Cancel all your marketing spend until you are scoring 4.5 on Google

We see it all the time - an advertisement, followed by a damaging Google score (and the attendant reviews).

Let's look at the simple route the consumer takes these days...

1. Sees the advertisement for product or service
2. Looks up business on phone (over 80%)

So let's take a couple of real-world examples. Here are estate agents Marsh & Parsons spending considerable sums advertising on London underground (rates start well into the £tens of thousands for campaigns such as these)...

And here's what they look like when you search online...

Here is Irwin Mitchell, a national firm of solicitors, advertising on Instagram...

Instagram ads are difficult to price (because of their bidding system) but AdEspresso’s 2016 analysis on tens of thousands of Facebook ads showed that Instagram is often the most expensive ad placement. here they are on Google...

Containing reviews such as these...

And Specsavers - in today's Times?

About £13,000 - and their score...

Leading to these...

The first point we must stress here is that this article is in no way intended as criticism of these businesses. We should also state that we have no reason to believe that the individual reviews and reviewers are anything but genuine.

So what point are we making?

Reviews - both scores and the individual negative reviews themselves - do influence consumers. This is backed up by a mountain of evidence from both sides of the Atlantic. Businesses that score 4.5 or more on Google get more calls an clicks and they pass the crucial Google filter every time.

What has happened with each of the three businesses above is that their unhappy customers have found a way - almost certainly unwittingly - to punch well above their weight, and, in doing so, drag the impression created of these businesses in any given Google search towards the negative end of the spectrum.

What do all three of these businesses - and so many others - need to do?

Two things: they need to mobilise the voices of the silent majority of their happy customers by getting them to post reviews, then they need to find a CMA compliant way of moderating those reviews pre-publication to ensure that the absolute minimum of factually inaccurate or potentially misleading reviews are published.

Then they will be doing themselves and their potential customers a power of good. They will be looking great and their potential customers will have the confidence to do business with them.

A challenge from HelpHound...

You know your own business's ROI on every advertising pound you spend; join HelpHound and get your review management onto a professional footing and then check your ROI again. No improvement? Goodbye HelpHound.