A stronger relationship with the online community
The Institut Linguistique came to us with a clear objective: to ensure that their online reputation met the high quality of the English courses they offered. We proposed a strategy to collect positive reviews on Google to lift up the perceptions of current and future students.
SMS, reminders and optimizations
We came up with a multi-faceted strategy to attain ambitious results: a sequence of SMS messages to survey student opinions, refined automated sequences, strategic reminders and incentives to motivate people to make it to the end of the process. Then we tested, adjusted and optimized them to find the perfect custom combination to incite students to leave a positive review of the Institut Linguistique on Google.
Explosive figures
Divided into several sequences of messages, the SMS campaign was rolled out with 6,000 students over several months. Over half of them responded to the SMS survey, and nearly 11% left a positive review on Google. The icing on the cake was over 500 new reviews and a review average that rose from 3.5 to 4.2!
Such positive results were no accident. They were the end result of a well-designed strategy and a well-honed mechanic. Here’s how we drove up the online reputation of the Institut Linguistique:
- An automated SMS Sequence: using a messaging platform, an automatic SMS sequence was created that adapted each message according to student responses until finally satisfied students were asked to leave a review online.
- Calculated reminders: to maximize participation, reminders were carefully planned to be effective while avoiding drowning out the students with messages.
- Automatic sorting according to the students’ feelings: sorting the automatic responses according to the students’ feelings enabled us to guide them to the sequence’s next step, maximizing the chances that they would submit a review.
We also carried out in-depth testing to explore different variables:
- Days and times to send messages: thanks to tests on different days and times, we exploited the most advantageous time periods to contact students.
- The messages: the formulations were adjusted with a variety of approaches to incite the students to respond.
- Number of reminders: we found the perfect balance of number of messages sent out to maximize survey participation and the number of reviews posted.
- Personalization and depersonalization: we assessed the impact of personalization against a more generic approach to see which worked best.
- Affirmations vs. questions: we tested the messages as both statements and questions to assess which generated the best responses.
In summary, this project demonstrates that with the perfect mix of innovation and dedication, you can revolutionize an online reputation and drive exceptional results.
“Unlike the restaurant business, when it comes to learning institutions, it’s not natural for people to post their reviews on Google. So how could we transform the students’ positive feelings into concrete testimonials online? The success of the campaign depended on the right choice of channel and communication sequence. This is what enabled us to drive up the Institut linguistique’s online reputation. And I must say that it’s quite exhilarating to see Google reviews skyrocket with each new SMS sent!”
Benjamin Dumas-Boisvert, Partner - VP of the agency