With the advent of digital technology, a lot of socialization and businesses have increased their presence in the online world. If you want to eat at a new restaurant, you checked for reviews first, and when the feedback’s good, you proceed with your plan.
Now, if you’re planning to buy a certain product, you’ll also check online if it’s as good as advertised based on the reviews.
Tours, hotels, a tumbler, everything gets to be reviewed online. In this way, people are now using reviews as trusted referral sources. This is the same for choosing a real estate agent. When you don’t know anyone, you gather more information from online reviews.
Online reviews will help almost every advertising strategy you implement. They can heavily influence a consumer’s decision. They are also known as social proof. So great reviews are a necessary component to increasing your business income and market reach.
Ways to make real estate agent reviews work for you:
1. Secure testimonials and online reviews.
First, you must establish a presence and gain more online reviews. To achieve this, ask your past and current customers to provide you with reviews. Be specific and make it easy for them to write a review.
You could incorporate it as part of your closing process after doing business. This way, it’s more convenient. You could also email your pool of clients.
However, not all will provide you with one. When you receive a feedback review, you can choose to write a personal note or offer tokens to customers as a form of gratitude for their time.
2. Develop a presence in real estate listings.
You can create and get review profiles from sites such as Google, Realtor, Yelp, Movoto, Trulia, Zillow, and several others. Establish a business presence and provide more information so potential customers can learn more about your services. This is also where your old and new clients can leave reviews about their experiences with engaging in your business services.
Be active in building your social proof by always providing updates. Short testimonials, long testimonials, in-depth case studies, and client satisfaction ratings are ways to earn your social proof.
3. Ensure you’re providing stellar service.
It’s easier to ask someone to provide a positive review when they are very satisfied with the real estate service you’ve done. Some would even volunteer right away without your reminder.
Otherwise, reviews can be difficult to obtain when your services leave a lot to be desired. So it’s vital that your business is delivering utmost satisfaction and responding superbly to the needs of your target market.
4. Figure out which reviews to highlight.
Naturally, we want to maximize every positive review a client has provided for our business. However, it’s crucial to choose which to utilize and highlight. Avoid using 3-month old reviews since feedback may become irrelevant.
Business services are dynamic and most potential clients skip old reviews and focus on current ones. Ask your customers to leave their full name at the end of the review to build credibility. Initials give an inauthentic air in contrast to real names.
5. Incorporate the positive reviews in your marketing.
Share the reviews on your website by including a testimonial page. Prospective customers can easily locate this feedback when they browse on your website. If you’re distributing printed marketing materials, including positive one-liners or short testimonials on them.
You can also create a slideshow that would flash and display on your website. This can capture attention and easily provide a viewer with positive reviews of your real estate services.
6. Match the specific reviews to the online platforms you’re using.
For Yelp, active users should be providing reviews to avoid blocked feedback. For LinkedIn, include a few customer recommendations in your profile to bolster trust. In Zillow and Trulia, enhance your social proof to make sure you retain your competitiveness and provide your prospects with useful reasons to pick your business over the others.
Realtor.com offers a user-friendly review process, and the site’s popularity guarantees that potential customers will be looking at your social bio.
7. Optimize your reviews.
Even when you have plenty of positive reviews to choose from, you can convert the reviews and testimonials for more visual interest. Transform them into more organized content, build it into videos and infographics. There are limitless ways to be creative and to maximize the feedback provided by your past and current clients.
8. Focus on using reviews that respond to the clients’ needs.
Situations that involve resolving common real estate issues and problems work well as a testimonial. If it’s specific and detailed, it builds more credibility. Rather than picking flattering reviews that appear as self-directed praises, it’s better to choose those that address a need and offer practical solutions.
It provides a glimpse to potential customers how your company confronts a real estate dilemma, resolve it, provides real estate service efficiently, and performs as a business.
9. Be goal-oriented and consistent.
Setting goals will maximize your positive company service reviews. It’s not enough to do this one time. It must be done consistently. Continually growing your social proof through online reviews must be part of your business marketing. Otherwise, your competitors can leave you in the dust when it comes to making their reviews work better for them.
Remember, people evaluate businesses in terms of ranking. This is one of the main reasons for you to prioritize online site reviews especially if you’re a newcomer or you have a low presence on the web.
Bottom Line
As a real estate agent, you want to take advantage of every marketing tool out there. Peer recommendations using reviews and testimonials have a larger clout than most people believe. If you’re serious about using this as a marketing edge over your competition then don’t miss to include them on your websites, review sites, and online site reviews.
