When it comes to online ratings and reviews, everyone benefits. They have the ability to enhance merchant credibility, improve comparison shopping rankings, and raise conversion rates. They can increase customer engagement and monitor customer service efforts.  Ratings and reviews can achieve all of this and more through the power of word of mouth marketing.

Word of mouth is one of the oldest and most effective forms of marketing, and its influence is on the rise as traditional marketing becomes more expensive and less effective.  In the past, word of mouth was limited to person-to-person communication.  Today, the viral nature of the internet allows conversations to quickly spread around the world and influence millions of people.  This fact, coupled with a growing distrust for traditional advertising, has made online ratings and reviews one of the most powerful factors influencing consumer purchasing decisions.  Here are a few ways the ratings and reviews can benefit your business and your customers:

Benefits for Consumers

• Established more trust in the product and company
• Gives consumers a voice
• More interaction on the website

Online reviews give ordinary consumers a voice and are particularly important since an online customer can’t go into a physical store to ask questions or test out the product.  The shift in shopping from in-store to online has made consumers wary from the very beginning.  Reviews help to reduce this apprehension and re-establish the trust between consumers and merchants that is lacking in the e-Commerce marketplace.

Benefits for E-Commerce Businesses

• Valuable market research
• Enhances customer service
• Increase sales

Ratings and reviews provide tremendous value to merchants as well.  They provide businesses with valuable market research and help them better understand the opinions and needs of their customers.  Ratings and reviews are also critical to customer service.  They provide the merchant with an opportunity to monitor customer satisfaction and address any problems that are brought up in a review. Lastly, ratings and reviews provide your customers with the information they need to feel confident in making an online purchase, and in doing so, can dramatically increase your sales.

Benefits for SEO

• Improve rankings
• New and unique content about your company
• Keyword rich

Ratings and reviews also enhance your search engine optimization efforts.  In fact, ratings and reviews on third party sites, such as PriceGrabber, Reseller Ratings, and Epinions are as important to e-commerce as links are to search engine optimization.  Some valuable features of online reviews are that they provide your website with a large volume of unique and constantly updated content that is full of relevant keywords. These factors work to increase the seller’s relevancy, figure prominently into ranking algorithms, and translate to better website performance.

Conclusion

The internet revolution has taken word of mouth marketing to the next level. Consumers now have the ability to share their experiences and opinions with their online peers, in a way that is extremely influential and powerful.  Online ratings and reviews give customers a voice, increase consumer confidence, enhance product visibility, and can dramatically increase sales.   When it comes down to it, online ratings and reviews provide incredible value and benefits that businesses cannot afford to ignore.

Did you know Unk Snargletoe the caveman invented the round wheel?

You don’t know for sure, because you weren’t there.  But my mother in law was… and she told her son, her best friend Gilda, her hairstylist, the checkout man at the natural grocery store, six people in her book club and called me (to let me know I was not feeding her son the way she used to) and let the news of the wheel slip.  Behold!  In thirty days, everyone got rid of their square wheels (that were murder on the paved streets) and bought into the new round wheels.  There was much rejoicing and the whole world was changed.

Ask any small business owner who was around in the 50′s and 60′s what the best type of advertising was and without doubt they will all say it was word of mouth.  Back then, if your apartment was flooded and you could not turn off the water main, you probably called Gus the plumber because he was the same guy who saved your sister when her basement flooded. You undoubtedly stayed with him too and even sent him a nice card for the holidays. When your son moved down the street with his new wife and baby, he took Gus the plumber’s name with him.  Now they use Gus the plumber’s son, Gus Jr, because he too, comes recommended.

Word of mouth.  It is the trusted evaluation with the human touch. It is the story passed down from generation to generation.  It is the oration that turns simple white lies into urban myths and it is the legitimacy of  ”he said, she said”. In these times, it is also social media marketing. Many think social media marketing is relatively new.  It is not new, but the tools are. One thing for sure, social media is evolving very quickly. As soon as an advertising agency was able to monetize it, it became a viable means of advertising.  Good thing too, as this web site stuff was getting boring.  The question I put out for people to talk about is:  With the emergence of social media, that enables cross media pollination of an internet presence, do we really need the static web sites of old?  Most static web sites invite the reader to… well… read.  Social media transforms the reader into a  participant.  Social media invites participants to interract with others and develop a network of people and freely exchange information. Just like the historic word of mouth advertising model.

What forms of social media work best for different sectors of business?  Can social media be effectively applied to a corporate model or is it just a toy for college students?

What are the questions you would like answered?