Because 92 per cent of people will trust a recommendation from a peer
Imagine this: It’s dinner time — and in front of you, there are two restaurants. Both are very similar to one another, except restaurant A has a long waiting list, while restaurant B is empty.
Most people will conclude that restaurant A must be the better of the two. Why?
Because according to psychologists, people rely their decisions upon the feedback and actions of others in an attempt to determine the right and wrong in a given situation.
This decision-making influence has been widely coined as ‘social proof’.
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Using social proof to your advantages
Social proof has become one of the best marketing strategies. It is in your best interest to fully utilise social proof to increase credibility, conversions, and eventually sales.
Here are five practical strategies you can apply to expand your market and eventually sales — using the principle of social proof.
1. Display Numbers in CTAs
The most common method of building social proof is to show the number of people engaging with your website and product.
Wait But Why, a very popular website from Tim Urban and Andrew Finn, shows how big their email list and number of social media followers are on the right side of the page.
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Now you know that simply displaying the numbers would boost your credibility, it is important to bear this in mind:
It may be a better option to take out your social media proof if you perceive the counts as too low; it gives a clear notion to your reader that you are not trustworthy. So if you decide to include your social media proof, make sure the numbers are impressive –and real.
Pro tip: you can change to creative copy, for example changing from “Number of Facebook Page Followers + Twitter” to “People Who Love Us”.
To support this strategy, Facebook tailors a widget to display the number of your Facebook followers and likes in your web page — and even better, the widget will show the number of user’s friends who have liked your Facebook Page.
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On top of that, make it relevant to your CTAs.
For instance, if you want their email address, show them the number of subscribers you have. If you want them to follow your social media accounts, show them the number of social media followers.
2. Show testimonials, ratings, and reviews
Testimonials, ratings, and reviews are very effective tools for social proof. According to Nielsen, 92 per cent of people will trust a recommendation from a peer.
This number testifies that recommendations are far more effective than brand advertisements.
Therefore, marketplace websites such as eBay also display ratings and reviews on the sellers’ pages.
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According to one study, 77 per cent online shoppers base their eBay purchase decisions on reviews from other customers.
Here are the logic: People are looking at an item. They cannot see and feel the item, thus the increasing anxiety. To dismiss their anxiety, they take a look at other people’s experiences, and copy their actions.
It would be quite challenging to earn your visitors’ trust if what you are selling was a service.
But a design crowdsourcing website such as Sribu has done a fantastic job by putting text and video testimonials from relevant clients who have experienced their products on the home page.
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Believe it or not: the most effective trick to increase the weight of testimonials, ratings, and reviews is to put a face to the words. High quality pictures of other satisfied users are more likely to increase trust in new users.
3. Ask for endorsements from experts and influencers
Nowadays, you may find endorsements as social proof tool in social media. Through tagging, endorsements can act as more trustworthy reviews and testimonials. Why?
Simply said, a praise would sound more honest if it came from an external source compared to from someone’s bragging about himself, right?
You can start by making a list of experts and influencers who are relevant to your industry —and whose social media followers are also your target market.
Next, develop a concept. Do you want it to be inspirational? Or do you want it to be a success story?
And then lastly, ask them to give you a shout-out by tagging your social media account in the picture and caption.
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Manuka Doctor aced the celebrity social proof strategy for their product called honey line.
It gained huge popularity after Kourtney Kardashian used it on her reality show. This strategy communicates the brand’s values and market as leading position – and later on, Kourtney Kardashian becomes their brand ambassador.
Supported by her strong maternal persona, the brand created an unique and iconic shots for the campaign. Was it successful?
Since the first image was published online, Manuka Doctors’ Instagram followers went up by 460 per cent from 2,500 to 14,000 in only a month.
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4. Show them how legit you are
The classic social proof strategy is to mention all medias in which you have been featured. This means that you may include any publications that have mentioned or interviewed your brand.
Sribu puts this in their media section:
The key is to get featured in top media — and if you haven’t been featured anywhere at the moment, get proactive in big publications so that you may include them in your website.
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5. Give out case studies and proven solution
The market only cares about one thing: how you can help them solve their problems — and that’s exactly what you should show them: put real cases and solutions.
If you are thinking that your website will look really boring with this strategy, you might want to look at Pinterest:
If you go to the homepage of Pinterest, a popular online inspirational catalog, you can see how they compile the things they can do for you — if you join Pinterest.
In this case, they show that they are entitled to help you find anything you want with all sorts of inspiration — and other people before you have successfully done so.
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In conclusion
Building social proof is essential but may discourage you during the early stage of implementation.
It is because social proof grows exponentially — the first quarter of growth may seem insignificant, but once you reach a certain point, it begins to grow much faster without having to put in more effort.
Still, it goes without saying that social proof is considered as one of the most effective tools in marketing. It is a classic advertising strategy — and now is the time to fit them into the digital world.
There are five ways to dive in and use them as part of your marketing strategy: display numbers in CTAs; show testimonials, ratings, and reviews; utilise experts and influencer endorsements; expose where you have been featured on; and give case studies and proven solution.
Use it right, and it will ripple the segment of existing market that will expand users and increase conversions.
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Image Credit: 123RF Stock Photo
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