Barak Granot, Marketing Expert and Co-Founder of Metrix Promotions says, “In the last few years, the way that clients search for and find a new service providers has changed.” In the past, a lot of businesses primarily got new clients through referrals from existing clients or through yellow pages ads. Consumers are now getting on the Internet and researching businesses, looking for reviews, information on services and pricing, all before venturing into the office or booking a first appointment.
“The data is visible,” Granot explains, “When someone is looking up a business name—even if they are just looking for a phone number or for more information—they will immediately see the doctor’s reputation from review websites. Reading reviews has become part of our buying process. Now, it is suspicious if there are no reviews and no information about the business and repelling if the reviews are bad so the only option is having great reviews and a lot of them.”
Granot believes that business owners are just becoming aware of the need for an online and social media presence, actively soliciting and monitoring client reviews on accessible and popular websites and building a 5-star reputation. “4 out of 5 people who get a recommendation from friends and family for a new business will also check out the business’ reputation online,” he adds.
Granot works with business owners to create an authority marketing plan focused on building up authority and expert status in order to better compete within today’s marketplace. The strategy Granot utilizes hinges on business owners understanding that their reputation, as seen online, through social media, on their own website and from client reviews can make or break both their ability to gain new clients and to retain existing clients in the face of stiff price-based competition from their competitors. “If you are positioned in the mind of prospective clients as the expert in your field, clients will be willing to pay more and not haggle on prices,” he explains. This strategy is quite unique. In that regard, Barak Granot and Metrix Promotions are changing the face of marketing.
Granot believes that every business owner should create a system within their office that actively creates a flow of positive reviews to the most visited review directories (chiefly Google and Yelp), know how to fend off bad reviews and then make their good reviews visible to prospective clients. “This is not easy for most businesses to do and for some it goes against the grain of the way they were taught or think,” Granot adds, “But not doing so means losing their business to their more savvy competitors.”
Granot adds, “Prospective clients are looking up the business’ name in a lot of cases—whether coming from referrals or from other marketing efforts —and the business needs to control what they will see. If the business has a lot of great reviews and, in addition, was featured in national media outlets as an expert, then he or she is the hero.”
To learn more about Barak Granot and Metrix Promotions please visit: http://MetrixPromotions.com.
