A few months ago, my 11-year-old son Luke wanted to buy a Desert Eagle Full Auto Airsoft Pistol on eBay.
My response: “Um… no.”
But Luke really, really wanted it.
So when I put my size-12 loafer down, he didn’t back off.
Instead, he came at me with a binder’s-worth of review information about the gun and the seller.
He showed me the gun had a four-and-a-half-star rating out of five. He showed me the seller had 3,119 reviews and 99.7% positive feedback. He showed me the seller also had 1,541 positive reviews in the past 12 months.
So even good ol’ wide-eyed Luke knows that online reviews are a hugely persuasive form of social proof.
He might not have thought of it in that exact way (he’s a middle schooler, not a marketer), but he has figured out that people can be swayed into doing or buying something if enough other people do.
And this is why 11-year-old Luke understands marketing better than most contractors.
Sure, contractors think reviews are important… but many underestimate just how important.
Like I said a few posts ago, Social Proof is essential and new research shows 90% of people read online reviews before deciding to call a contractor.
Yes… 90 percent!
Oh, don’t look so surprised.
The good news: If you already have a bunch of great online reviews, you have nothing to worry about.
The bad news: If you don’t have a bunch of great online reviews, you’re leaving a depressingly large sum of money on the table.
Fortunately for you, we can fix that.
We’ve been providing Online Reputation Management (ORM) for just a few months, but it’s already proving to be a godsend for our clients who need to beef up their online reputations.
Case in point…
In just one month, our ORM has generated our client Jacob’s Ladder, 10 new five-star online reviews across Google, Facebook, BBB, and Yelp.
At this pace, the company could have 120+ stellar online reviews within the year.
Like I said yesterday, it goes to show that building up a lot of great reviews is not hard, but it does take a lot of time and effort. To do it yourself, you’d have to dedicate a full-time employee to it, and it would cost you thousands of dollars a month.
Consider the eBay seller I mentioned earlier. It’s taken her 15 years to accumulate those 3,119 reviews. That works out to about 208 reviews per year.
If you’re an eBay user, you know that people on there give out reviews like candy. So if it’s taken this woman this long to collect that many reviews on eBay, you can expect it will take you years to attain even one-third that amount on sites like Yelp, Google, and Facebook.
That’s why you need to get started RIGHT NOW if you want to build an ironclad online reputation. The longer you wait, the more rave reviews you lose out on.
Because here’s the thing…
Your customers want to let the world know how great you are. But they have 789 things going on in their lives, so they forget to.
MYM ORM sends your customers through a sophisticated review funnel that gets them to take action and provide online feedback on the review websites of your choosing.
So stop shooting yourself in the foot with an airsoft pistol. Every remodeling project that goes by that you’re not utilizing ORM is another wasted opportunity for a great online review.
Mosey on over to MYM’s official ORM webpage for more details.
Until next time,
P.S. So, did Luke’s tactic of showing me mounds of social proof persuade me to let him bid on the airsoft gun? Actually yeah, it did—under the condition that I would heavily supervise his use. He was outbid in the last few seconds, though, so he didn’t end up getting it. Oh, darn….
© 2016, Rich Harshaw. All rights reserved.
