This morning, a hotel client asked me how to motivate positive customer reviews on popular ratings and review site, Yelp.

One of the ideas she threw out was to offer a gift certificate to those who commented positively. Another was to hold some sort of contest for a free gift card. These are common responses that take one thing for granted: Genuine praise cannot be bought or sold. But it can be reciprocated and appreciated.

Here’s how that breaks down along with some specific ideas for motivating your own customer reviews on ratings and review sites like Yelp, Urban Spoon, etc.

Why Public Gift Card Offers Will Fail

It just smells bad. Think about it. For example, what if a hotel offered its Facebook fans a gift certificate for their positive review on Yelp? No matter how large or small, it’s still a pay to play situation.

First off, it takes away all chance of an authentic review because the review has been “bought.” Making a simple positive review is pretty low risk, and since humans have a tendency to say almost anything for money or perceived value, they might just patronize your business for their own benefit.

Worse than that, however, is that for all of those who saw your offer – which extends to the networks of your fans and friends, you’ve just devalued, even broken the trust of the ratings site for which you were seeking to motivate reviews. If I know outrightthat the reviews on a site are “bought,” then I’m can no longer trust that site, and it ruins it for the rest of the businesses and users. Now, I understand that your intent as a business owner may be completely pure. And in the old world (pre-social media and relationships marketing), such a tactic was widely accepted. But in today’s world, customers and prospects alike have little trust – and are looking for a reason NOT to trust you as a business. Tactics like these give them just such an excuse.

Bottom line: Reject tactics that offer “payola” in return for customer recommendations or high ratings in any form on any site.

All you have to do is ASK.

First things first: Make sure you’ve set up your page, completed your profile with all vital information, photos, etc. on the ratings/review site in question (This allows you to communicate more directly with your reviewers and gives you some analytics and other information. Your business is most likely present on these sites – you just may not be informed or able to access the data directly.) Here’s what you do next:

1. Get the link to the exact place where one would go to comment or give recommendation about your business.
2. Post the “ask” on your Facebook Page wall. It might look something like this: “If you’ve ever stayed at our property and LOVED it, you can tell others about it by posting a recommendation or testimonial at Yelp.” Share the link and post. If appropriate, write a blog post or “note” on Facebook explaining the importance of such recommendations to your business – from a customer perspective.
3. Tweet out the request with a shortened link to the recommendation page
4. Post a graphic on your web site asking for recommendations from past customers and pointing prospective customers to this site for unbiased feedback.
5. Ask for feedback as a part of a routine e-mail newsletter. Maybe re-use the graphic you put on your web site.
6. Institute a system that e-mails customers within 24 hours of departure asking them for a recommendation while the adrenaline of the experience is still flowing. These will be your best and most vivid comments.

All of these efforts make your customers AWARE of your endorsement and desire for them to participate in specific ratings/review sites, and it encourages them to be human – to share their positive experience with others.

As an alternative to the public campaign, you can ask your best customers for their testimonials. If you’ve been in business for more than a week, you should have at least a handful of loyal, dedicated, outgoing customers. For most of our clients, this list of folks comes immediately to mind. If I ask you to name ten folks who are your “ideal” customer – few business owners hesitate before naming these customers. In this case, call these customers up, send them a private e-mail or Facebook message or Twitter direct message (DM) and just flat out ASK for the testimonial. Send them the link to appropriate page of the ratings/review service. Make it easy for them. Whatever you do, make it a private communication.

Be a Giver. And Always Reciprocate.

Instead of making public offers of reward, I recommend changing your perspective. No matter what the technology platform or off-line situation, a thankful attitude and giving spirit are always in style – and always appreciated – because it’s never done enough.

While potentially controversial among social media purists, this is business after all, and here are two possible alternatives to public purchase of ratings:

1. Say thank you.

When you say “thank you” publicly, you are showing gratitude, taking the spotlight off of you and putting it where it belongs (on your customer) and creating an atmosphere of appreciation and trust among your customers and prospective customers.

Say thank you on the platform, if allowed. Most ratings and review sites have some means by which the business can show appreciation for reviews. Regardless of the tone of the comment, you can learn from it. Be thankful for that insight – and voice it. Future visitors to your business’ profile will see gratitude and a willingness to listen to customers as part of your business DNA. This leads to trust and sales.

Say thank you across platforms. For instance, if someone recommends you on Urban Spoon, but you are already connected to that person on Facebook or Twitter – be sure to publicly thank them on the other platform. Something like this posted on their wall or tweeted at them will do: “Jenny, thanks so much for recommending our restaurant on Yelp! You have no idea how much we appreciate your loyalty.” This will likely lead to an exchange where all of Jenny’s friends and your connections see this and are also motivated to either try out your business OR make a recommendation based on their own experience there.

2. Be a giver.

Random acts of kindness never go out of style. You have a currency that you can spend in your business. If you’re a restaurant, you can give gift certificates or certain food/drink products at very low dollar value – but with great perceived value to your customer. If you’re a hotel, you can give room nights, meals, drinks, value-added experience like free spa treatments or valet parking. Whatever your currency, you can and should spend it to build loyalty through random acts of kindness.

