By Matt Doyle, the VP and co-founder of excel buildersa truly unique custom home builder, creating homes that make every day easier.
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Reputation marketing is the art of leveraging the attention you generate by having a strong brand. Any business can benefit from a good reputation, but businesses with small service areas can live or die based on theirs.
Reputation has always been important to my business as we plan and build custom homes in a limited area of the Northeastern US. Because of the cost of custom homes, our potential clients will often read reviews, reach out to friends, and follow up on references.
They expect to see evidence that our company is honest with customers and honors our commitments. We develop that proof partly through reputation marketing.
Ideally, search engines would promote this information independently, but they often don’t. You have to take some responsibility to ensure that your reputation is not only good, but also visible. Here are some steps you can take to build and promote your reputation in a local area.
Focus on customer service and work to generate reviews
Public reviews are some of the most visible signs of your reputation. Thanks to the way Google processes local results, almost anyone who googles your business name will likely see lists of reviews from a variety of sources.
Providing excellent customer service is key to earning good reviews, but good customer service alone will not necessarily encourage customers to write reviews. If you want to see your hard work in reviews more often, encourage them.
My team has successfully driven customer reviews through:
• Offering small special incentives.
• Refer to reviews in a section of our invoices.
• Follow up on a successful assignment with a thank you note that reviews references.
The goal of all these actions is to apply as light a touch as possible. Still, it is necessary to do something if you want to build a reputation. The next step is to build your profile by advertising where your customers are.
Apply your regional knowledge to your marketing
The way you reach your customers plays a huge role in whether they see your business as a “local” institution or just another vaguely national brand.
The key is to target your ads to areas that are not just national platforms (such as Facebook or Google Ads) but areas that locals love.
For example, you can place ads in local minor league stadiums or local newspapers. These ads are usually inexpensive, but they can signal to some of your target customers that you are involved in the community.
It’s hard to give more examples because the best are often unique to your region. Research your local institutions and the opportunities (such as billboards, page space, and live lectures) that exist there to make your mark.
Be active in the important causes of the community
Contributing to charities is a great way for any business to make an impact. It is so much more important for companies that want to make an impression in their environment.
Focus on the main causes of the community, because that’s usually where you can make the biggest impact. You and willing employees can collect donations, clean up local parks, or think of hundreds of other ways.
Build a reputation locally
By following these steps, you can begin the long process of building a reputation. This will always be important for businesses like mine where costs are high and trust is a big factor. However, businesses of all sizes can benefit from thinking about reputation.
Working hard over the years for reviews, advertising locally and being active for important causes can bring your business to the forefront of people’s attention. From there, collect leads you didn’t even know existed.
