As the saying goes what someone says about you is ten times more powerful that what you say about yourself and today people are constantly looking for recommendations before choosing where to spend their money.

According to a survey by BrightLocal[1]

• 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation
• 7 out of 10 consumers will leave a review for a business if they're asked to
• 90% of consumers read less than 10 reviews before forming an opinion about a business
• 54% of people will visit the website after reading positive reviews
• 73% of consumers think that reviews older than 3 months are no longer relevant
• 74% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more
• 58% of consumers say that the star rating of a business is most important

Gathering and displaying customer reviews should therefore be a key marketing activity for you which will provide you with the following benefits:

• A bank of customer recommendations making it more likely someone will choose you over your competitors.
• Protect and enhance your reputation – should you receive a mediocre or poor review having a large number of positive reviews outweighs this.
• Have a ready supply of ‘content’ to talk about when promoting your business.
• Improve staff morale and job satisfaction.

If you do not have a systematic process to capture and display reviews you are missing out on potential business.

Reviews are at the heart of what we do at Thebestof and our reviews tool is just part of our Full Circle marketing support which enables you to:

• Increase engagement with your customers
• Generate a constant source of positive messages you can use to promote your business, and we use to reach the tens of thousands of people who visit our website or connect with us on social media each month
• Use our review cards and tools to help you capture reviews.
• Display and capture reviews via your website and Facebook page.
• Use the £100 prize draw to encourage people to leave a review.
• Qualify for thebestof Business of the Year Awards with extensive national and local promotion and PR.

So how much does it cost?

Less than you might think. Thebestof’s extensive range of marketing tools and techniques including our reviews toolkit costs less than half the price of a website offering just a review facility.

So get in touch today by emailing fleetandfarnborough@thebestof.co.uk to find out how we can help your business Get Found and Get Noticed.