By Jim Clanin
If you have a business online, then you probably have a reputation. When you focus on your customers to build your brand, you can build your business quickly. Many people want to trust a brand, but sometimes it is hard for a business to establish this trust and gain a long-term customer. There are some strategies to use with your reputation management company that may help you gain and keep customers coming back to your business.
Tell a Story
Whether they consciously know it or not, a customer is swayed by emotions. If you tell a story that resonates with a customer, you are more likely to get a positive response. Tell the story of your company or your personal story to create an emotional relationship with potential customers. If they can attach to your story, they will remember your brand for a long time. Storytelling and transparency tend to work well together when a business is establishing trust.
Get Customers to Engage
It is fairly easy to get people to engage online with interactive content. This type of content can include surveys, quizzes, and any content that requires the customer to be active in getting a result. Interactive content gives people who browse online a reason to remember you and come back in the future. It also builds trust because your business took the time to personalize an experience for them. The value from the interactive content is important, so your customer knows that it was effort well spent.
Put User-Generated Content to Work
User-generated content is content that users produce. This content is relative to your business, like reviews of products you sell. Reviews are an important part of building a brand online. Most people value the opinion of others over a brand. You can also use the content users generate to learn about your customer’s needs and meet them better.
Negative Reviews
If you have a review from a customer that isn’t pleasant and makes your business look bad, this is the perfect opportunity to show off your transparency. Your current and potential customers like to see how you handle a negative situation. If the review is about your brand as a whole or just one product, it is important to show the world how much you care about customer satisfaction. You can also use a negative review to fuel an email or newsletter to all of your customers by explaining how you’ve fixed a mistake within your business.
Adjust Your Content to Coincide With Your Sales Cycle
If you have a potential customer, they will probably want fewer details and more general information that proves you to be an expert. As the potential customer moves on through their decision-making processes, they are going to want more details and specifics on your products or services.
