It’s a no-brainer that reviews earn us more business. People relate to them. As a matter of fact, Robert Cialdini, PhD refers to them as one of his 6 principles of influence: Social Proof.
What’s not a no-brainer is how to motivate people to leave reviews for your business.
On top of that, what’s the best platform for them to leave reviews?
For certain, one of the top platforms is Google. While Google isn’t the most trustworthy on what they’ll do with them, they do have widespread and lasting impact there.
Where exactly? On your Google My Business account, which is what displays your business on Google Maps.
Optimize Your Google My Business Account
First you must ensure your Google My Business account is setup and accurate. Here’s a handy page on how to optimize your Google My Business account.
Generate a Google Review Link
Second you’ll gather a link that points the reviewer directly to your account and loads the “leave a review” window. They’ll have to be signed in to Google, which is a pain, but less so than just a few months ago when they required them to have a Google+ account (that hardly anyone used).
You can get that by combining two very useful tools:
The first will generate a long URL, that looks something like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=farrell+rescue+34668#lrd=0x88c2907ab4be0191:0xa3135c2d1b9cdbb3,3,
The second shortens the link to something much easier to share, like this: http://bit.ly/reviewfarrellrescue
Email Review Requests
Third, you gather some email addresses from recent satisfied clients, and send them a motivating request to review your business. Here’s an example:
Bonus
If you have a mail service such as MailChimp or Constant Contact, you can measure the open rate of this campaign to test your message subject and copy to see what works for your clientele. Bit.ly also includes some metrics to see how often the shortened URL is clicked.