Most consumers shop online, and are savvy researching the best products and prices. If you’re building an app business, then you can expect your customers are more sophisticated than most. They will do their homework, and make assessment of what they uncover. In other topics we talk about the message you construct, specifically in marketing websites and Social Media; here we discuss how your community rate your efforts.
Here are just 4 numbers that matter, that you might not have considered:
- Google Reviews
- Facebook Reviews
- App Reviews
- Yelp
If you ask just 5 friends, colleagues, or acquaintances to rate your business 5 stars, then you have a perfect record, congratulations! Even better if they leave a nice comment describing how wonderful you are. You may have some suggestions for them on what they might like to say. This simple task gets your online presence started the right way, the way you deserve to be seen, and the way that those who know you think about you.
Starting with a good rating is common sense PR, and also insurance against negative reviews. If you have five 5-star ratings and someone gives you a 1-star rating, then you’re still above 4 stars. If you hadn’t taken out some insurance at getting those initial ratings, then anyone who searched you online would just see a sad tale and a 1-star company. It doesn’t matter if that person gave you one star because they didn’t like the font on your display ad, or if they are a competitor. The customer will have a negative mark against you if they read a bad review without any softening explanation or contradictory experiences, a mark you must overcome without knowing it exists.
We suggested earlier that you might ask friends, colleagues or acquaintances to rate your business. This is ethical. We suggested that you may even recommend to these people what they might like to say about you. This is also ethical. Some companies go further, and hire SEO companies to help manage these affairs. Some go further still, and engage offshore companies to spam bulk reviews across myriad online platforms. This isn’t ethical. You will experience a surge in Google ranking if you pay someone to spam reviews and links to your marketing website. However, this is not an accepted practice so if you’re caught then your ranking and reputation will be heavily punished. Not to mention what your customers really think when they see your high rating and thousands of reviews, only to look at the reviews and discover them all to be misspelled grammatical abominations tossed out by underpaid workers in the IT equivalent of a call centre. Managing your ratings, reviews and downloads requires understanding that buying votes is not in the same realm as proactively pushing for positive feedback.
If you do a Google Search for a registered business then the side panel will show information about that business including the name, description, photos, map, ratings, reviews, and more. It is important that you own that space, and include the information that you wish convey. And critically, you should be aware of the ratings and reviews that will be shown.
Facebook reviews show in Google search results also, and are clearly displayed to anyone visiting your company page on that platform. If you’re going to be active in social media then the reviews left for you there must demonstrate your commitment and value to that community.
We discuss the importance of App Stores in presenting your company and product in the topic app optimisation, and stressed the fact that your product page in the app store may be your last best chance to convince someone to invest in your product. Importantly, you need to monitor the ratings, reviews, and downloads that tell your success story at the heart of this presentation. You should also be aware that app store reviews are per version and overall – so if you have a new version on the store then you need to get some new reviews.
Yelp is an online guide to local businesses. Founded in 2004, it contains a database of more than 120 million reviews and is referred to hundreds of millions of times every year. There are other platforms that provide a similar service, and it may be that one of these is more suited to your industry. If you were going to research your business, where would you look? Where does the research show other people are looking? It pays to find out, and to control the message in those spaces.
Our marketing staff can tell you more about these important metrics, and how they may be managed. For more information please call our Perth office on 1300 DAPPER from within Australia, or submit an online request for a meeting or consultation via our Contact page.
If you want to learn more about your business presence online then we recommend the topics social media and a company needs a style (Guide).