If you already have Google My Business, reviews are going to work as a perpetual motion machine. Huge amount of stars in the ranking attract new potential customers, who are able to generate further positive reviews. If clients see negative comments on your Google Business Card it is almost certain they’ll start considering the quality of your services.

Customer feedback is something that every eCommerce platform has to have unlike a traditional market, where there’s face-to-face interaction with all your customers. Shoppers usually love to have a convenient journey when shopping online. Whereas eCommerce has a longer buyer journey. Moreover, with the growing industry, there’s an increase in competition too. And to survive or win the competition, you need to know how your customers feel about your business. Also, you can never let go of an opportunity that will give your business an edge over others. Hence, you must have customer feedback practice to understand all these factors about your eCommerce business.

Black Friday is the day of the year for which every enthusiast of shopping at attractive prices has been waiting for. It is also a hot period for the e-commerce industry starting the pre-Christmas shopping spree. That is why we have prepared a handful of information and tips on how to prepare your online store for Black Friday.

Marketing in the modern world isn't about knocking on everybody’s front door and expecting a sale anymore. It uses digitalization — still like knocking — but this time, on the screen of everybody’s gadgets.

Holiday trip? Week-long skiing trip? Or maybe a weekend city break? There are many travel options, but one thing remains the same. During our travels we need to have a place to sleep. What to choose? Should we choose an exclusive hotel? Maybe rent a flat? Or maybe this is the moment to start camping?

