Are you a business owner with a modest marketing budget? Here’s a great content marketing idea that doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket — gathering more customer reviews.
Yes, you read it right. Online customer reviews can become excellent marketing content, especially for small/medium businesses without a huge marketing budget.
According to Brightlocal, 87% of customers read online reviews for local businesses before making a purchase decision. Customer reviews provide strong social proof for the quality of your products/services. They also help you with search rankings and content marketing.
If you don’t have enough customer reviews, it’s the right time to start. Let’s look at how to get reviews for your business and use them effectively in your content marketing strategy.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Using Customer Reviews for Content Marketing
Turning Negative Feedback Into Positive Content
Final Thoughts: How To Get Reviews for Your Business’ Marketing
How To Get Business Reviews
- Google My Business
- Amazon customer reviews
- Business review websites like Yelp
- Social media
- Website elements
- Email campaigns
With the e-commerce boom, reviews are prevalent online. There are several online platforms for you to garner customer reviews. Let’s have a look at a few major platforms.
1. Google My Business
The Future Shopper Report 2020 showed that 48% of product searches started with search engines, mainly Google. Hence, Google is a great place to start collecting online reviews for your business.
Google My Business (GMB) helps you create a business profile on Google and gather customer reviews. First, you need to set up an account on GMB and verify your business. Once you verify your business on Google, it will start appearing on Google search results.
For example, look at the local business listings for real estate agents. The Google reviews appear right on the result page.
Some advantages of using Google reviews are:
- Google has over 270 million unique visitors, which gives you immense visibility
- Reviews on Google help you improve your search engine rankings
- Google reviews appear on search results and Google maps
- Positive reviews on Google will boost your online reputation
2. Amazon Customer Reviews
If you sell products on Amazon, you already have an ecosystem to gather reviews. According to Wunderman Thompson Commerce, 63% of online shoppers start their product search on Amazon. Hence, Amazon reviews are highly influential.
Amazon’s review system has evolved during the past few decades. And since Amazon customers are trained to leave a review, it’s a great platform for you to get reviews for your business.
3. Business Review Websites
Besides Google and Amazon, there are several online platforms dedicated to business reviews. If you want to gather more online customer reviews, you should be active on these platforms.
Most review websites have a dedicated page for every business. You should claim your business page and nurture it to gather reviews.
Yelp is one of the most popular business review websites. It has 224 million reviews as of December 2020. You should also try platforms like Better Business Bureau and Trustpilot.
While it’s great to have multiple reviews across different platforms, you could also concentrate on a few niche review platforms specific to your business. These super-focused platforms help you get reviews from your loyal customers.
Here are a few popular niche review platforms you could try:
- Catering Services: Delivery.com, Gig Salad
- Home Services: Angie’s List, Houzz, Networx
- Travel, Hospitality: Tripadvisor, Expedia
- Restaurants: Zomato, OpenTable
4. Social Media
People spend an average of 2 hours 25 minutes on social media. Hence, social media is a great way to get reviews for your business. Your business pages on social media are a great place to engage your customers and collect their feedback.
You should keep posting on your social handles and closely engage with customers. Pay attention to customers’ comments on your posts.
You’ll be able to turn some of them into reviews. Customer reviews on social media might also appear on search engine results pages, helping you drive traffic to your website.
5. Website Elements To Collect Reviews
If you have an online store, your website is a great channel to collect customer feedback. With a few tweaks to your website, you’ll be able to gather a lot of customer reviews.
Here are a few things to try on your website to gather reviews:
- Show a banner/popup after the customer has finished a purchase
- Display a review request whenever the customer completes a download
- Add links to various review platforms on your website
- Place a call to action button to gather Google reviews for your business
- Add widgets of popular review sites on your product pages
6. Email Campaigns
You can use email campaigns to encourage customers to write reviews. Here are a few techniques businesses use to gather reviews through emails.
- Send a review link along with post-purchase ‘thank you’ emails
- Send a review link on every email in your email marketing campaign
- Send random review requests to your loyal customers
- Use email automation to seek reviews from your customers
It’s also a great idea to include a review link in the business’s email signature. That way, every mail you send becomes a chance to collect reviews.
Using Customer Reviews for Content Marketing
People tend to trust other people’s opinions rather than the claims made by a business. That’s why customer reviews have the potential to become powerful marketing content.
But, if you aren’t using them in your content marketing, you are missing out on a big opportunity. Here’s how you can turn your reviews into excellent marketing content.
Create Content From Customer Reviews
Customer reviews are mostly in the form of text. To use them in your marketing campaigns, you should convert them into image and video content. According to a 2021 survey by Venngage, 86% of marketers believe visual content is crucial in their marketing.
You can be very innovative with your customer reviews and create stunning marketing content out of them.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Create a collage of your customer’s reviews
- Make a short video featuring glowing reviews
- Create posters featuring happy customers and their reviews
- Create GIFs from entertaining customer reviews
- Make case studies out of reviews
- Create quotes from customer reviews
You don’t need a big graphics design team to create eye-catchy content from reviews. Here are a few online tools that provide templates to create content from customer reviews:
Places Where You Can Use Customer Reviews
Once you have turned your customer reviews into stunning graphics, use them on various marketing channels. You should create a content calendar around your customer reviews. It should include where and when you’ll use them.
On that note, we suggest:
- Posting customer reviews as videos on social media platforms
- Creating posters from reviews and using them in email campaigns
- Making a testimonial section on your home/product pages
- Using visual content created from reviews in paid advertising
- Writing case studies from reviews and using them on your blog
Turning Negative Feedback Into Positive Content
When you open yourself to customer feedback, you should be prepared to receive some negative reviews. Customer complaints aren’t always bad. Some amount of negative feedback will make your brand look legitimate.
A 2021 survey by Power Reviews states that 96% of consumers seek out negative reviews before buying a product. So, instead of being disheartened by a few bad reviews, think of creative ways to use them in your content marketing.
Here are some tips for handling negative feedback and using them positively in your content marketing:
- Quickly respond to negative feedback and address the concerns of the customers
- Create a case study out of how you responded to a negative review by making a change
- Advertise the changes you made after a negative review. It makes your brand look human
- If you get a negative review about the usability of your product, try to make a tutorial out of it
For example, take this marketing campaign created by Snowbird, a ski resort. They use their 1-star reviews to showcase how advanced their skiing expeditions are.
Final Thoughts: How To Get Reviews for Your Business’ Marketing
Customer reviews are a great marketing tool for small/medium businesses with limited marketing budgets. The user-generated content in the form of reviews can be a great starting point to make content for your business.
First, you need to seek reviews from your customers through various platforms. You can use Google My Business reviews, Amazon product reviews and Yelp business reviews. You should also set up your profile on business-specific review platforms and social media.
You don’t need a design team to turn customer reviews into impactful visual marketing content. All you have to do is leverage the free online tools to create content.
Moreover, you can use customer reviews in various marketing channels like:
- Social media
- Paid advertisements
- Brochures
- Website home page and product pages
- Email Campaigns
With a well-thought-out strategy, you can even convert negative reviews into positive marketing content.
So, do you want your brand to shine through awesome review-based content marketing? Check out Bluehost’s content marketing services today.
