The 2013 Local Consumer Review Survey by Myles Anderson of BrightLocal was newly published on SearchEngineLand. There are specific clear and incontestable results that we can run with.
What we learned provides us four distinct takeaways.
- More consumers are trusting online reviews just as much as personal recommendations. A full 79 percent (up from 72 percent just a year ago!) state that genuine online reviews (emphasis on genuine) carry the same impact if not more than a recommendation from someone they know.
- Trust in online reviews is skyrocketing! A whopping 72 percent now claim that positive customer reviews make them trust a business more. This is up from 58 percent just last year! It’s abundantly clear that consumers are taking more notice than ever before and are trusting them more. Only 12 percent of consumers said they pay no notice of any online reviews (down from 17 percent in 2012).
- Also, consumers are viewing far fewer reviews before they make their buying decisions. Remarkably, 67 percent of consumers read 6 reviews or less, up from 52 percent in 2012. Consumers are also reading less than 7 reviews – 22 percent now vs. 35 percent in 2012.
- It’s now more significant than ever before to successfully manage your online reputation. Since the number or reviews read are shrinking, and the impact of the reviews increased, it’s important to are monitoring your online reputation for all current activity. As the most recent reviews are swinging the buying decisions, you’ll need to know if anything negative shows up and act on it. Develop a policy for handling negative reviews in an open manner, and a system for generating new, reviews that are positive that will send those less than desirable reviews further down the page . Be sure that these are genuine, as consumers are getting better at ferreting out fake and corporate-generated “reviews”.
Use this information!
Information like this is pure gold, and clearly actionable. Kudos to Myles Anderson and the people at BrightLocal for this very useful and eye-opening study.