5 Ways to Grow Your Startup With Online Reviews
Online reviews are crucial, even for new businesses in entirely new market categories. In fact, reviews may be more important for you because you have to prove two things to potential buyers:
- That you can actually solve their problem
- That your company is good to work with
You’re brand new, so without someone else’s say-so, you have no way to prove this. Online reviews help you stand out and prove your value. Here’s how they can be used to grow your startup:
1. Rank higher in search results
Online reviews are a key ranking factor for Google and other search engines. Google et. al. want to show searchers the most relevant, helpful and authoritative results, and they use online reviews to help them do it. This doesn’t just apply to local businesses. It applies to everyone.
If you’re creating a brand new market, this will take time to show results. But as soon as people begin searching for [XYZ] services that you offer — and they may be already — this will turn into a lead funnel for you.
2. Become the category leader
It’s tough to create a new category, but it’s much easier to stand out in an existing one. All you need is a good product and enough people saying that you’re great. You can stand out in review platforms, market research reports and approved vendor lists — all by simply earning more online reviews than other companies in the same category.
3. Get on “Best of” and “Top 10” lists
An unfortunate truth: Most of those “Best [XYZ] Providers” and “Top 10 [XYZ] Tools for [Industry]” are written by junior editors who do a Google search and reference whoever shows up on the first two pages.
If you earn more online reviews, you will show up higher in those search results, giving you a significantly higher chance of getting on one or more of these “Best of” lists, which then:
- Causes you to rank even higher in search results
- Gives you high-quality backlinks
- Helps you get on even more “Best of” lists and other recognitions
- Drives more ready-to-buy traffic to you
It’s a virtuous cycle that you really want to tap into. If you aren’t included in these lists organically, you can reach out to the platforms to ask for inclusion and point to your reviews to back up your case for why you should be included.
4. Turn market opinion into “dark social”
Dark social is a marketing term for word-of-mouth in the internet era. It’s difficult to track, but it’s incredibly valuable. The more positive reviews you earn, the more people you have primed to mention you in online chat groups, direct messages, social media comments, emails, text messages and more.
The more people you have saying good things about you, the more likely you are to win new customers and become the market leader. Isn’t that what every startup wants?
5. Use social proof throughout the buying cycle
Turn those reviews into mini-case studies, weave them into your blog posts and emails, share them on social media, and create ad campaigns out of them. These are incredible assets to help create demand and sway prospects into choosing you. Why? Because you’ve proven that you can solve customers’ problems and that you’re good to work with.
Source: entrepreneur.com
