Building Your Online Reputation, by Po Yung, Marketing Consultant at Coo Communications
Despite the snow in February, over 40 attendees ventured out to the Jam Factory to hear Aisha Kellaway from Scarletroo Digital Consultancy impart her knowledge on building your own online reputation, for the latest MarketingCamp event.
The event, sponsored by Allen Associates among others, provided MarketingCampers with an insight into the most cost-effective ways to improve online credibility for their brand.
Here are my key takeaways for making sure this is a success:
1. Aisha pointed out that often organisations jump into the more advanced steps of improving their online reputation. Too often companies miss out the fundamentals like checking for bad grammar, using the wrong punctuation and obvious typos. These issues corrode a positive online image.
2. The basics of market segmentation should apply to your website. Design the website with your ideal customer for each segment in mind. What information do they need? Consider if your organisation's mission is being communicated well. Is it clear? Is your passion conveyed effectively?
3. There are four main areas of credibility: your brand, social proof, online user experience and, finally, the actual service people receive.
4. Trust signals are essential in securing the interest of potential customers for marketers and business owners. People need to trust you before you have a chance to sell to them because their time is precious. Your online presence is often the first-time people interact with your brand and that impression will be lasting for many.
5. After you have built a solid online reputation, good customer experience should underpin the whole service. Be consistent and ensure each interaction is a good one. The first thing to do is to get the basics right. Then critically review the four areas of credibility to build a strong online reputation.
6. Social proof, evidence that others endorse your service in the form of customer testimonials, and reviews are great third-party recognition of your product / service. People like to know that others like the product / service before committing.