Are you shocked to learn that more than 90 percent of people seek out and use customer reviews found online as a part of their decision to buy from a company? Think about that. Think about how hard it can be for your company to bring in 10 new customers. How many connections in your marketing do you need to make to get 10 people to want to walk in the door? Now, what if nine of those people went online before coming in to your company or calling you to learn more about you? What if those nine people found bad things about your company online? How much is your marketing dollar struggling to draw in enough people to compensation for a statistic like this?
Assume Everyone Is Reading Them
As a small business, every dollar you spend in your marketing and advertising campaign is valuable. Each dollar has to work for you. Yet, if you have poor customer reviews online about your company, 9 times out of 10, a would be customer will find them. As a direct result, those individuals may turn to another company that has fewer or no bad reviews to work with instead. In short, you need to assume that everyone that hears about your company and considers buying from it will read the reviews online.
Who Is Reading Your Reviews?
Most likely, it is your potential customer that is going to read your reviews. It is not the customer that comes in each week. It is not the customer that’s already had a good interaction with your business that is going to want more information. Rather, it is the customer that you are advertising to.
- It is the customer reading your online advertising.
- It is the customer that hears your company’s radio spot.
- It is the customer that reads your marketing emails and snail mail advertisements.
When you look at it this way, the most likely customer to read your online customer reviews is the one you are paying to get in the door through your marketing campaign. For this reason, every small business needs to take online reviews seriously.
The good news is that you can turn this around in your favor. When you have raving reviews and positive statements about your company out there, you end up with outstanding results. 9 out of 10 customers are going to want to work with you. That’s an impressive number and one that’s completely achievable with the right help.
