A recent guest post on Tnooz by Anthony Rawlins, managing director of Digital Visitor, makes a persuasive argument for placing reviews directly on your company website. Laden with compelling statistics, the article outlines seven reasons that reviews should be a top priority in travel companies' online marketing. Some key takeaways include:
Reviews on a website can increase sales up to 18 percent and positive reviews are almost as important to consumers as price (the #1 factor in booking). As such, positive reviews can be a powerful tool in online conversions and can help you avoid price reductions and sales. Reviewing a product or service is increasing in popularity in the digital age, as almost half of consumers have written a review - but people prefer to read reviews on company websites versus newspapers and magazines, specialty forums and social networking sites. Having reviews on your website can increase browsing time between 50 and 100 percent.
What about the nagging worry of bad reviews? Rawlins explains that a negative review isn't always bad for business - seeing one on a company website can increase trust in 70% of people, and a feature cited by one customer as a drawback might be seen as a benefit to another (think "not family friendly" versus "romantic / adult oriented"). He explains:
Travel organisations that really want to make the most of their customer reviews now and in the future, will be those that consider how to make them relevant for each online visitor. The more relevant and appropriate the reviews included on your website are to the potential customer, the greater the influence is on the booking process... Furthermore, 38% of shoppers are more likely to read the bad reviews than the good ones AND 95% of people said they will still buy a product with a bad review.
Digital Visitor also conducted research on the top 100 travel companies' websites for the article, and found that 60% had review capabilities in place, with asurprisingly low representation from TripAdvisor.
To explore further statistics, read about how other companies are employing reviews, and for Rawlins top eight tips on how to maximize reviews on your site (hint: location, location, location!), read the entire Tnooz article.
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