Posted On
February 1, 2018

You’re Only 6 Online Reviews Away from Any Prospect in the World!

You’re Only 6 Online Reviews Away from Any Prospect in the World! 1

The impact of online reviews is growing daily and you don’t want to be left behind. Online reviews can be an easy way to grow your business without spending much of your own time. With the increased use of online reviews, there is also an increase in the amount of people seeing, hearing, and reading about your business. I want to share with you how Repcheckup can get you more reviews and reach more people.

If you haven’t heard of six degrees of separation, it’s a fairly simple concept stating that every person is connected by 6 or fewer steps. With this logic, the title of this article starts to make sense. Word of mouth is how we used to get connected with a “friend of a friend” and fit into that six degrees of separation. Now, with the internet, online reviews are word of mouth on steroids.

The Impact of Increased Online Reviews

Let me give you a few stats to support my statement on being able to reach so many more people with online reviews. The following points are from a 2017 study from BrightLocal:

  • 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
  • 68% of consumers left a local business review when asked – with 74% having been asked for their feedback
  • 77% of consumers think that reviews older than 3 months aren’t relevant

Okay, so let’s think about these three statements and dig a little deeper. So, for the first one stating 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

Mom Knows Best:

Basically, what BrightLocal has found is that more than 8 out of 10 people read online reviews like it is coming from their own mom (come on mothers always know best!). That’s an impactful statement. Gone are the days of needing to hear from someone you know about a new product/service, just jump right online and it’s like mother has reviewed everything for you!

Photo credit: NBC Sports

Do you Ask for Online Reviews from Customers?

If you build it, they will come…

The second statement is one I find extremely valuable!!! Almost 7 out of 10 people leave a review when asked. That’s a huge number. How many customers did you have just in the past month of January, let’s say you had 100 customers. If you asked every single one of those customers you would have 70 reviews right now!

If you ask, they will answer!

How many reviews does your closest competition have? Wouldn’t that be a HUGE leg up on the competition. Now, you need to follow the rule of ABA: Always Be Asking! It doesn’t matter how you do it, but do it often and do it right.

  • Put up signs in your store telling people to leave reviews
  • Ask them immediately after check out
  • Send an email once the product is delivered
  • Shoot them a text reminding them where they can leave a review

If they had a great experience, let them boast about your business a little bit!

Reviews Older than 3 Months are too Old

Hit the Refresh Button!

Now, for the last but not least. The frequency of new reviews coming is obviously meaningful. Almost 8 out of 10 potential customers think reviews 3 months ago are irrelevant. That means the day this article was published a review from Halloween is old and stale to a user.

What was going on three months ago in your business? Three months flies by and customers want reviews that are newer than that. Don’t give them a reason to go looking at the competition just because you don’t have a fresh set of reviews for them to read. ABA!

Starting asking for an online review today!

There is no reason to wait. Go ahead and start asking your current customers to leave their feedback. Get some signs up in your store. Add some info on your site about where you can read and leave reviews.

You’re only 6 reviews away from reaching any new customer in the world. That’s a lot of potential business out there that you’re leaving on the table!

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Jeff Quinn
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RepCheckup is an online reputation management software that helps businesses enhance and protect their online reputation.

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