How Online Reputation Management can help your brand?

While brand reputation is something which can be made over a period of time, the maintenance is what is actually challenging. If you dedicate certain time for improving or maintaining your brand reputation, then you can start seeing quantifiable results which will drastically improve your business. In this digital age, we are all aware that a good online reputation is crucial. Imagine, what is the first thing you do when you look for a restaurant? You go to Zomato and check for the reviews. Similarly, for travel, you log on to TripAdvisor. Basically, a positive presence on digital platforms is crucial for sales and growth. Here are some more benefits stating why all the brands should consider online reputation management for better business growth: 

A higher level of trust

Brands with a good online reputation are logically trusted a lot more than ones that don’t have a good say in the market. Depending on customer reviews, a lot more people would jump on the bandwagon as compared to a brand that people are criticizing. If you have a lot of negative reviews backing you, then you are going to have a tough time with your sales. It is seen that nearly 83% of people go for brand recommendations made by friends. Additionally, 70% of people trust opinions over paid advertisements.

Increment in profits

Associated with the point mentioned before, better customer reviews are surely going to help increase profits for your business. At this moment, when social media hatred can really harm you, you need to be even more careful about your online reputation management. For instance, even an additional one-star Yelp rate star can cause the business to grow at 9%. This study was done by Harvard Business School. In a nutshell, the online reputation can basically translate into an extra income for the business. Must Read: 6 Tips to Build Great Customer Loyalty With Digital Marketing.

Attracts better employees towards you

One really crucial benefit of online reputation management is to get better hires. A better quality of employees and better potential of talent can prove to be really beneficial for the company. When you have a good online presence, you are sure to get more hires and better people applying for your job. For example, the review of your company really matters on glassdoor. A lot of talented millennials check what is the reputation of your company. This helps them make a well-informed choice.

Reduces the risk of lower reputation

Companies that have a negative online reputation go downhill. Basically, there is a lesser chance of salvaging it and it tends to keep getting worse. This can be because of the systemic problems which are in the company. This basically works on the principle of the broken window theory. The theory states that more and more broken windows in a warehouse would simply end up attracting more vandals. Hence, before it becomes worse, you can save the reputation.

A direct impact on sales and revenue

There is no denying that companies which work on continual measures of sales and revenue have a great impact on the products if their ORM is in place. Now, for example, in this world where we buy things mainly on E-commerce websites- checking out the reviews is very important. We tend to trust products that have more customer reviews, especially positive ones. Most products and sales have so much competition in the digital space, that we cannot deny the fact that we need to keep our ace sales game on. 

Helps in making a stellar first impression for first-time prospects

Any potential investor would ideally want to go for a client that is completely clean records. The very first step of the vetting process involves running a search online. As a client looking for potential business, one thing that can hurt your business is having a negative result pop up in the first few searches. With proper online reputation management, you can avoid these results and ensure that your first time prospects get an impression that you have been wanting to make on them. 

Higher potential for conversion of cold visitors

When you have good online reputation management intact, then you would be grasping the attention of cold visitors too. People who are exploring your website would not be dissuaded by the presence of negative comments. Word spreads really fast in the digital space. Hence, it is recommended that you maintain a good reputation for strengthening your consumer base. Convert your cold visitors into active ones and get a good result in terms of sales and growth. Monitor your brand mentions to know what’s going on. You can take the help of a tool or brand mention services for that. And then replied to those negative as well as positive comments.

Additional benefits to consider 

Apart from the aforementioned ones, some secondary benefits of online reputation management include:

• Since digital presence has become so easy, a lot of your competitors would be here trying to get the same customers on board. While it may be considered unethical, but a lot of people believe that everything is fair in business. Hence, they may try to spread negative reviews about their competitors. With a strong ORM strategy, you can easily combat negative propaganda by these competitors. 
• A good ORM strategy can also help you in highlighting the important points of your business model. When a lot of attention goes in combating negative reputation, then you end up taking time off the entire profit-making areas. Hence, when you have a proper ORM, you would definitely be able to concentrate on positive areas a lot more. 
• It can also help one in earning free media coverage and then get an edge over the competition. This is a win-win situation for most companies. If you have a strong ORM, you would be able to grasp the attention of blogs, articles, print media for covering you. People would always cover successful ventures as compared to the ones with the risk associated. Hence, it is ideal to get a proper ORM agency on board. 

 

In a nutshell

We need to remember that a strong ORM strategy can take you a long way. It is beneficial not only for a healthy digital presence but for maintaining long term clients as well. In fact, a lot of companies avoid being associated with entities that have a negative image. Hence, in some cases, you may end up losing your present clientele as well. All of the aforementioned benefits of adopting online reputation are sure to entice you to go for a trusted brand that does the same. Many ORM companies have a repository of clientele that has often gotten into a pickle due to the intricacies of the digital world. The experts recommend, that a good online reputation management strategy is sure to help you in many ways!