The marketing potential that lies in customer reviews is currently invaluable. As consumers remain indifferent to traditional forms of advertising, they prefer to seek information about your brand online, among their friends, or on influencer vlogs. The knowledge mine for prosumers is opinions and recommendations from others, so today, make an effort to attract the attention of your audience through recommendation marketing. Modern prosumers are individuals engaged in co-creating a brand and its image, wanting to shape the opinions of other consumers about the company. Be sure that they will not passively consume your message and will rather seek interesting information from independent sources than be lured by advertisements. For prosumers, the opinions and recommendations of other users are much more important, as well as the ability to share their own knowledge with them. Therefore, if you care about two-way communication with conscious consumers, it is essential to delve into the topic of recommendation marketing. Recommendation marketing and word-of-mouth marketing If we refer to the works of communication practitioners in the industry, we will come across the interchangeable use of the terms "word-of-mouth marketing" and "recommendation marketing." But are these two terms really synonymous and can they be used interchangeably? To answer these questions, we need to refer to English-language works, where the term WOM - Word of Mouth originates. In the broadest sense, it means consumers expressing opinions about a brand, sharing information about the company's offered services or products, and above all, their advantages and disadvantages. It is nothing more than consumers communicating, let's add informally, to exchange their views, experiences, and feelings towards a particular company and its offerings. On the other hand, Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) refers to all practices that encourage customers to discuss a brand, but also create opportunities for such conversations. The main goal of these actions is to generate a wave of consumer recommendations that attract potential customers and thus impact sales growth. Campaigns are usually carried out on two levels - the first is providing customers with topics for discussion and thus stimulating interest around the brand. To capture the attention of customers, companies rely on personal experiences of consumers with a particular product - as nothing influences purchasing decisions as strongly as the opportunity to test a product. The second area is the management of opinions that appear online as a result of these actions. The term WOMM is known in our country as "marketing szeptany" (buzz marketing), but often its understanding is mistakenly limited only to one of its forms, namely buzz marketing. In practice, buzz marketing is a much broader concept that also includes marketing practices such as viral marketing or recommendation marketing. Selected forms of buzz marketing Let's take a look at the actions that are hidden under the most important forms of buzz marketing. Recommendation marketing - spreading information about a product or service through existing customers of the company, bypassing traditional forms of advertising. These actions can be both "organic" and initiated or directed by company employees whose task is to motivate customers to leave reviews or recommendations online. Buzz marketing - involves building strong excitement around a product or service and arousing emotions among users. The "buzz" is created by consumers who have used the company's offer and want to spontaneously share positive recommendations about the product. In theory, buzz marketing has lost some authenticity in its message, and opinions about the brand, left among others on internet forums or blogs, are not the result of customers' enthusiasm but intentional actions of company employees or hired advertising agencies. This type of communication is based more on advertising posts than on genuine consumer reviews, which are often placed in comments under industry publications. However, we do not intend to evaluate the described practices because when conducted ethically and skillfully, buzz marketing campaigns can significantly increase brand reach and encourage customers to take action. Viral marketing - aims to distribute funny and original content about the brand, but the emphasis here is on advertising materials rather than product recommendations. All the above-mentioned techniques of buzz marketing are intended to bring the desired publicity to the brand and contribute to the growth of online opinions about the company. However, each of them achieves this goal using different tools. In this article, we will focus primarily on recommendation marketing, which can lead to increased brand recognition and credibility in the eyes of customers. How to conduct a recommendation marketing campaign? The growing importance of consumer opinions provides an opportunity for companies to utilize recommendation marketing to gain customer engagement and build authentic relationships. If you are wondering how to harness the power of recommendations in your company's strategy, take a look at a few tips we have prepared for an effective recommendation marketing campaign. Let us focus on identifying the appropriate form of recommendation marketing for your business. The choice of methods to reach potential customers should be based on two premises: the characteristics of your target group and the specifics of the industry in which you operate. However, we will make this task easier for you by presenting some of the most interesting practices in the field of recommendation marketing. The goal of each of them is to generate interest among potential and existing customers, resulting in positive recommendations. Brand blogging - On the one hand, it involves creating company blogs that become a natural platform for obtaining opinions in the form of comments under posts. Furthermore, the blog provides people with a reason to talk not only about topics related to the company's offer but also about its functioning. If your employees are actively involved in activities for others as part of volunteering, be sure to inform your customers about it. By showcasing the social engagement of your business, you will undoubtedly gain the sympathy of many customers. When it comes to product posts, try to provide users with engaging and valuable content - let your publications take the form of guides, where promotional language gives way to the language of benefits. On the other hand, as part of brand blogging, you can collaborate with a blogger who is a specialist and authority in the field that interests you. Offer such a person the opportunity to test your products or evaluate the actions carried out under the brand. Social media marketing, community marketing - This is a strategy that involves engaging the brand in interactions with the community of existing customers. This type of marketing is carried out through thematic groups on Facebook, discussion forums, or other social media platforms. In addition to participating in these places, try to create your own groups of people associated with the brand. This way, you will present a more "human" face of your company and learn about the problems of community members. Remember, social media marketing emphasizes relationships with existing customers, giving them a sense of uniqueness and understanding their needs. However, this does not mean that these groups are closed to potential customers - after all, they will be looking for social confirmation of their decisions, such as reviews from people who have already used your products. Therefore, create a space where your customers can exchange their experiences and observations, and new users can find incentives that will convince them to take advantage of your offer. Your online activity will serve to establish the credibility of your company in the eyes of consumers. In these groups, it is also worth looking for early adopters, i.e., users who use a particular service or product before others. Early adopters provide feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of the offer, allowing companies to improve product functionality, design, and even after-sales support. They are often considered opinion leaders, following trends and interested in testing innovative solutions that shape the views within a particular group. Early enthusiasts can popularize your product, serving as an educational function and passing on their recommendations to other users. Ambassador marketing and trendsetting - The most active fans can become ambassadors for your brand in the future, so it is worth looking for them among the members of the aforementioned groups. Brand advocates are individuals who represent and promote your company in a positive way by introducing consumers to your offerings and building credibility and trust in your products. They can be famous and influential people who are paid to promote the brand, as well as passionate fans who trust the brand so much that they are willing to advertise it through their channels without expecting any benefits. When looking for a brand ambassador, find an influencer whose beliefs and values align with your target audience. In the case of the most dedicated fans who spontaneously recommend your brand to others, do not forget to reward them for their activity. Also, do not limit yourself to well-known names and top internet creators. It may be hard to believe, but some of the best brand ambassadors can be your employees. Evangelist marketing - Its goal is to build such strong trust in the brand or belief in a particular product or service that the consumer voluntarily becomes an advocate for our company. An evangelist is a person absorbed in the idea of the brand, believing in its vision, and encouraging others to use its services (without expecting any benefits). Of course, not every brand can turn its customers into evangelists. After all, we cannot influence the conversations we have with our friends or the recommendations we give to our closest friends. To encourage people to share their experiences enthusiastically, you should stimulate customer discussions, constantly engage communities centered around the brand, and become friends with social listening techniques. The development of recommendation marketing is related to the use of online reviews to establish the credibility of a company in the eyes of consumers. It also involves fueling discussions about the brand to maintain interest in our products. If you care about building authentic relationships with customers, make sure you manage online reviews properly and incorporate recommendation marketing into your communication strategy today.

New Year seems like an ideal moment for realising plans and starting with new projects. Do you have starting an online business on your New Year’s wishlist? If so I'm glad you came across this article. We recommend you read it carefully if you think about starting your business in e-commerce. We advise where to find ideas for an online shop profile and what sells best on the Internet. And you need to know that the right idea is the key to your success!

