Customer reviews marketing is an excellent way to attract students to your online course.

How many times have you made up your mind and decided to buy something on Amazon only to scroll down to the customer reviews section and back off? It has happened more than once, hasn’t it? It has happened to all of us. This is a simple proof of how much we value the opinions of our fellow customers more than the marketing communication of brands and marketplaces. 

Your prospective students are very likely to show the same behaviors when trying to decide whether or not they should buy your course/courses. So, it is important to make sure they see the honest opinions of other students across your academy’s digital touchpoints to give them to confidence to buy your course. Let’s look at the top five ways to achieve this.

But first, let’s look at why you should use customer reviews marketing

• 92% of users will trust a business with a rating of at least 4
• Search engine algorithms look at customer reviews. The more the number of reviews you get for your course, the better will be the indication that the business is legitimate and reliable. Positive reviews can also improve your search engine rankings. 
• When people see positive reviews about your course on social media, they will want to check out your website. 
• The most important benefit comes in the form of honest critical reviews about your course. Use them to make changes wherever necessary.
• Customer is likely to spend 31% more on a business with excellent reviews 

How to make use of student reviews 

The following are the best ways in which you can make the best use of hard-earned student reviews to market your online course/academy.

Put reviews on the main pages 

A recent study showed that 84% of customers trust reviews just as much as they trust personal recommendations. The same study showed that the average customer reads up to 10 reviews before buying a product/service. This points to one thing – people want to learn from other people’s experiences before buying something.

Your best bet is to use social proofing to creating compelling experiences. Gain trust by showcasing your current student’s experiences with your course and you a tutor. Put reviews up on the main web pages of your website including the homepage, product description page, checkout page, and other high traffic pages. Placing reviews here shows you are transparent and gives website visitors the extra encouragement to complete a purchase. 

If your students have left you their testimonials about your course/academy, make the best out of them. Not only can you put them on the main pages discussed above, but you can also create a whole webpage titled “Students Speak” or “What our students have to say”. Add this to the footer of all your web pages so that it is always within the reach of your website visitors. Why? The footer is the place where people automatically scroll to when they need specific information like Contact Details, About Us, and Customers. It logically makes sense to link your testimonials page to the footer.  

Use them in search ads

As mentioned earlier, reviews can also help you get better search engine rankings. The algorithms of the most popular search engines including Google and Bing don’t just rank pages based on how well you optimize your listings. They also take into account what others have to say about your business. 

Reviews can show prospective students how well your course/academy can meet student’s expectations. Also, updating your content with fresh information on a regular basis can help you get the coveted Rich Snippets and better search engine rankings for your target keywords – improving your brand’s visibility on search engines. 

The orange stars, the number of reviews, and the rating on your search ads are important feedback information. For example, an Ad with an 8/10 rating and over a thousand reviews will do much better than an Ad with just an 8.5/10 rating and 100 reviews. This will help you build trust and stand apart from other ads and listings to build trust earlier on even before they land on your website. 

Use customer voice on social media

One of the greatest marketing successes will be if you can get your existing customers to interact with prospective customers. Other than using search engines, people also turn to social media to see what people are saying about a brand they are interested in. Also, a quarter of users will follow a brand they wish to buy from on various social media platforms. That is why it is important to showcase customer feedback on your social media. 

Sharing third-party validation on social media helps your increase your online academy’s brand credibility, can boost brand engagement, and improve the company’s bottom-line performance. Don’t let the post be a simple text post. Create an image and try to include a photo of your student against their respective reviews. Also, get their permission to see if you can tag them on the post. This way, they will be compelled to share the post for their network to see. 

Use them in emails 

Email still remains one of the most profitable digital channels for customer reviews marketing. Adding customer reviews to an already powerful channel will reap more benefits. 

Not only will it build credibility, but also improve important metrics including click-through rates and conversion rates. It is also one of the easiest ways to reach prospective customers. Therefore, it is a great idea to showcase on your emails what others have to say about your brand and their personal experiences. It also sets the right level of expectation from your academy. 

Use them in traditional ads and marketing material

As per Trustpilot’s data, a staggering 88% of customers believe Ads to be more trustworthy when they have online reviews on them. Another research also showed that Ads with consumer-generated content like reviews get four times more click-through rates than Ads that don’t have any. It is clear how important reviews are for marketing communication. 

Further Reading: Marketing your online courses – Tips and Tricks

What is Learnyst and how we can help?

We are a homegrown Learning Management System provider committed to helping educators start and grow their online academies. Thousands of educators across the country already use our suite of services. 

Use our extensive product features to create a custom course from scratch and upload them on a custom website hosted on our platform. The websites we build for you will be SEO optimized out of the box; making it easy for your prospective students to find you on search engines. To provide a better digital learning experience for your students, we also create a mobile app for your academy. 

If you would like to use third-party applications for other business activities like marketing (MailChimp), you can easily integrate them into Learnyst. To know more about us and how we can help you, contact us now!