We hope that you are enjoying our series on Essentials for a Lucrative Online Presence. Before we dive into Online Reviews, check out our earlier blogs on Top 5 Essentials for a Winning Website, Increase Your Online Visibility with Local Directories, Capture Warm Leads with Chat Functionality and Blogging – Yes It’s Essential!

5 Myths about Business Online Reviews

It may be a digital marketing world, but good old fashioned “word of mouth” promoting is still alive and well!

“Word of mouth” promotion – where customers share their best and sometimes not-so-great experiences – in today’s world takes the form of online reviews. Google Maps, HealthGrades, TripAdvisor, Angie’s List and Yelp are just a few of the online review sites that play an ever-increasing role in business success. Why? Because your current and potential customers use these sites every day to help them select services.

Here are a few common myths and misconceptions about online reviews:

• My patients/clients don’t visit online review sites. Wrong! As many as 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business.
• Online reviews are not as important as more traditional word-of-mouth among friends, family and neighbors. Wrong again! 84% of people confirm that they trust an online review as much as a personal recommendation.
• A negative review can hurt my business. Yes and no. A poor review may cause some readers to reconsider using your services, but, if it is handled properly, it can be a big positive for your online presence. The key is turning a bad experience around and showing that your customers are really important to you. Take action right away: reply, apologize if appropriate, and take steps to make it right with the consumer. Make these steps public so other potential customers will see that you are a business that they can trust.
• Handling online reviews has no other benefit other than reputation management. Myth. Search engines such as Google favor websites with presences on online review sites, so your practice will rank higher in local searches. Positive reviews can help with search engine optimization too.
• Monitoring and responding to reviews takes too much time. It depends. You can delegate this job to a staff member as part of your administrative marketing tasks. Checking reviews and replying to all – good and bad – will become part of your daily routine. Better yet – let a professional handle it! Blue Orchid Marketing will monitor and manage your local online listings for you.

Put Our Digital Marketing Plan to Work for Your Practice

Blue Orchid Marketing offers custom-written marketing elements designed to increase your bottom line.  We also focus on external marketing by placing your practice on more than 70 local online directoriesand writing weekly custom blogs and social media posts to ensure your practice is found on internet searches.  That’s more than 40 posts a month … it’s a service you need to stay competitive!

Need a web site?  Live chat?  Adwords? We have the solution!

To learn how our internal marketing solutions can put money in your pocket and our internet presence solutions and websites can help you to attract new patients and clients, please call us at 203-746-5901– ask for David- or send an email to DavidB@BlueOrchidMarketing.com. We’ll create a package that’s right for you!