How To Get Business Owner Buy-in For Online Review Management

[Garrett Sussman]

How To Get Business Owner Buy-in
For Online Review Management
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It's the last thing on their mind.

Business owners don't see online review management as a priority. At best, it's viewed by many organizations as an extra, a nice to have. At worst, it's seen as a money pit. A black hole that sucks up their precious marketing budget.

And these are the business owners who know about online review management.

Business owners don't understand online reviews

Most understand the significance of online reviews. They don't understand why it's significant which is a very different thing.

That's a problem.

Here's the scenario business owners run through in their heads.

1. I have a product.
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2. I need customers to buy my product or service. That means...
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3. I need something that will generate sales, leads asap.​

That's pretty straightforward right? It's simple, clear and easy-to-follow. Here's the problem with this three step process.

It's wrong.​

Or rather, it's incomplete. The vast majority of business owners are operating with an incomplete model of the buying process. Here's an accurate picture of what business owners are dealing with.

1. Business owner has a product and service.
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2. They want customers to buy their product or service.
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3. They need something to generate sales, leads asap.
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4. Customers search (locally) for relevant products and services.
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5. Customers are introduced to their product or service.
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6. Customers choose a few "potentials."
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7. Customers vet potentials.
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8. Customers choose a winner.
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I'm generalizing a bit to keep this simple but you get the idea, right? It's a really common mistake for business owners to exclude customers from their thought process.

What do I mean?

Buyer intent can be inferred from local search queries. For example.

• Interior designer homes in NC (research phase
  
• Interior designer portfolios Raleigh, NC (evaluation phase)
  
• Interior designer estimates Raleigh, NC (purchase phase)

If client reviews are visible for each of these searches they capture more leads, sales and customers. Search engine rankings simply aren’t enough.

Why?

Customers don’t know what they’re looking at. They do understand reviews though.

It’s common for prospects to discount the local search aspect of review management. When it comes to local search the vetting process may be longer for more complex service providers (e.g. attorney, doctor, contractor). More immediate services on the other hand (e.g. “restaurants near me or dry cleaners”) may have a much shorter vetting process.

Most business owners automatically assume customers want what they're selling specifically. That a significant portion of the market will choose their product or service. If they're amazing and they give customer a reason (i.e. a strong review portfolio) that's probably true.

Until customers get to step six.

Read the rest of Andrew's post here. He goes on to explain 4 key steps to getting owner buy in when pitching online review management services.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Soooo many great points in this article!

Hey guys, need help selling ORM/ORMM? This is the ticket!

Thanks for sharing Garrett!

 

[Garrett Sussman]

Thanks, Linda!

Yeah, we know selling can be really tricky. We're trying to provide some more guidance on pitching Online Review Management in 2018!