We are living in a connected world where from grand pops to their grandchildren have all vested interests in various activities online. For the corporate world, this can be a double edge sword.
While promoting their business image and selling their brand online augments the visibility of their actions immensely at the same time a bad repo or encounter can backfire. Reputation management has thus become a cornerstone for many corporations to keep their business image untarnished online.
According to a recent study by Status Labs, reviews are the second most powerful ranking factor in Google’s local pack with positive reviews making 73% of consumers put their trust in a local business.
Furthermore, 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, with 87% comparison shop every time and 83% of buyers trust recommendations more than ads. Moreover, 58% of executives believe that online reputation should be addressed and 84% marketers consider it as their primary focus for future efforts.
With that being said, let’s take a quick look at some of the reasons as to why businesses need to invest in online reputation management.
1. Acquisition of Better Talent
There is no doubt that your online reputation can both adversely affect and improve your chances of acquiring the best talent for your workplace. Depending on how people refer to your workplace, working conditions, benefits, and other amenities at work, those looking for a job can either pursue building a relationship with your company or completely negate your offers in return.
According to a study by In-House Recruitment Expo, 69% of job seekers would prefer not to join a company with a bad reputation while 84% would consider leaving their current organization for another with an excellent reputation.
Hence the signs are clear, and there is no denying it. Furthermore, online forums like Glassdoor, Indeed, Comparably, Vault, and the Muse are just some of the few where people can go and read reviews about companies.
2. Broadcasting Business Image
Consistent branding leads to the development of the business image. However, the manner that you choose to communicate about your business in return is able to create perspectives through which people approach and judge your venture.
There are various ways through which you can broadcast your business image. Some of the common and popular channels include:
- proprietor website
- social media pages
- email marketing
- blogs
- vlogs
- live streaming
- webinars
- online training
- paid advertising
- smartphone applications
- press releases
- newsletters
- behind the scene access
- & any other contributions you can make to the online community
Come to think of it the impact and influence you can create through online digital mediums are quite far-reaching. It makes your business look authentic as well as build trust and credibility.
According to a recent study published by Oberlo, 86% of consumers say that authenticity is the key factor when deciding the brands they like to support and follow. Furthermore, 81% of consumers say that they need to be able to trust the brand in order to buy from them.
3. Dependability & Reliance of Customers
Your successful online reputation management demands that customers are able to consider you as a reliable and dependable service provider. They must revere your honesty, and keep your business in high regards. Loyalty feeds on consistent dedication towards customer support and customer care.
You need a nonstop approach and consistent efforts to make sure that your customers never even think about switching to a competitor. Hence your services should provide:
- Ease of use, better than your rivals
- Better pricing
- higher quality
- additional benefits
- terrific shipping and logistics
- innovative products
- cutting edge technology
- & superb conveniences to facilitate your customer needs
You need to study your target audience in detail, and as such, customer journey mapping and customer personas can help you find more about them. Furthermore, you can gather insights through social media interactions, online surveys, and questionnaires.
The aim is to deliver a stupendous customer experience that makes them spread goodwill and positive things about your company through word of mouth marketing. According to a study by Microsoft, 96% of consumers say that customer service is an important factor in their choice of loyalty to a brand.
4. Enhanced Networking Possibilities
For any business to survive and sustain their profitability, networking these days is considered a primary objective. Your business’ reputation can allow you to be viewed as a favorable entity for other ventures that may want to invest themselves in a collaborative project or a joint venture. This is how business partnerships are made.
Expos and tradeshows are wonderful platforms for businesses to meet and interact with each other. Other means of networking is face to face meetings or even travelling to new destinations to meet up with distant business partners.
According to a study by HubSpot, companies would lose 17% of their profits on average if the eliminated business travels while 100% believe that face to face meetings are essential for long term business partnerships.
5. Feedback, Insights, Engagement, Interactions
Businesses nowadays thrive on customer feedback and the insights which they collect through various online engagements and interactions. However, it is vital that your corporation manages its reputation well as this makes it more favorable in the eyes of the audience who would then seek to familiarize themselves with your venture further.
Chatbots infused with AI are breaking new grounds in current times for customer engagement and building interactions. According to a study published at Medium, 54% of customers still think that companies need to transform how they engage fundamentally, and 64% expect companies to deliver tailored engagements based on past interactions.
6. Greater Business Opportunities
It is only natural that good business rapport within the society that you serve, along with positive views from the community, will hasten your ability to score big on upcoming opportunities. Effective growth opportunities often arise through innovations in your offered product and services along with other tactics such as market penetration and market development. Some businesses also choose to diversify their product lines and offered services.
A good business reputation indefinitely facilitates growth in not only your business relationships but also your entire network. Forums like Yelp, Better Business Bureau, and Angie’s List allow businesses to improve on their reputation in the market.
According to a study published by Forbes Magazine, a one-star rating increase on Yelp can translate to a 5%-9% increase in revenue while 82% of Yelp users visit the domain to buy a product or hire a service.
7. Industry Thought Leadership
Becoming a representative for an entire segment of an industry is not easy. To be called a true thought leader, you are required to have considerable expertise that has been demonstrated over a substantial amount of time without fail.
Companies, however, who manage their online reputation well can easily achieve this milestone as stronger support from customers, and the various market elements can quickly help you to dominate within your niche.
You need strategies to brand your company as a true industry expert, and in order to promulgate this image, you will need the help of numerous digital marketing channels, tools, and methodologies.
According to a study published on LinkedIn, thought leadership leads directly to sales with almost 60% of business decision-makers saying that thought leadership is an important factor when awarding their business task to other organizations.
8. Nurturing Credibility & Trust
As already mentioned above, both credibility and trust play an important role for customers to feel comfortable with a brand. Your business reputation, therefore, is crucial to influence people and their behavior towards your organization.
The more credibility and trust you build for your business, the more familiar people become and thus, they are less hesitant to approach your business in the future.
9. Online Reviews Boost SEO
Google indeed highly values customer reviews, and thus with a positive business image and reputation, your websites and social media pages receive an evident boost in SEO. Living in the age of the search engines, we all know the various benefits of ranking higher on search engine result pages.
10. Pioneering Innovation
At times there comes a time where someone new emerges in the market and brings about a revolution in how we do business or introduces new technology that makes other methods redundant. Countless times we have seen this happen, where pioneers through their innovative tactics reshape the landscape of their industries.
However, something of this nature is looked upon as a miracle in the corporate world. Today we find the young and inspirational asking for cheap essay writing service UK so that they can work on side projects and ventures that they can bring about greater innovation in the current ecosystem of the world.
11. Sustained Profitability (Web Traffic & Sales)
Since your business reputation heavily relies on customer feedback and reviews. There is a butterfly effect involved where reviews lead to boosting your SEO and improved SEO leads to greater web traffic as well as an increase in sales.
Students who request professionals to write my essay UK are also often found putting in their efforts to augment the web traffic to their private businesses online so that they can improve sales and sustain profitability for their individual ventures.
Conclusion
There are many businesses out there for which reputation in the industry matters a lot while some businesses are still beginning to realize its impact on their future prospects for growth and expansion. Regardless of this, business reputation is indeed an important factor as poorly managed reputation can result in dire consequences.
These can include damages to consumer or customer trust as well as loss in public faith and face in the market or industry. Fostering a strong online reputation requires consistent effort and dedication towards providing high-quality products and services along with delivering tremendous customer experience. While this may not be considered as a walk in the park, it is definitely achievable and indeed possible to accomplish.
