something about it. You are not in business to give a bad service after all. Where possible we try and talk our clients into having a review service.
“As a family company we were really sceptical about reviews, but it has been the best sales tool we implemented in 2019” – Adrian Lount, Bluewater Bathrooms, Bedrooms and Kitchens (York)
Bluewater have been a client for four years, and it really was a huge task to get them to believe that this was going to be a great way to drive their sales forward. One year later, with 85 reviews and a rating of 4.9, they really have seen the benefits.
Who do you trust?
B2C, 95% of shoppers read online reviews before making a purchase of a product or service (Spiegel Research Center, 2019)
92% of B2B buyers are more likely to purchase after reading a trusted review (G2 and Heinz Marketing, 2017)
Having five reviews results in purchase likelihood increasing by a factor of almost four times (Spiegel Research Center, 2017)
One-to-one peer recommendations, original research, and reviews are the most influential content in affecting purchase decisions (Content Marketing Institute and SmartBrief, 2019)
The stats speak for themselves and suggest that the trust ‘tipping point’ could be before you communicate with them whether by message, phone call, or face to face. There are some really good review services, I recommend TRUSTist as this service combines all your online reviews into one feed on website and socials. It’s a monthly subscription service with no long-term tie down.
Imagine not having to do the hard work of selling your product, just let your reviews do it for you.
2020 will really be the year of trust so reviews are important.
