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Social proof and how to use it to increase your sales conversions

Are you getting a lot of website traffic but few conversions? Maybe you need some more calls to action or social proof to encourage customers to buy?   Social proof is the act of using reviews and social prompts to validate the use of a product or service. According to a 2020 survey by BrightLocal, 82% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses before making a purchasing decision.

So let’s make sure your business is harnessing the power of this tool to maximise conversions on your website or social media. We’ve listed a few ways that you can use social proof in your business (or ask us to help you implement them if you’d rather focus on what you do best, and outsource the rest!).

  1. Positive reviews or testimonials

This is the most common and well-known tool for social proof because it works! You can manually ask your customers to give a testimonial and add it to your website home page, or you can request Google reviews via your Google Knowledge Panel. However you get them, make sure you show off the best ones wherever you can and display your overall rating. And the more reviews the better: according to the same study, 67% of consumers will read approximately 6 reviews before forming an opinion on a business.

Don’t worry if your Google reviews or TripAdvisor page gets a bad review every now and again, just make sure you reply promptly and with respect so others can see you handled it (and look into making sure that situation doesn’t happen again).

  1. Social media fan base

While this is not the most important factor when looking for a business to support, your social media following is still a factor. People like to follow the crowd and if your brand has a substantial following on social accounts, it increases the legitimacy of your brand in their eyes. It’s also important for these accounts to have relevant and engaging content so that followers don’t look like they were gathered by sinister means.

Social proof is also responsible for the fact that it’s easier to go from 10k to 20k followers than it is to go from 0k to 10k. As soon as users start to see other people following a brand, it’s easier for them to follow suit. Talk to us if you’d like to find out how to increase your social media following.

  1. Influencer endorsements

Influencers are typically people on social media who have a large following and engaged fans, they can be celebrities or just regular people who endorse brands on their social media accounts. If you want to get an influencer or celebrity endorsement for your brand, you’ll need to consider your target market’s demographic, and then choose a relevant partner based on their audience. In addition, you would need to pay these influencers or offer free products or services.

Keep in mind that it’s more important to find someone to endorse your brand that fits with your brand values and is relevant to your product or service than someone who just has a large following. Take a look at how we used influencers to help our client Solenco increase their sales.

  1. Subscribers or customer counts

This is not relevant for every business but is important if you can show how many customers use your product or service. For example, if you have an app, you can show how many people have downloaded it on your website. Or, if you just want to showcase your clients, you can include a section that displays your most well-known clients such as on our client page.

  1. Awards or recognition 

Of course, the easiest way to show that your company is trustworthy or has a bit of clout is by showcasing any awards or industry recognition. This can also be an industry board or group that you belong to that shows your customers that an organisation recognises you as a business and therefore this gives you more credibility.

So as you can see, these are all great options for increasing conversions on your website. If any of these things sound like something you want to implement for your business and you don’t know how, just give us a call and we can help you implement the most relevant options for your business.

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