Be Not Afraid: Research Shows Negative Reviews Can Be a Positive

One of the things I have the hardest time convincing local marketers of, be they churches, schools or businesses, is the value of online reviews.  Quite frankly, most people fear reviews because they are afraid someone will post a negative review and that will be the end of their organization.  The world will end and the earth will open up and swallow them up whole.  Ah, but a new study from Media Post shows how that’s not the case at all.

Oh negative reviewer where is thy sting?

Oh bad ratings where is thy victory?

In the study, Media Post looked at people who posted negative reviews online during the holiday shopping season.  They found that 68% of those people got a response to their negative review and of those who got a response,

• 33% turned around and posted a positive review
• 34% deleted their original negative review

That’s huge!  This means that by being proactive with people who post negative reviews, you not only have a decent chance of getting them to removed the negative review but turn around their view of your organization to the point that they would post a positive review.

Don’t hide your head in the sand.
Reviews are very important in marketing in general, but extremely important in local search marketing.  Not only can reviews affect whether people purchase from your business or visit your church/school, but they also effect local search rankings.  Trying to avoid reviews altogether is not really an option because there are several places people can post reviews even if you haven’t setup a listing and since all the major search engines have reviews in their local listings, you would have to avoid the local listings completely, which is just a bad idea.

So, embrace the reviews, don’t fear them.  Rejoice over the positive reviews, but don’t fear the negative ones.  They are a great opportunity.

Photos by painloathing and jwgustavson

Have you had to deal with negative reviews?

How did you respond?