This morning Yodle announced two new features that will be added to the services it provides its clients as part of their online marketing solutions package: online reviews management and photo syndication.

“Our goal is for Yodle to be the CMO for our clients,” says Court Cunningham, CEO at Yodle. “We want to automate and simplify all marketing processes into one bundle.”

The online reviews management solution enables Yodle clients to generate, promote and respond to reviews from their customers. “We have found that there is a gap between consumer importance of reviews and SMB’s perceived importance of reviews,” says Cunningham.

According to BIA/Kelsey‘s Local Commerce Monitor�, only 40.5% of SMBs consider websites with customer opinion to be very or extremely important on average. However, BIA/Kelsey’s Consumer Commerce Monitor�, shows us that ratings on sites such as Yelp or TripAdvisor were consumers’ third most trusted source when it comes to information about the products and services of local businesses. Only friends or family members and Facebook friends were rated as more trusted, according to the CCM data.

“We are hoping to educate SMBs on the importance of reviews. It is important to know that negative reviews are actually an opportunity and should not be hidden,” says Cunningham. Yodle’s new review management solution will have a specific tool to assist SMBs with responding to negative reviews.

The photo syndication feature uses automated technology to distribute photos that have been uploaded. Cunningham highlights the importance of photos being used by pointing out that “photos can be syndicated out to many directories that may not take reviews,” and so give SMBs more exposure. Not only that, but according to Cunningham “we have found that more photos and less text drives higher engagement from consumers on a site.”

These new features are currently available to Yodle’s customers. On the horizon, Yodle has additional features including offers management and email communication that will be available in early April.