Ever had that feeling? Sales were coming along pretty good, but then everything just sort of stopped, or worse, started dropping? It kind of feels like all the energy has gone out of your business, like you could use a little help to jump start it back to life.
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Yelp! I Need Somebody
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Yelp may be just the thing to give your sagging business a boost. It’s an online review site that specializes in local information. They advertise themselves as a, “City guide made up of real reviews from real people”. In market-eze, that means lots of free word of mouth advertising. By lots, I mean 13 million in the month of August, 2008 alone. Sounds great so far, right? Well, it gets even better.
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The Yelp credo is to make the consumer’s experience as fun and engaging as possible. People like to use their site. It’s local search engine meets social networking, with messaging, subscribing to favorite reviewers, inviting friends and of course, reading and sharing their experiences regarding local merchants. There’s a lot of energy on their site, and a ton of potential customers from your local vicinity. Also, people place a lot of trust in the reviews that are on there.
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Whether a review is good or bad, it cannot be removed, or even moved to the bottom of the page. Not all reviews submitted get posted, though. If they are coming from a competitor trying to bad mouth you, or are obviously written by the business owner to promote his own product, then the posting will not be made public. However, honest opinions and experiences from real consumers get published no matter what, unless they are obscene.
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Yelp does caution business owner not to get too distraught if they receive a less than favorable review or two. We all know that there are some people that nobody can make happy. You should watch for repeated patterns when reading the comments of disgruntled customers, however. If the same complaint is made each time, it should send you a signal that there’s something you may need to change or improve. View it as constructive feedback.
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It would seem that the whole Yelp experience is positive for both customers and the local businesses that they’re looking for. To assist you with inviting your clientele to participate in leaving you a review, you can put a Yelp badge on your own website. The badges are customized and free.
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You can also enhance your Yelp business page with a photo slideshow, announcements that you want to let the public know about, and a feature of your favorite review. What’s more, (and perhaps the most fun of all!) you can advertise on your competitor’s page if you purchase ads and become a sponsored search result. Did that perk you up a little?
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So, now you have a plan of attack for your slumping sales. Enjoy the experience along with the benefits of rising sales.
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