What does a yoga studio with 595 5-star Google reviews needed to do to achieve those results?
We took a look and decided to share 2 of the steps needed. Everyone loves reviews.
Potential students check them to see if other people experience…
While for you, that’s one of the signs that you are doing the right job.
However, everyone is aware how hard it is to get reviews.
Before we start… when it comes to reviews, there are two things we should get out of the way.
- Collecting reviews isn’t the most pleasant thing to think about after a long day at work.
- Asking for reviews can sometimes feel like you are bothering people.
But even if boosting your online reputation isn’t at the top of your priorities, it should be… Statistics show that one review can increase conversion by 10%. Now, the real question is how big of an impact 5 – 10 reviews would have?
Another important thing…research shows that businesses that get more than 25 reviews in 3 months earn 108% more than average.
Now that we know the value that each review brings, let’s see how this yoga studio obtainted 595 Google reviews with 5 star rating.
1. Email as a review request
Yes, this yoga studio uses simple email to ask its students for reviews. However, the impressive thing here is how smart they use it.
Instead of bulk emailing everyone on their list and seeing only a low 2-4% click-through rate, they wait for the perfect moment to ask for a review.
When students visit them!
Genius, right?
With Referrizer, advanced tools – like reputation management, loyalty program and email marketing – allow you to recognize when people visit you, and you can send them fully automated review requests, without involving your staff members.
The best thing is yet to come.
As you know, it is possible to overlook one email among 50 others you received that day.
So, in case that customer hasn’t opened the email in 2 days, an automatic follow-up will go straight to their inbox.
By doing so, you can reduce the chance that a messy inbox costs you a positive review.
How can you know if it’s going to be a positive review?
That is an excellent question.
If you really think about it, not every student will have nice words about you.
Even if negative feedback is always valuable, it comes with the cost of a damaged online reputation.
So, is this way of collecting reviews a double-edged sword that, at any moment, can cause more damage than benefit?
In case you are sending requests for reviews on your own, yes, it can result in a few negative reviews.
That is not the case for the yoga studio client we are talking about, since they use Referrizer Reputation management software , allowing them to protect their online reputation by publishing only positive reviews.
So, when people receive an email and decide to give the review (positive or negative), they will see something like this:
In the case of a negative experience, people will be able to write reviews that are only visible to you… And if your student had a positive experience, a green smiley face will lead them directly to your Google reviews.
Possible alternative?
If email isn’t your thing, or it seems too complicated, you can always go with an alternative.
Text marketing is the best replacement for emails. According to a 2016 survey conducted by 3Cinteractive, 48% of participants said they actually prefer to communicate with brands via SMS, as opposed to the 22% that marked an email as their preference.
Even more exciting research cites that SMS marketing has an open rate of 98%! Meanwhile the email marketing open rate is around 20%.Now, you don’t want to personally wait for every student to leave your business so you can send them an SMS. Even if you have your staff do it, that wouldn’t be the best option. Here at Referrizer, we have automated text marketing so you can take advantage of the high engagement that SMS gets without sacrificing your time.
How to write a text message as a review request?
Simply compose the text message that will politely ask for a review, the same as you would do with email.
But keep it short, concise and direct, without any unnecessary words. Not sure how your text message should look? At Referrizer’s Marketplace, you can check out templates that businesses like yours use for their text messages.
Before you grab your phone and start texting your students, make sure that they actually want to hear from you.
If they agree, this means that they have opted in, and you have the green light for messaging them. Don’t have a customer database? Here, you can see how to collect phone numbers of your customers using Referrizer.
2. Loyalty program
There is no question anymore if loyalty programs are necessary. Having a loyalty program is simply a must nowadays for yoga businesses.
In addition to motivating students to spend more and visit you more, this yoga studio takes full advantage of its loyalty program and uses it to collect reviews.
How do they do that?
Since they use points for a loyalty program, students are able to earn points by posting reviews. And, guess what? Posting reviews bring the most points.
The best thing is that neither the staff nor the owner needs to keep track of reviews and points.
With a loyalty program and reputation management in place, the Referrizer system recognizes when students post reviews and automatically awards them with points.
The outcome?
A yoga studio has a super effective system to continually collect fresh reviews, protect its online reputation from bad reviews…and all on autopilot.
Need more reviews for your business? Book a free demo to see if Referrizer is a good fit for you.