How To Manage Your Brand With Yext

When the digital marketing team at AutoNation noticed misinformation about their brand across the web, they knew they needed to take action. That’s when the company turned to Yext.

AutoNation used the Yext platform to manage facts about its brand from a single source of truth. That means all of its websites, apps, and internal software relied on the same data to disseminate information to potential buyers.

The results? AutoNation now lists more than 39,000 vehicles with the power of Yext.

Even better, the company found Yext particularly useful during its rebranding effort.

“We went all across the country rebranding all of our stores to AutoNation, and through that rebrand process we recognized how challenging it is to manage our profiles on Google, Facebook, and other social media outlets,” says Famous Rhodes, Vice President of Digital Marketing and Consumer Experience.

That’s the kind of help Yext can offer your business as well.

In this review, I’ll cover Yext’s features. I’ll also explain how it can boost your brand online.

What Is Yext?

“Every day customers ask questions about your brand. Shouldn’t the answers come from you?”

That’s one of the first things you’ll read when you visit the Yext website. That question and answer also identifies the company’s unique selling proposition.

If you want to keep control of the information that gets disseminated about your business, you should take a look at Yext. It’s a holistic solution that helps you attract more customers, eliminate data discrepancies, improve customer service, and build a better reputation online.

How does Yext do all of that? With the aid of several products.

I’ll cover each of those products in detail in the following sections.

Knowledge Graph

First up is the Knowledge Graph. It’s the “single source of truth” I mentioned in the introduction.

The customer journey often starts with a question. With the aid of Yext, you can make sure that the potential customers who ask a question about your business get the right answer.

And that right answer comes directly from your website or app.

What kind of info does the Knowledge Graph include? 

You can publish literally anything about your business: a product offering, store hours, professional credentials, job openings, etc.

If it’s the kind of data that can get stored in a database, then Yext will handle it.

The tool also supports region-specific knowledge. For example, you might operate a store in Kalamazoo that’s open from 9-5 but another store in Detroit that’s open from 8-6. Yext can show people the correct hours for each of those stores.

Knowledge Graph also supports localized knowledge on an international basis.

Yext Pages

It’s not necessarily the case that people want to learn about your brand by starting at your home page and navigating from there. Many folks start their research with Google or voice search.

Those people expect your website to answer their queries quickly and clearly.

But your website can’t do that if it isn’t optimized for the right search terms. And even if it is, if the answer isn’t obvious to the visitor within a few seconds of scanning your page, then you’re likely going to lose that lead to a competitor.

Enter Yext Pages. It will help you optimize your site for search, maps, and voice assistants. The tool will also assist with markup so that visitors can quickly find the info that they’re searching for.

Think of Yext Pages as content marketing on steroids.

Even better, though, is that it will also optimize your web pages for conversions.

So you won’t just get targeted traffic. You’ll also land more sales.

Further, Yext Pages helps you create categories so that your site will attract more unbranded search traffic.

Finally, the tool also provides rich analytics so you can further optimize your website.

Yext Knowledge Network

How would you like to keep the public updated with facts about your brand from a single app? You can do that with the Yext Knowledge Network.

The Yext Knowledge Network integrates the Yext platform with more than 100 search engines, apps, voice assistants, maps, directories, and social networks. That puts you in control of the info that gets disseminated about your brand.

Yext integrates with well-known apps such as TripAdvisor, Foursquare, Instagram, Evernote, and Yelp.

It also integrates with apps you probably aren’t even thinking about, such as Uber, Postmates, Allmenus, AllergyEats, BetterDoctor, Local.com, and Pitney Bowes.

Yext Reviews

If you’ve been at this digital marketing thing for any length of time, then you already know that reviews can make or break your business. Fortunately, Yext can help you monitor your reviews across cyberspace.

For starters, the platform gives you review monitoring. Use it to stay on top of all the online hangouts where people say something about your business.

You can even tell Yext to send you an alert whenever it detects a new review. Keep in mind: that can get really annoying if you get lots of reviews every day.

The tool also offers an Intelligent Review Response feature that helps you reach out to folks who left negative feedback in an attempt to patch things up.

Finally, Yext Reviews also shows how your ratings stack up against those of your competitors. If you find that other businesses in your industry earned higher star ratings, then you know you have some work to do.

Yext Analytics

Yext Analytics gives you actionable insights for a variety of metrics with just a few clicks.

The tool enables you to track your clicks and conversions. Use that info to identify the digital path that visitors are following to become customers.

Yext also gives you a dashboard that’s informative enough to give you the important details at a glance while adaptable enough that you can customize it to see only exactly what you’re looking for.

To sweeten the pot even further, the tool allows you to build multiple dashboards for individuals or the entire company.

Yext Analytics also empowers you to aggregate data from third-party solutions, such as Google Search Console, Facebook Social Analytics, Google My Business, and Eventbrite Analytics.

Finally, you can use the reports generated by Yext to show your customers all the work you’re doing to boost business.

Yext Answers

I saved what is arguably the best for last.

Yext Answers represents the next generation of search engines. It’s a feature that runs on your site and delivers direct answers to curious visitors.

The tool doesn’t just parse search terms, though. It’s a natural language processor.

In other words, it understands basic English.

Beyond that, it gets to the heart of customer intent. Then, it uses that intent to deliver the right answer.

It gets even better. The tool optimizes the answer for conversions.

You really have to see it to believe it. Check out the tool in action on the Yext website.

Yext Answers even adds value beyond what I’ve already described. It catalogs each query so you’ll know about the search terms that people are using on your site.

Harvest that gold mine of info to optimize your site even further for popular keywords. That should help you attract more business.

And keep in mind that Yext Answers will also reduce your support costs. That’s because people can get their answers directly from the website without the need to call a help desk rep.

The Pros and Cons

Here’s what some of Yext’s current users say about the platform.

First, the pros:

• Best in class customer service
• Keeps contact info across all channels
• Allows multiple locations to be updated in real time
• Helps with planning events
• Streamlines posting on social media
• Ensures consistent info across the Internet
• Instantaneous publishing across a variety of web properties

Next, the cons:

• Expensive
• Steep learning curve
• Glitchy API syncs
• Company is trying to be a jack of all trades and may become a master of none

Wrapping It Up

Like most high-end digital marketing products, Yext offers a free demo. If you think it looks like a great product based on what you’ve read here, go ahead and schedule a demonstration.

If you like what you see in the demo and want to sign on with the service, be prepared to open your wallet. Yext isn’t cheap.

However, it could very well be the right investment to take your business to the next level.