How to Get More Testimonials for Your Martial Arts School
January 15, 2009 by Ryan Wheaton
Filed under Online Marketing
Using testimonials in your marketing efforts is a simple yet effective way to help convince others that you are a credible and trustworthy martial arts school. Your prospects want to know other people, real people, use your service and like what you have to offer. The real trick is how to get them from your students so your prospects can read them.
Read on to learn how to get more testimonials for your martial arts school in 8 easy steps.
Why you should be using testimonials
Adding testimonials to your marketing materials is an incredibly powerful marketing persuasion technique. It helps people gain confidence in you and also solidifies that you are a real company with happy customers.
The real trick is figuring out how to actually get them from your students.
Here is my experience on how I collect my testimonials to help you get started.
What got me thinking about this post is that it’s been a while since I added new testimonials to my website. So, I wanted to gather some feedback from my new and excited students and use their feedback to 1) help improve my martial arts school and 2) use their positive feedback to help attract new prospects.
A while back, I wrote about How to Get Testimonials that Influence Prospective New Martial Arts Students to Join. Up to now, I printed out my 6 question survey I refer to in that post and asked my students to fill it out.
Response has always been “good”, but I wanted to make it easier on my students to give me their honest feedback. Plus, I wanted to make it easier to add to website and marketing materials.
Asking them to fill out a form on paper isn’t as easy as filling it out online. So, I did an online version using SurveyMonkey.com to help make the process easier on everyone.
According to their website, Survey Monkey enables anyone to create professional online surveys quickly and easily.
And, I couldn’t agree more.
Develop a survey in 25 minutes or less
In less than 15 minutes I had my survey online and a link to put in my email. Within 25 minutes I had written the email and sent a batch to my newest students. 70% responded within 72 hours after I sent the email. And, I’m still getting more trickle in. I just added nearly 10 powerfully persuasive testimonials to my site for less than a half hour of my time.
Be sure to send an email explicitly asking for permission to use their feedback as a testimonial. DO NOT add their feedback to your site or marketing marketing materials without their permission otherwise you will break their trust and NEVER get them to do anything like this again for you.
In my request, I asked for permission and told them why I thought their testimonial would be valuable. Giving people a specific reason helps them give you concent.
How effective is this technique?
I have received a 100% acceptance rate on my requests to use the feedback. Everyone has been more than happy to let me use their feedback to help attract other martial arts students.
Adding testimonials can make the difference when a prospect is comparing your school to your competitors; especially if your competitors aren’t using this very persusasive marketing technique.
Steps to sending an online feedback survey:
- Create a free account on SurveyMonkey.com. You will not be charged if you have less than 100 respondents.
- Create and save your 5-6 question survey. Be sure to include a field for their name.
- Write a personal email asking your students to give you their feedback and that you value their honest opinion of your martial arts school. Most students will jump at the change to tell you what they think.
- Insert the survey link into your email. You can get this from within your SurveyMonkey.com account.
- Send your email to your students.
- Respondents will then submit their feedback and it will be captured in your SurveyMonkey.com account.
- Send a follow up email thanking them for participating and also to ask for permission to use their feedback in your marketing materials.
- Once permission has been granted in writing, add them to your marketing materials!
Pretty simple, huh?
Popularity: 4%
Loading ...
I'm Ryan Wheaton and I work with martial arts school owners to help them attract more students. Many martial arts school owners are confused at how to best market their business and feel awkward in selling situations. I help them overcome those challenges to become confident and competent in marketing and selling their services - helping them become more profitable so they can live the lifestyle they want to live.