What’s the most important thing that makes people buy your products or services?
One word: TRUST.
It rings true for all industries and especially so for online coaching businesses.
“How can I get more clients?” is the universal question asked by thousands of coaches worldwide.
With trust being the most valuable currency in the coaching world, without a solid social proof and branding, you might be leaving thousands of dollars on the table. With that said, keep in mind that it is your returning, loyal clients that should become your main focus if you want to scale and attract new ones.
Social proof in the form of customer reviews and testimonials will create a strong foundation for your success as a coach and will help you build a reputation in your niche.
In this article we will show you best strategies for getting more customers’ reviews and leveraging their power to win more clients in the months to come.
Ready?
Let’s get started.
Optimizing your content to ease the process
Your website is your business card.
It’s the first thing that your potential customers see when asking themselves “should I start working with him/her?” and your landing page should scream loudly “yes!” Including testimonials can help you do exactly that.
If you already run a blog, you have the perfect platform to build a solid strategy for acquiring reviews and testimonials more easily. Here’s what you can do:
Integrate a “customer review form” within your content strategy
Fact: The best way to get something is to ask.
Your audience, including your existing customers, interacts with your content on a regular basis. Whether it is reading your blog articles or email newsletters, each interaction gives you an opportunity to encourage them to leave a review.
A good idea is to introduce a simple form that asks for their feedback and/or testimonial about their coaching experience.
For example, you can calculate the Net Promoter Score or NPS: this is a management tool used by companies to measure their customer loyalty by asking a single question: “How likely are you to recommend company X to a friend or colleague?”
Create a dedicated landing page with reviews and testimonials
If you’ve been offering your services to the public long enough, there is a chance that you’ve already acquired a fair number of testimonials. You might not be able to fit them all on your main landing page.
In this case, the next step in making the process more efficient is to create a dedicated landing page where visitors can both read and leave the reviews.
LawRank does this well on its homepage by creating a dedicated section to display multiple reviews via a carousel slider. Here is an example of that in action:
Here again, you can use a simple form or a pop-up that will engage them to write a few words about your services and encourage others to reach out. You can even play around creating a sort of “Hall of Fame” for your clients who achieved great results with your help.
Don’t be shy to promote them and their success because, ultimately, that’s the best promotion of your skills as a coach.
Use chatbots to automate the process
Lastly, don’t forget to use the aid of technology to automate as much as you can. With chatbots, you can design the whole flow of acquiring reviews effortlessly.
Best chatbots can work similarly to pop-ups, surveys and quizzes all in one, engaging the right people at the right time by asking for their feedback and collecting it.
With more than 69 percent of consumers preferring to use chatbots in comparison to any other form of interaction with a brand, they can serve as a great tool for acquiring reviews and learning more about your clients.
Giving something valuable back
In an ideal world, people would be leaving detailed reviews and testimonials each time they enjoyed using your services. After all, if they found it beneficial, they would want the rest of the world to know about it, right?
Wrong.
In reality, we are all busy hustling and trying to stay productive. Time is money. If we don’t clearly see the benefit of doing something, for example, sharing our positive coaching experiences with others, we simply won’t feel inclined to do it.
Yes, you will come across clients who will want to express their gratitude and will write you a one-page long testimonial about how great you are, but 98 percent of them won’t.
That is, unless, you give them a good reason to do it.
Offering even a small incentive can really help you convince more clients to write up a few words of testimonial for you.
Here’s what you can do:
- Offer a discount for future services
- Share access to pro course or additional materials
- Send a gift card
- Offer a free coaching assessment
Just take a look at the Growth Rings Coaching Assessment offered by EcSell Institute that was created in minutes using Pointerpro. You could create a similar one and give it away for free.
Warning: As coaching is a very specific industry where personalization matters a lot, make sure that you use the right message to facilitate the process of collecting reviews and testimonials. A good idea might be to get on 1:1 calls with your best clients and discuss with them their expectations. You don’t want to come across as someone “salesy” or ingenuine.
Creating a free event
Fact: If people don’t know you exist, they won’t be able to use your services.
You might not be a professional marketer, but as an entrepreneur trying to promote your services, you need to learn a few tips and tricks that can help you gain some visibility.
First, consider these two investments of time and energy that can yield awesome results for building your personal brand and acquiring customer reviews in the long run.
Webinars
What’s a better way to create trust than to meet with someone face-to-face and answer their most burning questions?
When running an online coaching business, webinars serve as one of the best mediums to make it happen. Going live to interact with your audience is a surefire way to build a better relationship with them and to promote your services, too.
You could even make a whole series targeted at different customer segment and let your clients choose, like below:
When hosting a webinar, you can offer some special deals to your existing client base in exchange for writing you an online review. This might be a good way to encourage them to give you a testimonial as it includes an attractive incentive.
Use webinars as your platform to grow your personal brand as well as a way of introducing the feedback culture. Communicating to your audience that their opinion matters to you does two things: shows that you care and want to develop as a coach and instills in them the belief that their feedback can be useful for other people, too.
Online conference
An alternative to a more personalized, face-to-face online meeting with your audience is participating in a more open event—a video conference.
Online conferences are great for building relationships and boosting your authority in the industry. It’s also yet another way to collect feedback and ask for testimonials. Perhaps you can offer free consultations to chosen participants in exchange for their honest online review afterwards.
Don’t be shy—get yourself out there and start growing your online audience like a pro.
Using referral marketing to kill two birds with one stone (get reviews and attract new clients)
Lastly, don’t forget about the power of the good ol’ word-of-mouth.
Referral marketing is a great way to collect more online reviews for your coaching and as a result, to bring more clients to your business. It’s also great for ensuring higher retention rates and loyalty.
All you have to do is set up a program for your best clients and promote it as a win-win opportunity for both sides (because it is). With a solid referral program you will be able to reach a wider circle of people.
If someone read a great opinion about your coaching services on your website—that’s great, they might be interested in reaching out.
But imagine if they read several outstanding reviews about the results people achieve when under your guidance on 10 more independent websites.
They will think, “Wow, there must be something about him/her.”
And that’s the power of referral marketing in practice. In fact, setting up a referral program will turbocharge your reviews strategy and help you grow your audience real fast. It’s like killing two birds with one stone, without any risks involved.
You can promote your online coaching referral program in an old-fashioned way—via 1:1 chats or automate it and scale up a bit using chatbots, email marketing, and webinars.
Acquiring online reviews—It can be easy
All in all, collecting testimonials from your coaching clients can be challenging but doesn’t have to be a struggle. With the right mindset, tools, and strategy you can encourage your clients to spend a few minutes writing a valuable review that you can use to grow your brand.
The most important thing to remember is to get over the fear of simply asking. Many of your clients have certainly benefited from your services—they are just waiting for a gentle nudge to share this with the world.
Whether you offer an incentive, get organic reviews thanks to strong relationships, or start a referral program to get more reviews—don’t underestimate the power of social proof in growing your business.
Good luck!
