Truly Twisted Marketing

As promised, here is #4 and it's on…Reviews.

Reviews, for all intensive purposes, are based on the opinions of your users and clients and are published on your site - they are not testimonials. While they might sing your praises as a testimonial does, they might also tell a tale of poor customer service or a faulty product. 

So, why, might you be wondering would anyone publish information that is less than stellar about themselves, their product or service?

The answer is balance. You are looking to create a relationship of honesty and trust with your customers and clients. The best thing you can do is admit fault when and if it happens and then…this is important…take action to correct it. You are balancing out the good with the bad. 

But reviews aren't static. They are dynamic pieces of important information submitted by your customers and an important part of the community you are hopefully creating around your brand. People want to know about other people's experiences with that product or service. It's a component of word of mouth marketing.

Obviously you DO want positive reviews - the more the merrier, as they say (whoever 'they' are). But when you get a negative review (and you most definitely will) it's an opportunity to look hard and what went wrong and fix it. The beauty is that you can respond to negative reviews and show your customers what you did, the action you took, to correct the problem which in turn fosters that wonderfully exciting honest relationship you are working hard to establish. 

Now, here's the secret part of reviews that you maybe didn't know about.

Reviews are content. They can be submitted to the search engines and when reviews are picked up in the search engines the result is similar to what happens with a digital press release. They are viewed as pure content and generally rank pretty highly and quickly for the product or service the review is about. If that review is about one of your products or services…well, you are probably getting the drift…yes, it's a strong link back to your site which brings both traffic and gives your SEO and SEM efforts a nice boost.

Reviews can be as simple as a script you install on your site where people can give a thumbs up or thumbs down or you can employ companies like Power Reviews (which I'm sorry to say is no longer free…bummer) or Bazzarvoice. 

So, there's your mid-week tip for this hot and hazy July. A little something to think about and to add to your arsenal of marketing tips.