Marketing Strategy · September 29, 2026 · 4 min read · Jaia Studio
How Do Clients Find Your Business?
Three questions to ask recent clients, and how their answers can help you decide what to change before spending more on marketing.
When bookings slow down, it's tempting to plan another promotion. Before you spend more, ask a few people who already booked how they found you, and what helped them decide.
Over the summer, Jaia Studio heard from a wave of new clients. They were in different countries, and they had no connections in common. When we asked how they'd heard about us, they said ChatGPT. The tool's name was useful. It still didn't show what they looked at before they got in touch.
What happens after they hear your name
A person, a post, a search, or a tool can put you on someone's list. Booking depends on what they find after that.
Here's one path. People don't always move in this order.
Discovery
They hear your name, or they find a page.
Evaluation
They check whether a service, time, or fee fits.
Booking
They take the step that gets them in touch.
Ask five clients these three questions
Skip the survey tool. A short note is enough, and they can ignore it.
Ask these three, in this order:
How did you first hear about us?
What did you look at, or what did you do, between finding us and getting in touch?
What helped you decide to book?
If an answer is thin, ask one follow-up. What almost stopped you? Was there anything you couldn't find?
Here's a note you can copy:
Hi, I'm glad you booked with us. If you have a minute, could you tell me how you first heard about us, what you looked at before getting in touch, and what helped you decide? A sentence or two is plenty.
One note shows the missing sentence
This is a made-up studio, so you can watch a note turn into a page change. It isn't a Jaia Studio client.
Where they first heard
An AI answer mentioned the studio.
What they checked next
The class page and the pricing page.
What nearly stopped them
They couldn't tell whether the class was suitable for beginners.
What resolved the hesitation
They emailed, and the studio confirmed that beginners were welcome.
One improvement to investigate
Say that beginners are welcome, next to the class description and the booking button.
The fee was already on the site. The class page never said whether a beginner could come, so they emailed to ask. That sentence belongs next to the class description and the booking button.
The sheet above is filled in so you can see the shape. For your own clients, start with a blank file. Download the notes template (CSV).
Five replies won't describe everyone who looked and left. If the same snag shows up and it gets in the way of booking, open that page. If the booking step is clearly broken, fix that now.
An AI answer is not the booking
ChatGPT only named the studio. The class page, the fee, and the email still happened on the website.
If someone mentions an AI tool, write down the words they use. Don't suggest ChatGPT if they haven't said it.
If you already have analytics, look for ChatGPT beside your other sources. OpenAI's publisher FAQ says ChatGPT search adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to referral links. If that source isn't in your reports, it doesn't mean nobody asked. They may have heard the name and typed it in, or arrived another way.
Ask whoever looks after your website whether the important pages can be reached, and whether the service details are written as text on the page, not only inside an image. Google's description of search is crawl, then index, then show a result. None of those steps is guaranteed, even for Google.
A short technical note, if you need it. OpenAI's published bot list treats OAI-SearchBot and GPTBot as separate controls. OAI-SearchBot is the one tied to ChatGPT search answers. Opting out means the site won't be shown in those answers, though a navigational link can still appear. GPTBot is about model training. Turning one off doesn't turn off the other, and you don't need to allow every crawler.
A price, a FAQ, or a set of keywords doesn't guarantee that ChatGPT will recommend you. Clear service information still matters, because it's what someone can check once an answer sends them to your site.
Open the page they got stuck on
Open your site on your phone, the way a new client would, and match what you heard to one of these checks.
They couldn't tell which service was for them. Read that page as a newcomer. Can they pick the right class, session, or service without guessing?
They had to ask for a detail. A fee, a time, or who the service is for. Is it on the page before the enquiry?
They found the right service and then got stuck. Walk the booking path on your phone and see where it stops.