There are many applications for this practice, but today we’re going to focus on how it applies to appreciation for recommendations given. Specifically in this case, I personally believe that you should not give publicly. Use the messaging feature on Facebook, the DM on Twitter or an e-mail to thank the customer and make them aware of your gift. Let THEM do the telling. This is much more authentic and valuable. Once they tell, you can re-tweet, reply to their wall post, etc. thanking them again publicly for their loyalty. Do not in any way tie the gratitude to the specific action of the recommendation in the public forum. May that recommendation simply be a signal to you as a business owner that you have a customer who is sincerely and overwhelmingly loyal – to the point of sharing your business with others. These are the types of customers you want to build relationships with for the long-term. Showing your sincere gratitude to them as part of an ongoing relationship is a great step to this end.

3. Whenever possible, reciprocate.

Do you have customers who are business owners themselves? Whenever possible, look for your customers and their related businesses on-line. Do business with your customers whenever feasible. And if you have a good experience – say so. Go to their profiles on Yelp, Urban Spoon an the like – and leave positive recommendations. Become a fan of THEIR Facebook Pages and leave praise for their business. Comment on their blogs. Don’t ask for anything in return. Be habitual about this. Just build social capital for you and your business – it will pay sooner AND later.

See related article: Leverage for Success

To paraphrase Mark Twain, “The rumor of [e-mail marketing's] death has been greatly exaggerated.” E-mail marketing is NOT dead.

Consider your toolbox. You know, the old fashioned handyman tools that you keep around in case a picture needs to be hung or the sink clogs or a drawer knob gets loose. The hammer, the screwdriver, the wrench. Tools. Tools that work, right?

Then, let’s assume that you somehow acquire a fancy new cordless drill. The drill is useful, and it produces tremendous results. But sometimes…don’t you find yourself just needing a good old fashioned flat-head screw driver?

So, sure, there are some fancy new tools that are useful and produce amazing results. Tools like Facebook and Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, ratings and review sites of all sorts. But sometimes, don’t you just need to communicate with your customers? Don’t you want to just know what they think or let them know what’s up with you? It’s like getting that weekly phone call from your sister in Boise… it’s that consistent, reliable tool that keeps you connected.

That’s e-mail for you. E-mail provides the following primary benefits for your restaurant, hotel, or downtown district – or for anyone else who wants to be a savvy business owner:

1. There is no gatekeeper with e-mail. Back in “the day” of traditional media and cold calls, the gatekeeper screened calls, sorted the mail, etc. In today’s world, all of this is true PLUS I know plenty of executives who don’t check their own Facebook 100% of the time. But most still check their e-mail in some form or fashion. This rang true to me last week when we were visiting with a hotel executive whose staff checks her personal Facebook a lot of the time – but she gets her e-mail directly.

2. E-mail is convenient.You can setup an e-mail campaign whenever you want – then set it to send at the time of your choosing. Once sent, your reader can choose to read the e-mail at his/her convenience, respond at his/her convenience, etc. Therefore, while e-mail is still deemed an “interruption” style of marketing because it is “pushed” into your Inbox – it is not nearly as disruptive as other traditional media because readers have opted into your list, may read at their convenience and always have the option to quit receiving your e-mails by opting OUT of your list.

3. E-mail has viral potential. Because having readers is a privilege, you should always respect their time and work very hard to create content that is in every way appealing, informative, captivating and motivating for your readers. But more than that, e-mail has one potential that direct mail never had. I never got a direct mail postcard from the mailbox with such glee and excitement that I ran to the quick copy shop, made 30 copies and mailed them to my best girlfriends. It just doesn’t happen. But e-mail is often shared via the forwarding button.

4. E-mail is measureable. Measurement is at its best in the e-mail marketing world. You can learn a LOT about your readers through the tools available in a good e-mail marketing system. Open rates, click rates, what clicks were most popular, open times, dates, who, what, when, where, why, how… The details are all there to be applied to your marketing goals for future improvement. I love that e-mail marketing allows us to market well now – and teaches us how to market better in the future.

5. E-mail can be targeted and/or triggered. Basically, because I clicked on the ad for the red ballet flats in last night’s Boden USA e-mail campaign, I gave them the right to e-mail me about ballet flats for the next couple of weeks – or until inventory runs dry.  Because I clicked on the link to the Art Opening next Tuesday, I gave them permission to remind me via e-mail until the event is past. That’s a TRIGGER. I was moved into a subset of customers who cared about ballet flats and an art opening which triggered ongoing communication to me about those things while the current offers were relevant. And in the future, because I showed a past interest, I should be the TARGET of special promotional messages about similar offers and events…

6. E-mail is very affordable. Compared to the time and expense of direct mail, traditional media – and the total lack of measureable return on investment, the penny per e-mail cost of e-mail marketing is a phenomenal marketing wonder.

