What is a Reputation Management Strategy?

A reputation management strategy helps businesses plan for the way the world views their business’s brand, products, services, employees, and leaders. Successful reputation management strategies should also include online reputation management, brand promotion, and internal marketing.

Why Your Business Needs an Online Reputation Management Strategy

A scathing review can make an upstanding business look sketchy overnight. On the other hand, as business owners, a new, glowing review can have us walking on clouds the rest of the day.

Positive reviews generate sales. People select dentists, restaurants, shoes, and other products and service providers “because of your reviews!” all the time. You tend to hear from those people. Not so much with negative reviews.

Negative reviews require a plan for response. To respond to a negative online review:

1. Take time to cool off. Don’t respond right away.

2. Flag the review for removal if it breaks the review site’s rules for abusive language or conflict of interest.

3. If appropriate, make offline contact with the customer to try to make the situation right.

4. Explain how the negative review makes you feel and politely ask them to remove it.

5. Don’t let your response turn into a he-said, she-said debate.

6. Turn a negative review into a marketing opportunity by including how you handle these types of problems and what the average person experiences.

7. Include mentions of the reasons why most people give you 5-star reviews.

8. Listen to the feedback and be willing to make changes where possible.

Business owners don’t hear from potential customers who go elsewhere because of negative reviews. Mitigating damage from bad reviews and taking steps to prevent them is critical, but a successful reputation management strategy goes beyond dealing with negative reviews.

A Successful Reputation Management Strategy Includes Brand Recognition

People tend to buy from brands they recognize. If people search for your product or service online and they see you, they’re more likely to respond if they have heard of you before.

Online ads have given businesses a transactional view of marketing and advertising. Targeted advertising works best when your brand gets the “Oh yeah…I’ve heard of them!” effect.  When you combine “Oh yeah…” with an ad exposure or a Google search, plus a positive review, they’re almost sold before they land on your website.

This all takes a lot of consistent work and organization. That’s why your reputation management strategy must include brand reputation. People need to know of you before they can decide they like you.

Reputation Management Should Happen Inside Your Business

Many businesses forget about internal marketing. Once you capture a customer, don’t miss the opportunity to influence your reputation with that customer. Don’t assume that they know everything that makes you the best at what you do.

If you have an ongoing relationship with the customer, help them remember why they did business with you in the first place. Tell them again and again, but don’t make it all about you.

Remind them about the ways that their life is better after having purchased your products and services. Then ask them for a review.

Reviews

A great online reputation management strategy focuses on getting online reviews on a regular basis. Regular reviews can also be one of your main business objectives, acting as a barometer of your success in building a great business that people love. Sales measures whether or not your marketing and advertising generates customers. Online reviews measure customer experience with your business’s performance. 

Make obtaining customer reviews part of your employees’ jobs. Equip them for success in generating the reviews using technology and training. There are a number of solutions out there for sending customers links to your online profiles. Train your team on how to ask the customer for reviews or testimonials with a personal request followed by a text message with a link in it. Make the request for customer feedback again in follow-up emails such as newsletters.

At our company, Pro Impressions Marketing, we sent our clients emails about UpCity’s Reviews for a Cause, creating an additional opportunity to ask for reviews. Then our account managers go over that email as part of their monthly report calls with their clients, making a verbal request for a review. Finally, I pay a small bonus to account managers whose clients post a review, doing everything that I can to incentivize our account managers to make this goal a priority in their communications with our clients. This little campaign gave us an 800% increase in our review flow over a two month period. It’s also worth noting that all of the reviews were 5 star reviews despite no request for a specific star rating!

When you build systems toward review generation, you will see reviews start to pop up on a more regular basis. Search engines likes this. Humans like this. If someone sees that you received a glowing review just this week, it can be the deciding factor that makes them choose you over a competitor.

Public Relations (PR) 

Another brand reputation strategy to employ is engaging in PR, or public relations. PR includes building relationships with local, regional, or even national reporters and media channels with whom you can share newsworthy updates about your business’ success.

Some instances of when to leverage a public relations campaign include:

• Opening a new location. Spread the word to your new (or existing) local customer base that a new location is opening in their area. Consider offering discounts or free services to new customers to build excitement.

• Launching a new service. Prospective and existing customers should know about your latest and greatest offerings. If someone was considering that service already, they might choose yours just by knowing it’s now being offered.

• Winning an award. Be proud and announce your new commendation in a press release!

Launching Your New Reputation Management Strategy

Getting started with owning your company’s reputation is simple but will vary depending on the type of business that you run. Exposure on your website and social media is constant across most sectors of business, but your content, activity, and realistic engagement will differ. Other outside reputation opportunities will differ too. Follow these steps to set up your reputation management strategy:

1.     Identify the key players.
Who will do the work on your business profiles (Google My Business, Yelp, etc.), handle review management, and keep track of results?

2.     Find a tool to make things easier.
There are a number of companies that offer tools for controlling your brand image. There are online reputation management services that will do much of the work for you, too. Alternatively, you can try to create and launch your own reputation management strategy, but this can be risky and reinventing a process that likely already exists might not save you money in the long run.

3.     Identify and execute needed training.
If your team has never made reviews a priority, and especially if they haven’t spent time using your chosen brand reputation management tool, set aside time for training the key players on how they’ll be involved. Be sure that they understand their new duties and the results that you expect from them.

4.     Create a good reputation management base.
Ensure that your company profiles across social media platforms are accurate and competitive in their appearance as compared to other businesses in your area (this is especially true for local businesses).

5.     Increase visibility and accuracy in pertinent platforms.
Identify online profiles that apply to your type of business. These may exist already even though you didn’t create them. There may also be websites that you are unfamiliar with that need your profile created. At the least, include your company name, brand image, brief description, and contact information across all of your managed online presences.

6.     Build online brand recognition in your industry or local region.
Remember that people who know of your business are more likely to buy from you and that recognition—combined with a positive reputation—make for a powerful sales mix.

7.     Systematize and keep it going.
A successful reputation management strategy is proactive, reactive, and just active (period). If you make a one-time effort to improve your reputation, it’s not truly management and the strategy will fail. Schedule time to do the work and measure the results, then modify your strategy as needed until you see engagement rise and your company’s reputation rise, revealing just how great your business is. 

Be the Type of Business You Would Tell Your Friends About

Model your reputation management strategy around broadcasting to the world your new focus: being the best of the best, proud of what you’re doing, and thrilled to share the success stories of your customers. When you make your success all about your customers’ success, your strategy can’t fail. Measure that success, take steps to improve your reputation management metrics, and you’ll see your overall marketing strategy start to take off.

If you’re ready to launch your online reputation management strategy, get in touch with one of UpCity’s top rated reputation management companies to learn more.