All businesses can benefit from Reputation Marketing. Whether you’re a cake decorator or a swimming pool builder, most of your future customers will look to the experiences of other customers before making a decision. Some will actively seek online reviews as part of their research process. Others will be more passively persuaded by reviews that appear alongside your website in search engine results pages.

In both cases, how many stars you have earned from others will make a difference in your ultimate success.

What Needs to Be Done?

As with other forms of marketing, Reputation Marketing requires strategy. Though some reputations are built organically, wouldn’t you prefer to shape your reputation rather than leave it completely to chance? Reputation Marketing is a proactive, step-by-step approach that involves the following:

• Claiming your space on online review sites.
• Encouraging your customers to post reviews.
• Developing that 5-star reputation.
• Developing a culture of customer service to ensure that you have earned each of those five stars and will continue to do so in the future.
• Marketing your stellar reputation.
• Managing your reputation to ensure that you continue to earn 5-star ratings and address any negative reviews promptly.

Now that you understand what Reputation Marketing is all about and why it’s important, let’s dig into how to develop a 5-star reputation.