The Parable Group Online Business Claiming service, expanded in 2014, is helping Christian Retailers to discover and improve their online brand and reputation with ease.

Launched in 2011, the service aids stores in evaluating, building and monitoring their brand health online. Stores receive quarterly reporting—including an overall online brand score—and easy-to-follow recommendations to reach more customers, improve consumer engagement and enhance their brand online.

The scoring model takes into account over 80 data points to create a brand score that not only reflects how strong a brand presence is, but also provides a benchmark for store’s efforts compared to others. The Parable Group evaluates website search results, reviews and social media from various online sources such as Facebook, Foursquare, Yelp, Bing Local, Yahoo! Local, Google Places, Twitter and LinkedIn and other online profiles for retailers, saving them time and allowing them to focus on serving customers.

“As a retailer, it’s tough to know just where to begin and what steps you should and should not take to manage your online reputation. The score provides a gauge of each store’s starting point and measures improvement over time. It’s basically a brand report card,” said Tiffany Davenport, data content coordinator for The Parable Group.

Score strength is measured as high with a score of 650-850, medium with a score of 550-650, and low with a score below 550. Most participating stores saw an increase over the past three months, and the current average brand score of 679 is well within the high score ranking.

“I love that The Parable Group monitors and evaluates my store’s online footprint for me—they save me countless hours of work,” said Danny Vera of Christ Centered Life Store in Fort Myers, Florida. “The reports provide me with our brand score, insights about where we rank on search engines, social media activity and recommendations we can take to raise our score and online engagement. I couldn’t get all of this information about my store on my own.”

Parable Group President Steve Potratz, also owner of The Parable Christian Store in San Luis Obispo, California, lauded the service’s benefits.

“In 2010, we moved our store from a high traffic downtown location with a lot of tourist traffic to a strip center on the outskirts of town. Months after our move, the Internet continued to display the downtown location, so we lost tourist traffic and a lot of local traffic,” Potratz said. “This caused us to search for a fix. We solved the problem and today our store is prominently listed on all maps and searches online.

“In fact, if you buy a new car with navigation, you’ll easily find our store in their maps too. We are happy to provide this tremendous solution to help all Christian retailers easily monitor, manage and strengthen their brand presence online.”

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