All early stage startups face similar problems. You are creating something new, so next he has to prove two things.
- Whether your solution is worth buying
- that your young company is credible
It’s no small achievement. Especially when the market at the moment is mostly “early adopters” and you’re looking to do things like: cross the ditch To “Early Majority”.
But online reviews and customer recommendations can help prove both, leading to more customers and other benefits. We’ll show you how to take advantage of this opportunity, using steps that have worked for us and our colleagues.
It depicts crossing the chasm from early customer to full market.Credit: Cobloom
Why Use Online Reviews to Grow Your Startup?
online review It’s probably your most important marketing asset for two reasons.
1. Potential customers don’t care what you think.
Of course you would say your product and company are great. But as a consumer, I don’t know you yet, nor can I trust you. Instead, they want unfiltered opinions from their current customers. So use an online review platform like Google or G2 to see what your customers really think of you.
If these platforms don’t have reviews, they’re going to lose customers.
2. Building inbound marketing takes time.
You’re trying to create a new market, but people aren’t actively looking for your solution yet. But they will, and you’re trying to help them find you, not their competitors.
Online reviews help you rank higher in search results and rank among the ‘Top 10’ and ‘Best’. [XYZ] Providers” list. If you succeed in some ways, you are likely to succeed in many more, eventually becoming the preferred solution across the web. That’s my dream.
It is a valuable work that takes time to make, so it is recommended to start early.
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How to get online reviews
It’s really just two steps.
1. Provide a great customer experience.
Customers will only leave reviews and refer others to you if they have had a great experience. Here are three things he does to create great experiences:
- Please solve their problem. Customers aren’t as interested in you and your solution as they are in solving their problems. Your product should do what you said it would.
- Get it right every time, even the first time. An unreliable product, one that works only occasionally, causes more headaches than it’s worth. You have to prove every day that you are a trustworthy person.
- Please work well. This is the tipping point for creating great experiences that your customers love to talk about. Reviews and referrals are as much about you as they are about your product, so be responsive, kind, considerate, responsive, open to feedback, respectful, and fun to work with. Please make it possible.
2. Listen!
Customers rarely review and recommend everything themselves. They need a little stimulation. You are close to these customers, so decide when it’s best to ask questions. However, there are some things to consider.
- timing: Wait long enough for your customers to get value from you, but not so long that they forget about the great experience.
- The Ask: Ask questions through any available channel. Online reviews work best with a combination of email and text messaging. For referrals, face-to-face meetings are the most effective, but any open communication channel will work.
- follow up: For online reviews, be sure to publicly reply to the review. Potential buyers will want to know you’re involved, and existing customers will appreciate it. If your customer makes other kinds of recommendations or referrals, thank them personally and consider giving them discounts on their services, gift cards, or other gifts.
How many reviews and recommendations do you need?
The number of reviews or recommendations you need depends on several factors, but as a rule of thumb it’s best to take a quantitative approach to online reviews and a qualitative approach to recommendations.
For reviews:
See how many online reviews your competitors have on major review platforms. Try to earn more than them. Star ratings are important, but the number of reviews and how often you get new ones is more important.
Recommendation:
For case studies and testimonials that you post on your website or use in sales materials, you only need one good case study or testimonial for each major customer type.
The more, the better, but rather than having a bunch of mediocre case studies, a good case detailing their problem, why they chose you, and the results they saw (including concrete numbers) Better to have one study.
Make it easy for your customers to share these assets with others. More on that later.
Focusing on both reviews and recommendations will ensure that early customers become referrals and more new customers buy from you.
Action steps to get more reviews
1. Start priming all customers.
Talk about the results from your first conversation with your customer throughout the customer lifecycle. We want our customers to think about how much they’re investing in their company and how much they’re getting in return and other metrics.
This helps you get reviews, recommendations, and customer retention by articulating your value to yourself and others. After that, just remember to ask questions.
2. Allow your customers to self-recommend you.
Customers are unlikely to review or endorse without being prompted, so consider how you can incorporate incentives and prompts into your daily customer interactions. Here’s what worked for us:
- Add review requests to standard Customer Success communications
- Reward customers for providing feedback (positive or negative)
- Create email and text message templates that customers can send to others
- We package together resources that you can easily share with others who want to recommend us.
3. Consider whether you need a review management tool.
The number of customers is small enough that it may be easier to solicit reviews and manage those reviews across platforms.As we grow, perhaps review management platform to help it. Tracking reviews as a key performance indicator (KPI) becomes important, so you want to manage it in one place instead of jumping between platforms.
Whatever method you choose, make sure to focus on continually getting online reviews and recommendations. Your startup’s growth may depend on just that.