Online business reviews can make or break your business! Sites such as Yelp, Google, Manta, Facebook and more allow clients to give their opinion as if they were sold gold experts.

A recent South Park episode makes fun of Yelp reviewers who close businesses and individually all think their opinion is the most important. Each individual believes the world is counting on them to share their reviews. Even though South Park highly exaggerates this fact, it’s still basically true.

• Negative reviews are inevitable. Your best defense is a good offense by collecting more positive reviews than negative to boost your overall star score.
• The greater discount a client receives = The worse the review

FUN & EASY WAY TO GET MORE POSITIVE REVIEWS: In one of my college marketing classes a while back, we learned from Ford Motor Company as an example. Ford gave a certain number of people free cars if they drove them and wrote reviews. It’s illegal to ask clients for positive reviews but because they got a free car, of course they were more willing to write positive reviews. We can use this model for our benefit as well.

1. Create a drawing for something free. It could be a gift certificate, product, or something totally unrelated to your business. (My chiropractor once raffled off a grill, and some beach toys).
2. Create ways to gain entires into the drawing. For example:
   • 1 ticket per visit or purchase
   • 2 tickets for a checkin on Facebook
   • 5 tickets for an online review
   • 10 tickets for referring a friend
3. Set a time limit. Give 3 or 6 months for clients to get as many entries into the drawing as possible before selecting a winner.
4. Draw a winner, announce and repeat! Nothing makes clients more happy than winning 🙂

This will rapidly increase your positive online reviews!