How to Use Customer Reviews to Promote Your Business

To find out if your business is worth visiting or your products are worth buying, potential customers go first to their family and friends. However, sometimes we all have to go outside of our pool of personal recommendations. For 84% of consumers, online reviews are the next best thing. But how can you use customer reviews to their greatest effect? Here are 7 ways to use customer reviews to promote your business.

How to Use Customer Reviews to Promote Your Business

1. Online Reviews

Online reviews on third-party sites do some of the work for you. Review hubs like Google My Business, Yelp and Amazon encourage customers to leave and look at reviews because it improves their existing business model. Potential customers will see these reviews when they’re researching your business, looking at your products online, looking for your business address, and more. The downside, of course, is that you have less power over who leaves these reviews and why.

Since businesses don’t own reviews on third-party sites, it can be difficult to know how to use customer reviews on these sites. However, in some cases, you can showcase third-party reviews on your own website. Yelp, for example, encourages businesses to embed Yelp reviews on their websites. In other cases, reposting reviews in this way might violate the review website’s terms of service. Before reposting reviews from other sites, it’s important to understand their policies first.

2. Your Website

Around 70 to 80% of consumers research a business online before visiting or making a purchase. Some start with Google reviews, while others go straight to the source for information; the business’s website. Potential customers might be checking on a business’s hours, location, contact information, or something more specific about the business. This means, if you’re not sure how to use customer reviews, this is a great place to start.

The best place to put customer reviews on your website is on your homepage. Potential customers who visit your site will immediately see praise from other customers, creating a positive first impression. You might also include reviews on landing pages for your products, locations, or contact information.

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3. Brochures

If you use brochures to advertise your products or introduce potential customers to your business, this is a great place to user customer reviews. Placing reviews beside relevant products in brochures shows customers’ confidence in the product. If the review is specific, it can also showcase some aspects of the product. Remember to always get your customers’ permission before using their reviews in brochures.

4. Billboards

Billboards are a great way to get customers’ attention, especially for local businesses. This can also be a great place to showcase customers’ praise. With your customer’s permission, use one or more particularly impactful reviews to show others that you go above and beyond to please your customers. You might use reviews that you’ve collected yourself or you might showcase a particularly high rating on a third-party site, so potential customers can look it up for themselves. This strategy not only helps to get the word out about your business, but also showcases social proof.

5. Digital Advertisements

There’s a lot of information competing for your customers’ attention online. This can make it difficult for your digital advertisements to get noticed. One way to set yourself apart from the crowd is to show real customers’ opinions. Anyone can make a claim like “best food in town!” or “lowest prices!” but customers tend to gloss over these claims. Showing what an existing customer has said instead gives the advertisement more merit, and can help to increase impressions and clicks.

6. Social Media

When you receive a positive review, whether on a third-party review site or you collect it yourself, celebrate it with a social media shout-out. This is a great way to generate impressions and showcase social proof organically, without paying for advertisements. If you can, tag your customer to thank them and potentially expand the reach of the post to your customer’s social circle.

7. Your Store

Once your customer is in the door, customer reviews can still be useful. You can use customer reviews to make the final push towards purchase, or help customers make a decision. You might add customer reviews to an area that attracts the most customer attention, such as a board posting daily specials or your menu. Or, you might post reviews next to popular items on a shelf to help point customers in the right direction.

Now that you have some ideas about how to use customer reviews to their greatest effect, see how you can collect more reviews online with a streamlined system. Whether you are collecting reviews yourself for your website or advertisements, or you want to get more reviews on popular review websites, getting more customer reviews can be a big boost for your business.