Reputation Marketing

In today’s hyperconnected world, building a reputable brand is more difficult than ever. Maybe there was a time in the past when you could entirely control your brand’s development, but today, that’s not possible.

With the rise of the internet, word of mouth has become more powerful than ever. Coming in a form of blog comments, Google business reviews, social media likes, shares, and comments, your customers’ opinions of your brand shape its authority and trustworthiness.

However, this isn’t something you should be afraid of.

On the contrary, you can leverage this rising phenomenon, to see how your target audience really feels about you and tailor your approach to their expectations.

Here are a few reputation marketing strategies your customers will love.

Collect Feedback Regularly

Today’s tech-savvy customers are aware of how important they are to you. To buy from you, they expect you to provide them an outstanding user experience. And, it doesn’t matter if they are satisfied with what you have to offer or not, they will share their opinion on your brand online. They will rate your services, review your products on social networks, or even write a blog post about them.

Precisely because of that, you should go out there and try to collect their feedback on your own.

Here is how:

• Offer effective live chat support. It helps you get closer to your customers. You will be able to understand what the major challenges they come across when visiting your site are. Once you help them solve these problems, you can ask them for feedback in a form of a few simple questions.
• Add a dedicated feedback form to your website. Just make sure it’s not too long or confusing.
• Call your customers to see what they think of you.
• Use social media monitoring tools to check your brand and product mentions on social networks.
• You can also track your brand mentions on other sites with tools like BuzzSumo, Google Alerts, etc.
• Ask for feedback when a user wants to abandon a shopping cart.

Prove your Trustworthiness

If you’re new in the industry, many people will feel reluctant to do business with you. And, the reason behind that is pretty logical- they’re afraid that you won’t be able to deliver the project successfully. So, to grab their attention and prove that there is nothing to worry about, you need to give them something valuable.

For example, you can get a performance bond, a guarantee by a bonding company that all your tasks will be completed per the specifications of the contract. The only difference between performance bonds and the insurance is that the bonding company doesn’t simply write a check if you fail to do your job. On the contrary, they hire new contractors or even complete the project on their own.

Once you get a surety bond, you should let your clients know about it. Post this information on both your website and social networks, assuring them that they will see their money back if you fail to reach an agreement.

You could also offer free return shipping. Adweek emphasizes that 68% of shoppers believe that this is very important.

Offer Social Proof

Today, social proof is stronger than ever.

You need to show your customers why they should trust you and here is how to do so:

• Use customer testimonials on your site.
• Seek influencer endorsements.
• Inspire your customers to rate and review your products and services. According to the Adweek’s infographic mentioned above, 49% of customers believe that product reviews on a website are important.
• Share your business’ milestones, such as reaching a certain number of customers.
• Show your existing customer base. To prove how reliable you are, highlight which reputable companies have worked with you.
• Add trust seals to your checkout page to boost your sales.

Create Valuable Content

Content marketing is the nerve center of your digital marketing strategy. It helps you implement your keywords organically, boost your rankings, and become visible to your target audience. Above all, the more quality content you write, the more appreciated you will be in your industry.

And, when I say „quality,“ I mean an industry-specific, original, educative, intriguing, and highly interactive piece of content. This approach helps you establish yourself as an authority in your niche and grow your customer base fast.

What you need to keep in mind is that, with the rise of VR technologies, writing articles is not enough to spark your target audience’s curiosity. You need to upgrade your content strategy, by making your content more engaging.

Here are a few types of content that may work for you:

• Infographics
• Quizzes
• eBooks
• Case studies
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Gifs and memes
• Ephemeral content on social networks, such as live stories

Monitor your Reputation Continuously

Even though building solid online reputation is complex, these techniques may be your optimal starting point.

But, always keep in mind that your hard work doesn’t end here.

Marketing trends are constantly changing. Things that were hot yesterday may be completely irrelevant today.

This is why you need to keep track of your online reputation constantly.

Stay on top of the latest industry trends, collect your customers’ feedback regularly, and tailor your approach to them.

This is how you will manage to boost user experience, earn quality referrals, and even turn your leads into loyal customers.

Hope this helps!