Use social proof on your website
Use social proof on your website
1. Add three testimonials that talk about the benefits, use your core keywords, and address actual objections on your landing page.
Don’t just praise your product or counter non-existent objections, it won’t help you convert as well as targeted messaging will. To counter objections, ask yourself, what are the reasons someone might not convert? Rotate the testimonials and test the copy, design, and placement, to see which combination works best. Leave social network badges off landing pages. Save them for the Thank you page.
2. Use social proof like testimonials and data points, to support the argument you’re making through your landing page.
Use testimonials from industry authorities. This can convince the prospect such as a member of a narrow market segment, to choose to opt-in for your freebie or to buy your product.
3. Include social proof in areas of friction like near pricing, next to claims that seem exaggerated, or next to a call to action.
Use social proof as supporting copy in relevant, visible places to improve conversions. Place testimonials that help visualize post‑purchase improvements, near a call to action. Don’t replace critical copy, such as copy in headlines, with social proof.
4. Include photos, full names, professions, roles, companies, links to Twitter profiles, and examples of what you have done for the customers, when using testimonials.
Give your product or service away for free to influencers in your community or industry and ask them for feedback. Ask bloggers or reporters to review your product or service. Find and use a quote from an influencer backing up the bigger picture concept.
5. Use reviews for products that are overly technical or in industries that are crowded or highly competitive.
Check forums and review sites like Yelp and Google regularly, to monitor what’s being said about you and use it. For catalog ecommerce sites, if you have ratings and reviews, display the stars and review counts near product images to increase buying confidence.
6. Use case studies if you are marketing B2B software or agency services to showcase the results.
The case studies are data-driven, in-depth analysis of the product or service you provided a current customer with.
7. Use positive things people say about your product or service via social media for example, in the form of tweets, Facebook posts, and Instagram comments.
For example, Social Media Examiner uses social proof on their conference landing page to show how many people are talking about the event year-round. This type of social proof is most effective for B2C products and services, but that doesn’t mean it never works for B2B.
8. Combine numbers such as customers served, number of invites remaining, blog readers, and social followers, with another type of social proof to encourage conversions.
Try improving the X customers served style social proof by showing how people have recently used your product or service. For example, not only have X customers been served, but these five customers recently used the product or service to do Y. Or, X customers are currently using the product or service right now. Use social media counts only over a critical mass of followers. The order of the digits in follower and customer counts is surprisingly influential.
9. Try innovative ways of social proof.
Try with testimonials that support the story your landing page is telling instead of talking about the benefits or addressing objections. For example, ShipYourEnemiesGlitter‘s story was a little offensive, really funny and testimonials supported that. Try implying social proof instead of using it directly. For example, Timothy Sykes uses a “do you have what it takes?” style messaging in a way it looks like he doesn’t want you to take his course, you need to take his course.