7. With e-mail, the sender has control. I am a total advocate of the social web, and I really do believe that if you are one of those people with control issues that is still in denial about social media…you need to GET OVER IT. You lost control a long time ago. The only thing left for you to do is to DEAL WITH REALITY. Period. However, sometimes, its fun to have a little control for just a little while. C’mon, you know you want to. E-mail is the perfect solution for the recovering control freak in all of us. E-mail marketing plays well with the other New Media like web sites and with the social web, but you can control the message, the subject line, the graphics, the time/date of the send, and how your respond, segment, trigger and target. You can do a LOT or do a little with your e-mail marketing: it’s your campaign. Control it.

Aside from those primary benefits, I believe that e-mail provides a secondary opportunity not available anywhere else.

E-mail allows you to TEST all sorts of ideas to an already loyal and willing customer and/or prospect group. A good e-mail marketing program will allow you to perform “split testing” on e-mail campaigns. A split test allows you to send any combination of headline and content (multiple headlines and/or multiple types of content or content layouts) to your customers. For instance, the program we use allows me to conduct SET (you choose who gets which message) or RANDOM (the program randomly sends the messages) split testing. This matters because if I test three different subject lines for the same basic information/e-mail content, I can test which SUBJECT LINE got the greatest OPEN RATE (that is, rate at which e-mail recipients actually opened the e-mail). Then, I can use that favored subject line as a headline on store signage, traditional media, social media postings, etc. and expect a similar response. You can do the same for content and layouts to learn what types of e-mail layouts or what type of content is most interesting to your customers. Basically, you are surveying your customers and they don’t even know it!

Why do YOU use e-mail marketing? What success stories do you have to tell?

Photo Credit: Djenen

Doing some research on a new project, I noticed a trend. Some of the places that spend MILLIONS on TV, Radio and Print are totally off radar when it comes to social media. Oh, their names are out there, but it’s a one way conversation, from the angry customer. You see, happy customers don’t go home and blog two pages about how much they loved it when they bank got their deposit amount right. Or when the bank made a banking error in their favor. But you get on the bad side of a customer, you’ll hear about it in social media.

So why are they scared to be on Social Media? Facebook doesn’t seem that scary to me. Twitter doesn’t seem too daunting for a bank with a small marketing budget, but for a bank with millions in the game, they aren’t anywhere to be found. I think I know why. It’s the customer retention number, and it’s about to catch up with them.

“It’s too risky,” they say. “We can’t control it. How can we control it? It’s too much of an unknown.” I’m here to tell you – you’ve already lost control. And the unknown happens because of the “head in the sand” syndrome from which you suffer. (Hint: there’s a little thing called “social media monitoring” – every business should be doing it!)

Last year, I began banking with a large regional bank. Their marketing was everywhere, and their branches were too. Their branding and web site was fantastic (imagine, that, I liked the branding and web site?) I loved my small town bank with the friendly faces, but my travel and other limitations made us part ways. Boy, do I miss them.

So, I tried this large regional bank, and the first two weeks were great. (No, I’m not going to name them and harass them, that’s not what this post is about – we’re about solutions, not tearing folks down.) The girl who opened my account gave me her direct number, and things were fab. Then I realized that that dress she was wearing that day wasn’t just a little loose, it was maternity. (No offense, but maternity leave caused a lapse in our relationship – I get it, but I was still devastated.) I went from being happy and having a banker, to being a number.  I tried to find other branches, with good people with whom I could connect and trust, but it didn’t happen.

Finally, I started shutting down accounts. It was too much trouble to deal with the little things that they could have fixed in 30 seconds (but didn’t) mounted up. I was ready to leave. I went to complain to the manager about another “fee” that I was charged, basically an error in their system. I got told “there’s nothing I can do about it.” Well of course I wanted to go up the ladder and find someone who could help, but when that wasn’t an option, I walked out frustrated. And since then I’ve told everyone about my horrible experience banking with them. I’ve had literally almost everyone agree with me, and yep, I’ve cost that bank a LOT of money.

It’s funny that banks especially will spend so much on an ad campaign to get new customers, when making a couple customers a day happy could actually create more of a buzz, than a grocery bag, that’s “green.” You made me mad, I told everyone on facebook that I hated your service (850 people), and I tweeted about you (400 people) and I got retweeted (1500 more people), plus I’m writing a blog that will be here forever.  Don’t you think a little, “let me take care of that for your sir” would have gone a long way. Yep.

So why aren’t the big boys all using Social Media to communicate with customers and provide customer service? Could it be that they know there are LOTS of people angry with them. That giving those folks a clean shot at communicating directly with the brand is not gonna look pretty for the PR department?

But what if… what if? What if they opened a dialogue and fixed a few customers’ problems…and engaged…were real by admitting that they’d made a mistake or two. Maybe they could LISTEN and learn about what customers want and understand why certain policies were hurting them terribly in the customer retention department. Maybe they would learn how they could actually GROW the bottom line from another angle instead of “gotcha” fees.

Hrmmm, well I know some banks (and other entrenched industry mammoths) aren’t gonna go for that, but I suggest that you watch your small local banks. I have a feeling some of them are going to engage social media with a passion as a means to engage customers and gain a competitive edge over their competition on both profit margins and the customer retention game.

What say you? How can social media change the face of the banking industry?