Over the last 10 years, I've worked with over 700 companies and I've seen them go in the wrong order with their digital marketing. I created this graphic called The Foundation Of Digital Marketing. It's the premise behind my book Get FOUND Online, and essentially we want to go in the right order of Branding, Website, Local SEO, and then move on to things like email, social media and online ads. A lot of people go in the wrong order and they wonder why the internet doesn't work... But regardless of the source of marketing that's coming to your business, whether it's a referral, whether it's an internet lead, whether it's somebody seeing your vehicle, maybe it's even a potential employee, nowadays, people are going to do a significant amount of online research before they even call you.
They're going to Google you on their phone to find your phone number, look at your website, and… look at your reviews!
My #1 tip here is about reviews.
Studies show that 70% of the sale actually happens online before they call you. Customers are getting prepared, they're researching, they're making a lot of decisions based on what they find online. Having a negative review average or not having any reviews at all can really harm you.
One of the mistakes I see a lot of companies make is that one, they either don't have enough reviews, or they have negative reviews that haven't been responded to, or they're just at risk of when they do get that one negative review, and you're going to get a negative review at some point, of having your review average drop a ton. If you don't have at least 10 reviews on your Google listing, you're going to be at risk.
So, if you want to make it easy for people to write a Google review for you, send them the link to where they should write the review. Here's how you do that:
Step 1: Google your business name and the city that you're in.
Step 2: Click on the reviews section of your Google My Business Listing. It's going to open up the reviews people have given you on Google.
Step 3: Copy the big, long, ugly URL at the top of the page.
Step 4: Open your email. Create a new message with the subject line: favor for {your name}... The reason why I'm doing “favor for {your name}” is people are going to be more likely to help you than they are your company.
Step 5: Write a message like, “Hey Larry, We've really enjoyed working with you and I'd appreciate your feedback online. Please click here to write a Google review.” Highlight “Please click here to write a Google review,” click on the link icon, and paste the Google Reviews URL. This makes what's called an anchor text link, meaning of the text anchors to another place on the internet.
Step 6: Click send!
This makes it really easy for your customers to then write a review for you online. So who owns reviews at your company? Is it you, the owner, is it your marketing manager? When are they going to send them in your process? Is it at the final walkthrough? Do you send a thank you note first?
Whatever your process is, this needs to become part of it. You collect final payment and at some point you ask for reviews each and every time with every single customer. And that's how you get 81 plus reviews. I have some clients who have even 200-300 reviews! This basic method of sending people your Google review link, if you do this, you are going to get a way better result from your referrals because they're going to see social proof from other people that you've done a good job. You're going to rank higher on Google and you're also going to make more revenue because reviews impact sales, and reviews also impact recruiting. You wouldn’t want to work for a 2-star company, would you?
So go get 10 Google reviews and use this method. Let me know if it works for you. Now there's way more that goes into The Foundation Of Digital Marketing. I have a three part recording that I want to send you. It's a live recording of my keynote, which you can get available for limited at ramblinjackson.com/replay.
Thanks,
Jack Jostes
CEO
Ramblin Jackson
