As a business owner, you know how important it is to have an online presence. That’s why you have a website and an aggressive online marketing campaign – because you know that these days, most people turn to the Internet when they need to find a business. And part of your online marketing campaign probably includes using online reviews to boost your business’ reputation, since not only do people look for businesses online, they often choose which ones to visit based on reviews.

If online reviews aren’t part of your online marketing campaign though, then it’s time to include them. But how do you go about convincing your customers to not only go online and find a review site, but leave a good review too? Because it’s not as easy as it might seem – get too pushy, and your customers might do just that, only with a negative review. But be too subtle, and they won’t go online and write a review at all, because they won’t even realize that they can. So how do you strike the right balance?

One easy way to ask your customers to go online and leave reviews, without being in their face about it, is to ask for their email addresses. For example, if you own a restaurant, you could invite your customers to share their email addresses to receive weekly coupons. This way, you are giving your customers another reason to come back, you are saving them some money, and you are giving yourself a way to encourage them to write online reviews. Because at the end of those weekly ad emails, you could put something like this:

“Share the love! Check out one of these great review websites, and tell the world what you think of us!”

And right below that, you would include links to review websites. But this also invites unhappy customers to leave reviews too, so it’s important to always focus on great customer satisfaction – something you already do. Other ways to get the idea in customer’s heads, without being pushy, include posting positive reviews in your business, and always asking customers about their stay, service, food, etc. Do these things, and your customers will be more likely to not only write online reviews, but to write positive ones – ones that will encourage new customers to give you a try.