Posted by: Prosun International on September 10, 2014 | Topic: Salon Startups
Strategies for Tanning Salons to Gain Online Reviews
Local search engine optimization for tanning salons continues to drive success of marketing efforts and will probably only become more important in the future. Of the several hundred factors that affect ranking in Google map search results, online reviews remain one of the most influential. The electronic version of social proof, online shoppers look at reviews to see if others have used a service and what they had to say about it on an independent site. Review sites with more perceived credibility influence more heavily.
Optimal Online Review Situation
There are hundreds of website where someone could leave a review for your salon even if you have never taken steps to claim and promote them. Here is an unscientific ranked list of the most important website to have reviews, click to see if your salon has any:
The best and most natural case would be a consistent number of reviews left on a variety of these site over a long period of time. An oddly large number on one particular one at the same time would seem unnatural the raise red flags of fake-review spamming.
What Should Tanning Salons Do?
Offering incentives to customers for a positive review is frowned upon by powerful online directories and they have many ways of figuring out the offenders. Fake reviews are worse and easier to detect. It is much easier to do things the right way by setting up a system of review “awareness promotion” to increase relevant entries from real customers.
Send Emails to customers
If you have an email list of your customers, pick a certain amount each month and send an email with links to a few of the review website so the recipients could choose one they might be familiar with. Vary the links over time so you get an even disbursement of reviews in the long run.
Use a QR Code Mobile Poster
Tanning salons have a unique situation compared to many local businesses. Customers always physically come into their salon and they stay there for at least 10 or 15 minutes with nothing to do. And almost all carry a phone.
A QR code can be generated so a smart phone to scan it and it will send the smart phone directly to any website address you want. If you have a poster with three QR codes to three different review sites, your customers can scan the code then go directly to a page on their phone where they can type in a review during their tanning session.
A simple suggestions from the right staff member to a willing customers could produce a steady stream of reviews that will you’re your online rankings and reputation for years to come.
The image is an example of a QR code poster ProSun developed for a customer as part of our Internet Marketing Starter Kit. The salon printed and mounted it on an 8-1/2 x 11 poster at FedEx Kinkos with a stand on the back to display it on the main counter.