Brand image is everything to your business. It affects every aspect of your operations, from customer acquisition to employee retention to growth. Unfortunately, it’s not up to you to define how the public sees you — it’s largely up to your customers.

Many businesses wrongly assume that if they say something through marketing mediums, customers will take it as the truth. The reality is that customers won’t buy what you tell them unless they’re telling each other the same things. And if what customers are telling each other is negative, your image — and your business — will suffer. How badly, you may wonder? Check out the stats:

• According to Forbes, 94% of consumers avoid brands with negative reviews.

• 50% of consumers don’t trust the quality of a brand that has any bad reviews.

• Just one bad review drives away 22% of prospects. That percentage increases with each negative review. Three bad reviews drive away 59.2% of prospects, while four or more negative testimonials increases the loss to 70%.

There’s more. Google takes into account reviews when doling out rankings. Brands with more positive reviews take priority, while those with several negative reviews rank towards the bottom.

The good news is that while it may be difficult to overcome bad reviews, it’s not impossible. Through strategic content marketing efforts, you can slowly undo the damage and ensure your reputation doesn’t take a hit again. Below are five tactics you and your blog writing services can implement today.

1.    Evaluate Your Reputation

You know that what customers have to say about your brand is bad, but do you know just how bad? Chances are, you don’t. Though it may be painful, set aside a couple of hours to go through each platform on which your company is mentioned. Start with Google, work your way to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and end with rating sites. Screenshot any mentions of your brand, especially the negative ones. Use the info you glean to guide your reputation recovery plan.

2.    Respond to Customer Complaints

Your initial instinct may be to delete all negative reviews but don’t do this, as it will only damage your reputation further. Instead, address the complaints head-on, and as soon as possible.

Timing is everything when it comes to negative reviews. As many as 18% of consumers say they expect a response to a comment or inquiry within an hour, while 48% say an acceptable response time is within 24 hours. The longer you take to appease an unhappy customer, the worse the damage becomes. Statistics show that a disgruntled customer will share his or her negative experience with as many as 15 people. In addition to addressing negative comments, consider turning them into blog posts, as doing so shows you’re listening and receptive to feedback.

3.    Bury Negative Content With Helpful Content

You cannot delete negative content from the internet, but you can bury it with content of your own. Use blog posts, videos, infographics, social media posts, and guest blogs to restructure your company image. Don’t forget to optimize your content with keywords and phrases potential customers are most likely to use when searching for your products or services. This will ensure that positive content can be found.

4.    Establish Yourself as a Thought Leader

Again, use blog posts, landing pages, videos, webinars, and other forms of content to share helpful information and thoughtful insights with your audience. Don’t try to push your products, as the goal for your reputation recovery plan is to regain consumers’ trust, not push sales. The latter will be a byproduct of the former if you publish content that is authentic, authoritative, and engaging on a consistent basis.

5.    Rally Loyal Customers

You may have made some of your customers upset, but chances are you have several others that are perfectly happy with your brand and the products or services you provide. Seek out those customers and encourage them to share their stories online. Be careful, though, that customer stories are authentic, as consumers are much smarter than many brands give them credit for.

The internet has made marketing easier and more affordable than ever. However, it’s also made it so that word-of-mouth — both good and bad — spreads like wildfire. If your reputation has suffered because of negative word-of-mouth, assess the damage and then use steps two through five to combat it.