Have You Ever Had An Online Customer Review Flagged Or Removed?

If your business is actively generating customer reviews, then you've probably come across an issue with a review site flagging or removing one or maybe a few of your customer reviews.  Most of the time 3rd Party Review Sites will not give you the specific reason why they decided not to flag or not approve a review.  Based on our experience working with these review sites, we have put together a quick checklist to help you avoid any issues in the future.  This checklist is useful for a number of review sites; such as Angie's List, Yelp, Google+, YP.com, HomeFinder, Merchant Circle, and more.

Checklist For Customer Review Submissions

1. Ask customers to submit reviews on their own computer, tablet, or smartphone.
2. Request reviews right after a job is completed, instead of asking for a bunch of reviews at a later date.
3. Ask customers to be detailed and completely honest.  What this means is you want to avoid generating a bunch of generic looking reviews like "Great Service A+!".  Generic looking reviews are more likely to get flagged by a review filter.
4. Do not ask for more than a few reviews per week.  Generating too many reviews at once can raise red flags as well.
5. Avoid having friends and family leave reviews if possible, even if they are a customer of yours.  3rd Party Review sites check IP Address's and can sometimes check email communication. 
6. Ask for reviews on multiple sites.  Overloading one company profile with reviews can raise red flags, try to balance it out.  For example, ask 3 customers to leave a review on Angie's List, then ask the next few to leave a review on Google+ or Yelp.
7. If possible, let your customer know not to copy and paste the same review to multiple sites.  Duplicate content is never a good thing.
8. Last but not least, NEVER SELF REVIEW ON ANY SITE.  This can result in account suspension and even possible account blocking.

Follow this checklist and you shouldn't have any issues with review filters in the future.  

Another great tip for collecting customer reviews is using Review Forms.  Leaving paper review forms behind for your customers will help you consistently generate new reviews for your company profile.  Here is a paper review form example.  

What's Your Content Marketing Plan In 2014? You Need One To Stay Competitive!

Quality website and blogging content is more important than ever in 2014.  In order to rank high organically on Google, you must continue to write original and valuable web content on your website, blog, and social media pages.

To help you see the value of Content Marketing and how it influences consumers purchasing decisions, read threw this interesting InfoGraphic.  A lot of great marketing information on this creative page!  Feel free to email us with any questions.

           design by fatjoe.co.uk

Exhibiting At Your Next Local Home Show?

For years exhibiting at home shows has been a excellent marketing strategy for Contractors.  It's a great way for contractors to generate high quality leads and it's a way for home owners to meet contractors and see product samples in person.

Are Home Shows as effective for Contractors now as they have been in the past?  Absolutely, but a lot has changed in recent years.  It's important to stay current with trade show trends and the latest exhibitor marketing strategies.  

Here are some important things to consider before your next trade show

1.  How up to date is your trade show booth?  It's important to not only have a professional/clean looking trade show display, but you should also try to include multimedia.  Show attendee's like to watch product and presentation video's.  Another effective multimedia solution are iPads/tablets.  iPads are a perfect way to interact with your potential customers and it's a quick way to input their contact contact information.

2.  Purchase a booth space that's effective for your trade show goals.  If you are just bringing a small product sample and some handouts, then a simple 10x10 inline booth space will work just fine.  If you are planning on bringing a large amount of product, then you should consider a 20x20 island booth space.  An island booth will allow you to create an inviting layout with your products and trade show display.  Plus, it allows 4 point's of entry, giving you a huge advantage over your competition that's exhibiting in an inline booth space. 

Here is a great Infographic we found on www.indydisplays.com that goes into more detail about trade show marketing.  I've also included some great looking trade show displays I found online that will help give you some ideas if you're in the market for a new trade show booth.

             via indy displays

Trade Show Display Ideas For Contractors 

Simple set of banner stands that creates a 10ft backwall

20ft multimedia Contractor trade show display

8ft x 8ft 3D Xpressions Display used by a roofing company

Island Display with custom backlit graphic panels

How Important Is Online Marketing For Contractors?

