We keep arguing that promoting your watersport business solely on social media just won’t do it. You see, posting your company profile just on social media platforms like Instagram, while necessary for growing your watersport business, will limit your reach and ability to be ranked appropriately by Google. Building a robust website and getting listed on Google My Business both is essential to start providing internet users with more ways to find out about your business; however, they’re not the only ones. In this blog, we’re going to dive deeper into the online review platforms and how watersport operators use them.
Why Tour Operators Need to Check Their Reviews Regularly
As we’ve claimed before, checking your reviews regularly is paramount, and what’s even more important is getting more reviews. Long story short – online reviews are a primary resource for travelers and vacation planners to research for making purchasing decisions. The more positive reviews your watersport business has, the more likely you’ll get more booking, and vice versa. Additionally, Online Customer Reviews help tour operators identify whether you’re on the right track with your tour and rental offerings or if there’s anything you should reconsider. Let’s talk about the main review platforms watersport operators use.
Online Review Platforms Used by Watersport Operators
Our WaveRez partners actively use the platforms listed here, so we can attest to their effectiveness in growing our partner’s watersport businesses. Some review platforms can get you more reviews than others, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be using all of them; let’s take a look at them.
Facebook Reviews
There’s a more meaningful way of using Facebook than just scrolling through the feed looking for funny memes, and that’s getting your business reviewed on Facebook. Facebook Reviews let your customers using Facebook to review your watersport business in addition to liking your business page and providing users with an opportunity to follow you on Facebook. The biggest benefit of using Facebook Reviews compared to other review platforms is that it’s easy to get in touch with reviewers if you get a bad review to see if a customer is willing to delete it. Quite often, reviewers confuse what they intend to review with what they actually review, which has nothing to do with your watersport business; that’s why you want to make sure you don’t get negative reviews.
Google Reviews
To manage your Google Reviews, make sure you have a Google My Business account up and running. It’s really important to monitor your visibility on Google because Google Maps are not only the most used mapping app for navigations and directions but also a top business review platform. Having said that, don’t overlook the Google Reviews potential for your watersport business reputation, as, let’s admit, everyone just googles everything and anything these days.
Tripadvisor
Tripadvisor is the review platform that you want to give special treatment to benefit your watersport business. You see, Tripadvisor is named the world’s largest travel site meaning that it’s the most popular search engine for travel needs actively utilized by thousands of vacationers daily. Not having your watersport business listed on this review platform is such a missed opportunity, so we definitely recommend checking Tripadvisor out.
Additionally, Tripadvisor provides you with an opportunity to get the Travelers’ Choice award, which can boost the interest in your watersport brand by vacationers. The certificates look like this, it’s really nice to stick them to your booking booth, boat, or just post on your social media account:
Just like with marketing education certificates, it’s equally great to have a Travelers’ Choice award to show off to your customers, so they will want to book more with you and be more likely to rent your boats and/or jet skis. Unlike with other review platforms, Tripadvisor lets its users title their reviews to give an idea at a glance of what a review will cover.
TripShock Traveler Stories
In case you didn’t know, TripShock is WaveRez’s sister company that we integrate our software solution with. WaveRez’s integration with TripShock works seamlessly, just like TripShock Traveler Stories, which get submitted by vacationers upon the completion of their rental or tour. One of the greatest things about the TripShock Traveler Stories is that all reviews are 100% verified traveler stories, so you don’t have to worry about getting fraudulent reviews. If you sell your water-based rentals and tours with TripShock, be sure to get in touch with them to learn more about the TripShock Stories program for partners.
Yelp
Lastly, often overlooked by many watersport operators, Yelp can actually also become a great review generating platform for your watersport company. Although Yelp is mainly focused on other types of businesses, such as restaurants and dentists, entertainment is also one of the categories. For that reason, you can still get some good reviews in addition to the other platforms discussed in our list. At the end of the day, they’re all free, so why not take advantage of all of them?!
What You Need to Get Great Reviews
Getting great reviews may seem tricky at first; however, it actually becomes more obvious as you start focusing on getting more of the reviews, so here are some of the established ways for obtaining them:
- Be sure to know what you need to get more reviews: in many ways, recommendations on how to get more reviews will be the same as for getting great reviews; however, keep in mind that it’s not just about the quantity, but also about the quality.
- Have review platform logos placed on your booking booth and boats rented to your customers.
- Keep your listing up-to-date: Make sure your business hours are up-to-date, especially if you run your watersport business seasonally because you don’t want to handle customers arriving late.
- Offering unique watersport experiences is key not only to impress your customers but also to use it as an opportunity to experiment with your pricing strategies.
- Meet the market needs (e.g., seniors or families with kids) so that people of all ages can feel recognized.
- Equip your watersport business with email marketing and text messaging capabilities for keeping your customers informed and up-to-date on their reservations and more.
- Use a reservation system to have peace of mind that you didn’t miss anything (e.g., not overbooked).
- Offer an incentive to leave a review like you would for hosting a giveaway.
- Ask for reviews directly and tell your customers how reviews are essential for your watersport business growth.
- Respond to reviews, especially to the negative ones – it will show other users how concerned you are about your business reputation.
Conclusion
To wrap up, listing your watersport company on review platforms can significantly benefit your marketing efforts. All of the review websites discussed in this article are free to use, so we wouldn’t see a reason not to use them. If you have any concerns or are not sure about how to get started on collecting reviews, drop us a line, and we’ll be happy to navigate you through the best ways for growing your watersport business. 🙂
Also, our WaveRez software has a review email function, which lets you send requests to your customers as soon as they complete their tour or rental; take a look at the video below to see how it works and schedule a free demo session with our sales team to learn more:
About the Author
Greg Fisher
