Potential Clients and Search Engines

In digital marketing, we speak a lot about “knowing your audience.” Because algorithms, analytics, and targeted marketing are incredibly specific, you have to have an exact idea of what different groups within your target audience will positively respond to. Another way of putting it is having buyer personas.

A buyer persona is a fictional character or avatar created to represent a user that might use your products or services. For instance, if you’re a home-services business specializing in cleaning, you’ll have a range of different customers that can be segmented into different personas. For example, a working mom that needs extra help with cleaning or an office manager looking to outsource an appropriate vendor. Both require your services, but they have different goals, and their buyer’s journeys won’t be the same.

It’s important to remember that you can’t just think about your online reputation from your perspective. You have to contemplate how your buyer personas are searching online and what they want, so you can tailor your marketing efforts to meet them where they are. Most businesses have more than one buyer persona within their target market.

Buyer personas are detailed documents that include bios, personality traits, preferred shopping habits, learning (where and how they get information), goals, frustrations, motivations, and brands they’re likely to buy. They are living documents that should be updated every 1 – 4 years as consumer habits change and new products or services arise.

The First Step of Online Reputation Management

Online reputation management often goes hand in hand with digital marketing because one influences the other. Any good online reputation manager knows the first step to improving digital reputation is identifying weaknesses. Common ones include:

Negative Online Reviews

Reviews are all over the internet, whether it’s Google, Yelp, or social media. How you respond to positive feedback and negative feedback matters. According to Adweek, over 70% of customers view reviews as important decision-making considerations. So, if you have eight very negative reviews on different social networks or business listings, or a blogger ruining your reputation on Instagram, you’ll need reputation management strategies to counter their negative reviews.

Lack of Social Media Interaction

Every online retailer should have an active presence on social media channels applicable to their target audience. Maintaining your pages and communicating with users online improves customer experience. Some businesses employ community managers, who are responsible for maintaining pages, sharing positive content, and interacting with customers.

Don’t forget; many customers use social media to give recommendations, too. With analytics, reputation management software, and social listening, businesses can identify and address customer issues and provide feedback. Not responding to users online can cast a negative light on your brand’s reputation, as 79% of customers expect a brand to respond within 24 hours once they’ve made contact.

Vague Case Studies

While marketing case studies are excellent tools to persuade customers that your products or services can solve their problems, they won’t help if they’re not descriptive or specific enough. A convincing case study reads like a story with a positive outcome. It details exact customer challenges, outlines how you helped them, and offers relevant data points that further emphasize successful results.

Negative Search Results

Occasionally, you may come across negative articles in search results that you wish to be removed, but you don’t own the web page. A typical example would be a blogger who posts a blog post about a bad experience on their site. The only way to get rid of this type of negative review on a third-party website is to directly contact the individual who published the article and request they “unpublish it” or implement reverse SEO, which is considered a more long-term strategy. In this case, a professional online reputation management company will know how best to minimize the impacts of negative media coverage.

Creating a Spotless Online Reputation

Online reputation management is a constant process that is managed, not cured. Once you know what you need to work on, you should create and implement a coherent plan that’s preemptive and responsive.

Be Transparent

Disappointed customers don’t return, and they’ll likely create negative content in the form of unfavorable reviews. No business wants to admit all its weaknesses upfront, but sometimes honesty can go a long way. For instance, if you’re a small business just starting out, you might explain that you’ve got many orders to process and are trying to get them out as soon as possible, but there may be a delay. This simple act of communication prevents disappointment and displays good customer service.

Integrate Online Reviews

A smart way to improve your online presence is to incorporate reviews as a part of your buyer’s journey. Once a customer makes a purchase, you should always ask for a review and feedback. Some businesses like Uber include this in their app, while others send a follow-up email. You can’t please every customer all the time, but if on the odd occasion you do receive a negative review, you’ll already have a dozen positive ones. If you have a positive online reputation, one negative review will probably be chalked up to a difficult customer.

Managing Reviews

Publicly responding to all reviews communicated that you care about what your customers have to say, whether good or bad. It also doesn’t look like you’re just out to do damage control on simple negative reviews. As a successful business, you should be engaging with customers constantly. Over and above good products and services, offering high-quality customer service ensures people will continue to reward you with return business.

Set Goals

Good reputation management entails understanding what a company’s goals are. Remember, it’s about public perception and imbuing a brand with specific qualities to provide a competitive advantage within the marketplace. So, if you strive to be the best personal injury lawyer, for example, your reputation management will be angled towards promoting and marketing this objective. You need to know where you want to be, where you are now, and use reputation management to bridge the gap between the two.

We Can Help Manage Your Reputation

Comrade Web has a reliable track record of transforming companies’ online reputations and remedying reputation damage. Our comprehensive reputation management strategies include:

• Proactive review management
• Content marketing, including video reviews
• Social media management
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Integrating tools to engage customers for more positive reviews

We manage loads of result-driven reputation management campaigns every year. Let our team take care of your brand online, so you can focus on doing the business! Click here to improve your brand’s reputation.