Companies that understand how important a strong online presence is are probably getting much further ahead of their competition than they know.  This interesting Infographic should tell you just how important online marketing can be.  Take a few minutes to review how Social Media, Blogging, SEO, Email Marketing, and Website Content are generating an enormous amount of business for Contractor's that are properly utilizing these tools.

via shebangdesign.com

Roofer Marketing Tip Of The Day by Service Provider Marketing

Set Up a Google+ Page, It's FREE

Over the weekend take the time to set up a Google+ profile, it's free and highly effective.  There are probably many of you that already have taken advantage of this, but if you haven't, do it!  Google is localizing search results to make Yellow Page's completely irrelevant.  Google+ profiles are getting first page placement and it is paying off for the companies that are listed.  Here is an example:

These roofing companies are getting first page listing from simply setting up a Google+ profile page.  After your page is set up, share it on your website, facebook, and twitter account.  Also, keep fresh content on this page with whatever information you think customers would find interesting.  Click on this link to get started.  

If you would like assistance or would like us to setup your google plus profile and add some seo and branding, please email us at spsolutions2014@gmail.com or call 317-660-1470.

What is SP Marketing? Honest Online Marketing Solutions For Contractors

Being a contractor, or any type of small business owner, it's difficult to be successful with your marketing and advertising.  In the past, you simply paid for a large advertisement in Yellow Pages or ran some ads in the local paper to generate leads.  Those days have long passed!  Now, successful marketing starts online, not on paper.

A business owner in today's world is faced with trying to understand online marketing/advertising in order to stay relevant and ahead of the competition.  Every day you are hit with sales calls from online marketing companies claiming they can get you to the first page of search results (Google, Bing, Yahoo), but can they really?  In addition, you are hit with harassing phone calls to advertise on third party review sites, like Angie's List and Home Finder, claiming they have a large database of members just waiting to give you their business.  At the end of the day, most of these online marketing companies and sales reps from third party reviews sites are simply blowing smoke up your you-know-what to close a sale.  Does online marketing and third party review site advertising work?  Of course it does, if developed and managed properly.  If not, it's just a waste of your hard-earned marketing dollars.

So how is SP Marketing any different than the other online marketing companies that just called you today?  Here's how:

1. Experience: Our team members have experience running their own small businesses and successfully marketing them online (we went through the same headaches and made the same mistakes new business owners make when jumping into this business; but we learned from it!  Nobody becomes a successful online marketer without trail and error.

2. Unrivaled Insight: Our unique team has years of experience working with contractors directly on third party review sites (Angie's List, Home Finder), including their paid advertising on these online forums.  That's right, we have experience form working for these online giants and know how to maximize a contractors return on their advertising investment.  Try to find one other online marketing company in the country that offers as much insight as we do on this topic!

3. High-Quality Content: Our marketing team includes professional editors and content writers.  Today getting high rankings on Google and other search engines is all about website content quality, meaning how unique and rich it is.  The old days of just submitting directory business listings, article and press releases are over; we call that old hat SEO.  Are these tactics still beneficial? Yes, but that alone will not get your website page one organic listings.  

4. Google Know-How: We develop effective pay-per-click (Google AdWords) campaigns.  Google is like any other for profit business.  They would much prefer you pay them for online placement than pay an SEO team for organic placement.  Even though organic placement is still more valuable than paid listings, effective pay-per-click can generate an unlimited amount of leads if managed properly.  Simply put, it does pay to be listed on Google.

5. Local SEO: We perfect local search placement.  Forget Yellow Pages, more than 80% of consumers use the internet to to find products and services.  There are simple yet highly effective methods to achieve local online visibility and we have perfected these methods.

5. Custom Websites: Last but not least we build effective SEO friendly websites built around the Contractor Industry.  You can google any contracting keyword ( roofing contractors, plumbers, HVAC companies) and find that the majority of the websites that pull up in the search results have poor out of date designs, poor optimization, and poor content.  Online marketing starts with an effective, properly build website and the SP Marketing design team are experts a developing websites that convert into leads.

Contact us for more information spsolutions2014@gmail.com