Achieving success in sales depends on many factors - in addition to passion, determination, and creativity, you also need to thoroughly understand your potential and current customers in order to accompany them at every stage of the purchasing process. But how can you deliver consistent and unforgettable experiences to consumers that will give your business an edge over the competition? Reach for conversion-boosting tools in your online store that will also improve the efficiency and organization of your team's work. Sales support tools are applications and software dedicated to salespeople and marketers, created to facilitate and automate their work and improve customer service. The key to choosing the right tools is to find solutions that best meet the individual needs of your business. And there is plenty to choose from, as the scope of their activities and range of functionalities are so broad that they can be divided into several categories, including customer relationship management (CRM) tools, analytics, and sales automation and integration. Take a look at our guide, where we present e-commerce tools that support sales and see what benefits implementing best practices in your online store can bring. Tools for online customer service We have already dedicated an extensive blog post to Rozwiązaniom managing customer contacts. So now we will only briefly remind you of the benefits of implementing a CRM system for your company and suggest which tools are currently the most popular. The most important benefits provided by CRM tools are: - Managing all customer interactions from one place at every stage of the customer lifecycle. - Organizing and ensuring positive and consistent customer experiences throughout their relationship with the company. - Translating a wealth of data from sales, customer service, marketing, and social media monitoring into specific business information. - Personalizing communication and preparing offers that meet customer requirements. - Streamlining communication with both customers and between company departments, which speeds up information flow and teamwork. - Identifying sales opportunities, detecting service issues, and effectively managing marketing campaigns, all of which contribute to the company's revenue growth. The growing popularity of CRM systems means that there is a wide range of tools available on the market dedicated to multichannel customer service. Notable examples include Pipedrive, available in Polish, as well as HubSpot and Salesforce for medium and large enterprises. When it comes to customer communication, LiveChat and Tidio have proven themselves. Creating heat maps Crazy Egg - By using this tool to track all events on your website, you will find out if your website is intuitive enough for users. With heatmaps, you can see which elements are most frequently clicked by users and which are ignored. Crazy Egg analyzes specific user actions, showing the depth of page scrolling and searched keywords, allowing you to check if you have placed your call-to-action (CTA) in the right place. By investing in this application, you will improve the user experience and increase its effectiveness by improving the conversion rate. Hotjar - This tool allows you to analyze specific user behaviors on your website, checking what attracts their attention and what discourages them from making a purchase. With Hotjar, you can see how customers navigate your website and watch recordings of all customer actions on the site. Recording customer actions is not the only functionality offered by Hotjar; it also provides analysis of surveys, forms, and customer journeys. The information obtained in this way about which products/services generate the most and slightly less interest is a valuable guide for UX designers who design positive user experiences. With Hotjar, you will find the answer to the question that every salesperson wonders: at what stage of the sales process do customers abandon their shopping carts? Newsletters, email marketing, and SMS marketing FreshMail - This tool is suitable for email marketing and newsletter distribution, offering ready-made message templates that can be customized depending on the level of content personalization. FreshMail also generates valuable reports on the effectiveness of your email campaigns and organizes your mailing lists. With this tool, you can conduct A/B tests, enrich your campaigns with SMS delivery, and perform spam analysis, which helps identify errors in your creation. MailChimp - This tool allows you to create fully responsive newsletters that you can personalize based on your customers' preferences, and track the results of your campaigns through clear reports. The automation of tasks in MailChimp allows you to relieve your marketing team, even in the case of non-standard actions. The main advantages mentioned in the context of this solution are its intuitiveness and ease of use, which are particularly evident when designing simple templates (you don't need coding or HTML knowledge). MailChimp should also be appreciated for its range of additional services, which make it one of the most comprehensive platforms that use multiple communication channels with customers. GetResponse - In addition to creating automated email campaigns, you can use this tool to create landing pages, CRM, and even organize webinars. Additionally, you can integrate the system with Facebook Ads and Google Ads, allowing your marketing activities to be managed from one account. The capabilities of GetResponse do not end with the mentioned integrations, and the tool offers a range of sales solutions. Designing conversion funnels, web push notifications, or exit forms - all of these tasks can be performed within one platform for automating marketing processes. Analyzing website traffic and monitoring online reputation We have grouped together tools that analyze traffic and content on your website, such as Google Analytics and Senuto, as well as advanced solutions that allow you to monitor all mentions and opinions about products, service quality, and the brand itself on the Internet, such as Brand24 and Rating Captain. Google Analytics - This tool allows you to check the traffic on your website and answer the question of whether your website is visible enough to users. With Google Analytics, you can track statistics on the number of views of a given website, as well as demographic data of users visiting your website and the actions taken by consumers on the site. The currently available new version of Google Analytics - Google Analytics 4 - has surprised us with several improvements, which you can read about here. Senuto - This tool is primarily dedicated to SEO specialists and is based on a keyword index that analyzes the visibility and monitors the position of your website. With Senuto, you can find out how your domain performs in Google based on specific phrases and how it compares to the competition. This audit of our website is a prelude to optimizing it in terms of content and external and internal linking, and all these actions translate into increasing the credibility of your website. Brand24 - If you don't want to limit yourself to just your company's website and want to start monitoring your brand's reputation on the Internet, reach for a tool that protects your business's reputation online. Brand24 searches social media, blogs, forums, review sites, and many others for mentions of your company and then analyzes the sentiment. This way, you will not only find out where the discussion about your brand is taking place but also the tone of the published statements. Rating Captain - Managing online reviews is another process that often goes unnoticed in a brand strategy but affects the conversion rate in an online store. Effective acquisition of positive reviews and monitoring service quality is possible with the Rating Captain application. The tool has a ready-made system for sending review invitations that match your visual identity and are sent to customers after placing an order. Another functionality is the analysis of customer service issues and recommendations for actions to overcome difficulties. Remember that reviews are one of the factors that build trust in a brand, so choose an application that will naturally improve your business's rating. Comprehensive tools for modern salespeople allow for the automation of many sales aspects. The presented solutions will boost your conversion rate and make the process of building customer engagement much smoother. We hope that our subjective overview of sales support platforms will help you in the dynamic development of your online store and generate higher revenues. If you use other tools to support online sales, please share your inspirations with us.

