MediaVision Blog : Search Engine Marketing

So what is the best way to advertise and gain trust from new users looking to buy your product? Some might say it is paying for online ads and having your site show up for a certain product search. Others will go for viral marketing and rely on word of mouth to gain trust.

When a customer reads what previous users of a certain product had to say about it, their attention will be caught more quickly than just a basic advertisement. Searchengineguide explained a survey by Nielsen, in which consumer recommendations and opinions were two of the most trusted marketing techniques while search engine ads were third from the bottom with a mere 34% trust factor.

Many companies will pay big bucks for a single ad. Word of mouth is absolutely free and it gives the user much more insight on the product itself. Personally I think both ads and reviews have a major part to play. If you are competing in a big market, you need an attractive ad to get the attention of customers first. Once they are on your site they should be shown the product they are looking for with a few consumer reviews linked to it. This would increase your chances of making a sale because customers trust other customers more than they would trust a basic explanation of what your product can do.

So if you have a site and it’s getting loads of traffic with no conversions, something is obviously wrong. Check your marketing strategy. Let your happy customers give feedback on your site about why they liked your product. For example, send them an email two weeks after the sale asking them to give feedback. If you still don’t get any conversions, then you should check that your product is actually any good and whether people are giving positive or negative reviews.

With all this said, don’t go to all your friends and ask them to give feedback on your product because that would be cheating. Let the consumers sell your product for you. It gives you less advertising work and more ROI. This is a real win-win situation.