Ebook Sample Content Preview:
Perceptions
A big chunk of your client’s reputation is the perceptions they create with their products, service, and brand image. We want to control this perception, and at the start, we do. But as time passes, perceptions change and must be updated and nurtured.
Remember, for the purpose of reputation management, we want to have a consistent mission and message across all our efforts. This is true with your own brand, and plays a role in your marketing, which we’ll get into shortly.
A positive yelp review of a business from 2008 might be helpful, but if the next one is in 2012, and is negative; it will deter those who read the review.
Also, site profiles and ’about us’ pages that aren’t current reflect badly on the brand.
You want your clients to have a boilerplate or summary paragraph that links to their various properties.
Example: Joe's Pizza is based in Chicago, IL and has been serving the windy city with quality wholesome foods since 1954. Join us on Facebook.com (link to profile) and Twitter (link) or visit our blog (link) for the latest news and specials.
The above would also be an acceptable description on industry or association sites that Joe might belong to.
Marketing Reputation Services
Since you are offering RM services to clients, you are now a marketer, congrats! You're also a salesman or woman AND a business professional. As such, you'll be selling yourself to local businesses on the fact that you perform services that;
Increase favorable visibility of the client business
Proactively defeat online negativity by supplying key information
Grow and strengthen the consumer to business relationship
Provide social proof of quality products & services
Remember the list above! You will use this in your sales pitch, and as a response that you state when people ask what you do, and how it helps.
Targeting
You must choose an industry, or set of industries to target with Reputation Management services.
The safe bet is to go with what you know. If you have experience in a particular industry then you'll be suited to know what that audience is looking for in product or service.
Otherwise, you'll have to learn everything there is to know about a business you intend to sell to.
There are a few low-hanging industries that are just too common sense to ignore.
Family Food Service
Nightlife Entertainment
Cleaning Services
Pool Maintenance
Roofing & Gutters
Contractors
As such, these markets may also be heavily leveraged by competitors. Only by talking with prospects will you get a feel for your market.
Just about every client will fall into two categories. Those who generally want to fix the problems behind negative reviews, and those who just want the negative press to go away, never to be found again.
While the latter is not entirely possible, we're mainly interested in those who want to fix problems and do the right thing by their customers.
Still, you will receive pressure by those who will want to bury bad reviews and on some sites you can. With paid SEO, this can usually be accomplished with an abundance of paid links to favorable content & reviews. But it will cost the client an additional monthly budget beyond what it takes you, the marketer, to setup their presence and fix their website.
If they are willing to pay, why not do the work, right?
Truth is, said work is easily outsourced, and relatively inexpensive. We'll worry about delivery a bit later in the course. For now, let’s talk sales...
Message
I’ve delivered the sales message throughout the first half of this course. Did you pick up on it?
We already know what we do, where we do it, and what the results are. To refine our sales pitch, all that remains is to word it properly, and pick a price point.
Let’s summarize what we’re doing for clients and how we’ll present ourselves;
[Your Company] augments and improves the local business' online reputation and presence. We provide cultivation of positive reviews and other services that are essential for growth. You will also use the above as an opening statement.