Positioning your business profile in Google My Business (Google Business) is crucial for customer acquisition and is a free way to promote your business. The business profile itself ensures visibility in local search results, i.e. in key places from the buyer's point of view - in the Google search engine, Maps, and Google Assistant (voice search). Therefore, regardless of the type of business you run, positioning in Maps should be an integral part of your internet marketing. 

One of the pillars of building a positive company image is proper acquisition of customer opinions. While an unsatisfied customer is likely to share a negative opinion online, a satisfied consumer may not be as inclined to express their admiration. Therefore, it is important for you to focus your efforts on encouraging customers to leave reviews. If you are wondering how to obtain positive reviews from satisfied customers, you will definitely find the answer in this article. How to encourage customers to leave reviews and recommendations? If you want to gather buyer opinions, you need to properly motivate them. A satisfied customer is the best brand ambassador, but without proper motivation, they are often reluctant to praise your services online. There is a chance that they will recommend your company to their friends or speak highly of your product to their family, but they may not share their experiences with a wider audience. That's why it is in your best interest to encourage users to leave reviews. There are several ways to obtain recommendations, and all of them are a prelude to building long-term relationships with consumers. Remember that you can collect opinions from your customers in various channels of communication, such as Google Maps, using your brand's official social media profiles, or on industry-specific platforms like Booking. These are just a few of the many channels for communicating with current and potential consumers, which are an invaluable source of knowledge about their feelings towards your product, service, or company. Now that you know why and where you should gather positive reviews, it's time to discover effective methods of collecting customer opinions. Ask for reviews in an email One of the simplest ways to obtain reviews from satisfied customers is to ask for recommendations. Depending on the customer's purchasing journey, choose the right moment to encourage them to share their opinion. You can send an email that encourages the customer to express their opinion about their online shopping experience or the level of customer service. Take advantage of the moment when the user has just received a new product and is still excited about the purchase. In this task, you can be assisted by one of the satisfaction survey tools and customer review management systems. A ready-made system for sending invitations, which are in line with your visual identity and reach customers after their order, will provide, among other things, Rating Captain. After completing the transaction, the consumer will receive a personalized message asking for their opinion. This will convince them that their opinion plays an important role in the development of your business and the improvement of your services. Sometimes, a simple request for the buyer to share their impressions of the purchasing process is not enough. In such cases, you can develop a recommendation template or use supporting questions that will greatly facilitate the writing of a review. Also, remember the principle of reciprocity and do not leave reviews without comments. Show the customer that their opinion matters to you and treat all their feedback as guidance in the process of improving your product and company. Reviewing products on the website Don't forget to publish widgets with reviews on your company's website - such recommendations work like a magnet for new and undecided customers. You can also place the review form on the product page, adding a suitable call to action, such as "be the first to rate this product." At this point, explain to the customer why their opinion is so important and explain how it can impact the improvement of your company's operations. If you run a mail-order business, a nice surprise would be to include a note in the package asking the customer to review your product or service directly on the website. Such a thank you for trusting and purchasing from your company should be personalized to emphasize the individual approach to each customer. Nothing serves as better advertising than the opinions of satisfied consumers. If you want customers to leave positive recommendations online, you need to make it easy for them. Leaving a review should not take too much time, so build a simple system for reviewing your products. Whether you ask the customer to rate in a survey or with stars, do not give up on proper incentives. Discount coupons for future purchases or membership cards can increase customer loyalty and attachment to your company. Also, treat all reviews as important guidance, as they are a valuable business lesson.