“And the scary thing is, actually having no online reviews makes you look like a bad business (even though you might not be)” Annabel Candy
Anyone who has purchased online is familiar with the concept of online reviews. Somehow we have read, shared, or communicated our experiences (some of them good, and some are not) with a product or a service. It is a powerful way to amplify our voice and allows to other customers to benefit from our experiences. How can businesses benefit from customer written reviews? According to TrustPilot, an online platform that works as a review community to build trust and transparency between consumers and businesses, online reviews can help to:
- Build your reputation by collecting feedback
- Drive traffic to your website
- Improve service by responding to reviews, rescuing unhappy customers, and increase retention rate
Kabbage, a competitor of the Crowdfunding or Peer-to-peer lending market, uses marketplace lending technology to allow borrowers to make loan requests online, is one of the companies that is currently using the power of online reviews as a digital marketing technique.
Kabbage – Profile page on Trustpilot
They have an active community of customers (more than a thousand) who have shared their experiences, opinions and insights with others through the platform. This type of digital marketing helps the company to improve the relationship with their customers and helps potential customers to make informed purchase decisions.
Another key benefit of using this type of platforms for gathering online reviews is that it helps to increase your search engine ranking and stand out with star ratings when customers search your product (see image on the right). For example, Kabbage is targeting keywords with “review” in them, helping their product list on first-page search results. Also, Google leverages reviews collected by TrustPilot as data for its seller rating extension (this works for paid search as well). According to Google, “Establishing Seller Ratings increases CTR by an average of 17%, increasing your quality score, and lowering CPC by roughly 14%”.
Least but not last, online reviews help to increase conversion rates by using positive reviews to improve customer’s confidence and keep them engage. “The average Trustpilot partner sees an 11% increase in conversions using our widgets” (Trustpilot, 2015). The platform integrates seamlessly with any social media so users can share their reviews.
TrustPilot offers three different plans (all of them offer a free 14-day trial version)
- Lite: the entry-level plan for $400 per month
- Pro: includes all benefits from the Lite version, plus features to drive traffic and increase conversions),
- Enterprise: the most complete version for companies requiring added data protection and enterprise-level account management
This is an invitation to start exploring – in your next digital marketing plan – the power of online reviews. Whether you’re a small or large business, online reviews have an impact.