We may have mentioned once or twice that local businesses need a review and reputation management strategy.

But in case you forgot:

• 91 percent of people read online reviews
• They also tend to trust online reviews as much as they trust recommendations from friends and family
• Customers are likely to spend 31 percent more on a business with excellent reviews
• Reviews can boost your search ranking and improve conversions

Reviews are kind of important. And your business needs a review marketing strategy.

How to Build a Reputation Management Strategy

We’ve put together this quick list of how to build a successful review marketing strategy, so read on to learn how you can build a better review strategy.

Let’s start with what customers look for in a review.

1. Star Rating

Star rating is the most important aspect of a review for most consumers.

If your star rating is below three stars on the search engine or website they’re using to search for local businesses, they’re going to look right past you and on to a competitor with a better star rating.

Most consumers have minimum star rating in mind when reading reviews. Typically, consumers need to see a star rating of three at the lowest, or they won’t purchase from a business.

Let’s look at the minimum star rating most consumers want to see:

• 5 stars – 8 percent said they won’t use a business if it doesn't have a five-star rating
• 4 stars – 37 percent want to see a four-star rating
• 3 stars – 42 percent won't purchase from a business with fewer than three stars
• 2 stars – 9 percent will use a business with as low as a two-star rating
• 1 star – Only 5 percent of consumers will use a business with a one-star rating

So, your star rating doesn’t have to be perfect, but you need at least a three-star average rating for consumers to trust and purchase from your business.

2. Review Quantity

Quantity of online reviews is the second most important aspect of a review for consumers. How many reviews does a customer need to see before they’ll choose your business? Most people need to read 4-6 reviews, but this number ranges from 2-21 depending on the consumer. 

3. Quality of Reviews

This may surprise you, but quality of reviews is also important, not only for many review platforms, which have the power to hide reviews they don’t trust but also for actual humans who are reading your reviews.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do about this one. Some customers will write an essay while others will write “Great service!” and leave it at that.

Want to know the trick to getting plenty of high-quality reviews? Consistently get more reviews.

4. Recency of Reviews

If a review is too old, consumers won’t trust it. For a consumer to trust a review, it needs to be written within the last six months. 

So, how do you set up a review marketing strategy for your business?

Your Step-by-Step Review Marketing Plan

1. Perform a review and reputation management audit.

Search for your business on popular review sites, or search for [business name] and reviews or "[location], [industry] reviews."

This will give you an idea of how many review sites your business is on as well as your average star rating.

You’ll also be able to tell which review sites you need more reviews on as well as which sites you have a stellar reputation and plenty of reviews on.

In case you need a list of important review sites, here are a few:

• Google
• Bing
• TripAdvisor
• Facebook
• BBB
• Yellow Pages
• Angie’s List
• Manta

2. Once you’ve audited your online reputation, make a note of a few of your best and worst review sites.                                     
3. Start (or continue) collecting email addresses. When a customer checks in or checks out, ask for their email address.            
4. Start sending out emails. A few days after a customer makes a purchase, send an email asking if they’d be willing to review your business on the review websites you recognized as needing the most love. If you don’t have a lot of time, you can create a template email that you modify slightly for each customer. 
5. Follow up. Don’t just leave it at getting more reviews. Start replying to any negatives and even some of your positive reviews to let the customer know that you appreciate their review. Don't forget to reply to social media comments, messages and reviews, too!

You need more online reviews. Go out and get them. And while you're at it, check out Renown, our review and reputation management platform.