Small businesses can’t afford to ignore online review sites.  CitySearch, Yelp, InsiderPages, and basic reviews consumers make on Google and Yahoo business pages – they are incredibly important to your online reputation.

IMPORTANT: new customers are reviewing these reviews to make their decision on whether to do business with you or not.  Even if they are staring at your mailer that came in their mailbox, or seeing your fancy custom Facebook Page, they are still going to do their investigative research.  Most of us take the time to do this on books we’re going to by, movies we’re about to shell our $12 for, gadgets we’re eager to consume or hotels we’re looking forward to enjoy.  We are sophisticated consumers who know we have the power of the internet at our fingertips!

If you are a business and you have a negative review, the only way to overcome it is to overpower that one negative review with a dozen GREAT reviews!  Eventually not only will that bad review fall off the front page, but you’ll also see your 1-star rating move up to 4 or 5 stars!

To assist you,

• Randy Vaughn writes, “Managing Your Online Reputation“
• John Jantsch writes, “5 Ways to Get Rockin’ Reviews“

This video below is from John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing – gotta love John’s practical ideas!

If you are interested in taking your business to the next level, follow me over to my other Duct Tape Marketing Coach site and learn about how you can join a Referral Engine Pro Virtual Power Group starting 9/15!

Today is the deadline to get it at a substantially reduced price – but I might even extend it until Friday if you need a day or two to consider it.  But please shoot me an email if you’re even thinking about it so I can hold out the $345 pricetag just for you (the regular price is $495).

Enjoy John’s tips and join our Referral Engine Pro Virtual Power Group to learn even more!  Duct Tape Marketing is all about delivering PRACTICAL tips for your business and organization.

What next? Click on the picture below . . .

Church leadership – pay attention to this!  Love this podcast interview from @evangelismcoach:

The best quote comes at the end of the interview (about 40:30) as to WHY churches should use press releases:

“Churches do many more wonderful things than most people realize. Press releases aren’t just about helping a church increase its attendance or increase its contributions.  When you publicize the wonderful things you are doing for the world, you are helping the church at large – because you’re helping change the image of what it is that Christians do.  Alot of people just don’t know that and we aren’t effective enough at telling.”

Listen in as Richard Hong, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Englewood NJ shares:

• on different types of press releases
• what makes for useless press releases
• how his church distributes press releases
• How they get free professional videos made
• How to effectively position your press release in community newspapers.
• The nuts and bolts of formatting a press release for your church.

Finally, he wraps it up with some specific action steps you can take if you want to develop a press release strategy for your church.

Whether you are a church, nonprofit, or even a small business, you will learn something from that 40-min recording!  (yes, I learned some things, too!)

Here’s a couple of posts we’ve done over the years on how small businesses should use news releases as part of their marketing strategy (note: on one of the articles, I link to Grazr.com which is no longer available).

-Randy

Here’s a replay of a blog post from last year called “What I Learned from Africa about Niche Marketing”

Enjoy!

-Randy

image source: jokeemail.com