If business is a car, online reviews are like driver licence. Reviews aka Social proofs can turn prospects into customers and customers into subscribers and repeating customers. In this post we will discuss how to increase Google reviews authentically with the help of brand ambassadors and other methods.
Why Google Reviews Matter
According to recent Hubspot research, there are more than 63,000 searches happening on Google every second. There is almost a hundred percent chance that your ideal customer might be using Google to search about your products before they make a final decision to buy your product.
At the same time, online reviews also work as a genuine feedback for a business to know how they are doing and what can be better improved.
It is interesting to know that people often find a mix of positive and negative reviews more trustworthy than just all positive reviews.
We will discover how to get authentic reviews in the later sections. You can also use our free Review Request Template which you can utilise along.
Eligibility Criteria for Google Business Reviews
Before we come to getting reviews, you need to make sure your business is eligible for Google reviews. At a minimum, your business must have a business profile on Google to get Google review.
Recent Google update confirms that only businesses with physical business presence and Store-in services are eligible for a Google business profile.
What to do when I have an online-only business?
In such case, you can utilise other similar services like TrustPilot of G2.com to collect customer reviews.
You can use this guided playbook from Google to register your business. Once your business is visible you can find it on right sidebar when you search for your business.
Once your business is visible, we can finally move to the strategy to get impactful testimonials on your Google business profile.
3 Methods to Grow Google Reviews Authentically
Brand Ambassador Program
Brand ambassadors or micro-influencers can be your secret weapon in business. A brand ambassador simply means your user or customers who is ready to promote your products to bring new customers.
Brand ambassador marketing is known as one of the most impactful strategies and being used by top brands like Uber, Canva, Google and many more. If you have a small or medium scale business, you can use Afleet to run your brand ambassador program.
To get business reviews through brand ambassadors, you can simply create a campaign through Afleet portal and add bonus reward points or free gifts to complete the challenge. As soon as an ambassador gives an authentic review you can reward them with extra reward points.
Free Discount Coupon
One of our clients offered Free 20% OFF coupon to all their customers to give a genuine Google feedback on their food orders. Their Indian store gathered more than 100 Google reviews in a month by implementing this. This strategy can work well if you are selling a physical product or services like Food and Grocery.
While this can easily work if you have an online service or SaaS business, we have some better ideas in that case.
Digital Gifts
Let's be honest! It is easy to get a negative review but real challenge to get a genuine, detailed review. Something like this:
This is why, the fastest way to get a search review is by giving something valuable for free. This can be a product that you were selling for a small price. Or it can be a consulting call or even a lottery.
Here is the fact: People want to share feedback if they have received a great service. But they need some extra motivation to take that first step to write a detailed review. Digital gifts work like charm to gather good google reviews for the same.
You can use a simple tool like KingSumo to run a giveaway campaign and offer custom rewards for giving genuine feedback.
When to ask for a review
Now when we know the importance of reviews and some direction over how to get some, the next important question is, when is the right time!
Some products are quick to consume and get easily lost in the memories of customers. If your business is about cookies and bread (or FMCG per se), a good time to ask for review is after 1 day.
However, I will encourage you to ask for feedback multiple times. It might be possible that your customers were busy while they saw your feedback invitation or they were not decided. It is good to remind at least 3 times, once after a day, after 3 days and then after 7 days to ask for feedback.
You can use the email Template below:
Subject line: FREE Gift for [Name] from [Your company name]
Body:
Hi, [Customer name].
Thank you so much for ordering [your product name] on [purchase date].
We are truly grateful to have you as our customer. This is why, we would like to give you our [special gift name] for free. All you need to do to claim [this free gift name] is, to give us a genuine feedback of our product. This will help us build a better product/Serve you better.
Submit and claim: <Link to your giveaway url>
Yours ...
[Your name]
P.S: This will be open for a limited time. Please complete before it's too late. Here is your link: [LINK]
You can copy the above invitation template to ask for reviews after making necessary changes according to your requirement.
So we discovered how to get more reviews for your business in this post. Next question is, does it help in search engine marketing as well?
How Google Reviews help in SEO
Google reviews affect SERP results greatly. Reviews on your business profile gives more visibility to your entire business on search Engines. Often times, these details are also picked by review aggregators and local blogs. This can help you improve search engine optimisation.
Google's recent update, EAT or Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness is critical for SEO. It allows only credible sources to perform better in SERP to avoid any misleading information.
If you have a customer base of more than 100 people and you are not leveraging ambassador programs, you might be missing the best of the business. You can begin your brand ambassador program right away and deploy your influencer army.