An excellent online reputation is worth a lot more than a lot of people may realize. When you have an excellent reputation, you tend to have an increase in trust for your brand. This increased trust garners increased profits as well as more talented applicants wanting to join your company. Additionally, you will have the ability to spend less on marketing since you are a trusted brand with an outstanding reputation.
In this blog, I will be focusing on and discussing the correlation between a positive online reputation and the lower cost of marketing.
A company with an excellent online reputation primarily markets itself. When people see that you share the same values and visions they do, they tend to be attracted to your brand. They will choose your company over your competitor that may be selling the same or similar item. They are willing to spend as much as 10% more for your product, provided you have an exceptional reputation. The goal of cultivating a reputation that you can be proud of will lead to decreased cost in the acquisition, free marketing and promotion, and increased brand awareness. Let’s take a look at these, and I will explain how these lead to lower marketing costs.
Decreased Cost Per Acquisition
Everyone in the business world knows that it takes more money to get a customer than it does to retain a customer. There is a reason that businesses have dedicated departments for both. However, the cost to acquire a customer can be lowered significantly if you have a stellar reputation.
Taking time to improve your reputation will make your audience feel like they are part of the brand even before making a purchase. When they agree with your company, they can turn into champions for your brand. This leads me to the next topic – free promotion and marketing.
Free Marketing and Promotion
In this day and age, people are not afraid to share their thoughts and opinions about anything. It can be anything from who they will vote for in the upcoming election to the kind of shoes they consider to be the best. They are sharing these opinions on several social media outlets. These positive reviews can lead to more eyes on your product that you could ever imagine. Whether or not your brand is doing well is public information and will have a lot to do with your overall reputation.
Speaking of online reviews, they have a lot of influence on what people buy. A positive review can lead to a spike in revenue, while a negative review can lead to a sharp decline. You can talk to influencers to push your brand, but you really shouldn’t need to. I like to think that great brands speak with their product and actions, rather than paying for people to say things about their brand.
Either way, you decide to go and know that online influence plays a more prominent role in sales than you could imagine. When it comes to online reviews, as many as 90% of customers search for your company before spending a dime. Additionally, approximately 85% of those customers will believe what they read about you on the internet. It doesn’t even have to be true. That is why fostering your online presence is so important. Social media shares can further amplify the reviews that get posted. You will have a customer that will provide an online review site with their opinion. Someone else will see it, and they can share this with their friends. From one online review, we are already on the third generation of people viewing that post. You multiply this by the nearly endless amount of social media sites, and you can see that it can quickly turn into something quite amazing. Likewise, it can go wrong if a mistake is made, which brings me to my final point on brand awareness.
Increase Brand Awareness
The topics above have led up to this point. Your brand is focusing on how well the public knows you. Naturally, you want people to know you for the positive rather than the negative things that happen. Getting your target market to recognize your brand over others makes them choose your brand over the competition.
An example of brand awareness is Ronald McDonald. He was one of the most recognized brand mascots, second only to Mickey Mouse. This is the reason for McDonald’s popularity over just about any other fast food restaurant across the country.
Another way that brands are becoming more attractive to customers is by changing what they serve. In recent years, the public has become more aware of their health. Therefore, going out to a fast-food restaurant has become increasingly less attractive. To increase brand awareness, restaurants have started serving better food options. The places that did it first naturally have more followers than those that held out for longer.
All of the above examples are ways that you can get your brand more well-known, and therefore have a lot of brand awareness. A few other methods are by creating valuable content, optimizing your owned properties, and focusing on reviews.
Conclusion
Brands that are successful with online reputation management rarely, if ever, have to rely on marketing as a way to get themselves into the public eye. They can save a load of money on marketing by merely making sure that they are known for the little things. The more things you do right, the better people will receive your brand. This will lead to increased brand awareness, a decrease in the amount you have to spend on acquiring a customer and get you free marketing and promotion. All in all, the reputation of your brand is in your hands. If you want to spend money on marketing rather than focusing on your reputation, that is up to you. I feel that when you engage your customers, the marketing will take care of itself. I wish you the best of luck in marketing and promoting your online reputation.