How to Use Social Proof Effectively to Drive Website Conversions
Understanding the Why and How of Social Proof for Online influence and Persuasion
Customers do not trust you!
Period!
This is the first lesson marketers must learn!
According to a research study of professional integrity done in 2015 by IpsosOTX, only 4% of respondents believed that the marketing industry behaved with integrity…
In fact, the only other profession that ranked higher than the marketing industry was The US Congress.
When you consider the volume of promises politicians make and don’t keep you’d realize how low, trust is for marketers.
Consumers believe that every marketing campaign is designed to get them to spend money and that marketers will go any length to ensure they part with money including twisting the facts, exaggeration, and outright untruth.
In reality, Marketing is about taking customers on a journey of promised transformation that will culminate in opening their wallets.
And even though that shouldn’t necessarily involve dishonesty or untruth by marketers, some of them resort to high-pressure and underhand tactics that are not exactly ethical to meet this goal.
In the past, they could get away with this, but not anymore.
The internet changed everything!
A new crop of consumers emerged that were immune to high-pressure underhand tactics and were determined to have a say in the way there were sold.
These consumers no longer relied on what marketers told them about the products and services they sold to prod them to make buying decisions.
They not only insisted on experiencing the products themselves, they also wanted to give voice to their experience.
If a product or service fell below expectations, they swiftly alerted other consumers immediately to avoid it.
If they were delighted, other customers heard too.
This has kept marketers on their toes and driven unscrupulous elements out of the industry.
Finally, the power to influence buying decisions no longer resided with marketers alone.
The consumer now had the power to shape the perception of other buyers concerning products and services in the market place.
However, rather than view the democratization of product messaging as contrary and the relationship with consumers as adversarial, smart marketers have used the opportunity to leverage the newfound power of the consumer to win more business.
The power of social proof has become a veritable tool of influence and persuasion because marketers realize that consumers are persuaded 12X more by other consumers than by marketing.
SOCIAL PROOF
The internet has democratized information and with it, platforms have arisen that amplify the voice of consumers.
Social Media!
Marketers have lost the ability to make exaggerated claims about their products without a swift response from consumers.
Real-time product reviews and scoring systems now provide consumers with a voice to give honest appraisals of products and services they have purchased and experienced so that other consumers will make better buying decisions.
I can’t immediately tell which business pioneered this system, but online Behemoth, Amazon with its system of product review has definitely amplified the effectiveness of real-time product appraisal.
It may seem like a victory for consumers, however smart businesses have also seen it as an opportunity for continuous product improvement.
Subpar products can quickly be withdrawn from the market for improvement or production discontinued totally.
This feedback system provides businesses with a market listening system so they can make better data-driven product quality improvements.
The focus here, however, is to highlight ways to improve conversion for the marketer using the voice of the customer.
HUMANS ARE SOCIAL
Humans are social in nature and there’s a primal instinct to protect one another from danger.
One other adaptation that humans have perfected is to determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct.
People trust things that are popular and are endorsed by other people we trust.
This is called Social Proof!
It is the idea that drives Amazon’s 5-star rating and review system.
Yelp and Tripadvisor also perform similar functions too.
Social Proof is a powerful tool of influence and Persuasion according to Persuasion expert Robert Cialdini who first described it in his seminal book- INFLUENCE.
Beyond the review and rating system that online businesses use as a cue for social proof, they are other ways marketers can provide cues to guide users to perform certain conversion actions.
When it comes to website conversion, people will be more persuaded if you show them that other people LIKE THEM are performing the same action you want them to carry out.
Things like testimonials, reviews, ratings are way more effective when they given by peers.
Humans are especially vulnerable when they are unsure and indecisive and so they look out for the reassurance of others like them who’ve taken the steps they’re about to take.
The Number One Task for marketers is to identify their audience’s fears, anxieties, questions, and doubts and structure social proof to address these.
CRO and Growth Marketing Expert, Angie Schottmuller advocates using a useful framework she’s devised called The 6S Format to highlight Social Proof tangibly in numbers, words, and visuals.
The 6S Format of Social Proof
1. Sum it: Reviews should be quantified in concrete language. How many people signed up exactly?
2. Score it: Use qualitative details too. For instance, you can state the percentage of satisfied customers with as well the score in a rating system if your industry has one.
3. Say it: This has to do with reviews- Expert Q & A using audio clips or podcasts.
4. Sign it: Who said it? State sources of ratings and reviews clearly. Badges and Date stamps will come in handy here.
5. Show it: This involves, symbols, star ratings, checkmarks, thumbs up, logo endorsements including photos and videos shared by real customers.
6. Shine it: Approval seals, Badges, Custom awards.
After identifying the audience’s fears and doubts, the next logical step is to inventory the way to address and deal with these fears using this 6S format.
Even though most of the steps in the 6S format will overlap, it doesn’t detract from the fact that it is a useful framework to structure social proof in ways that are meaningful and relevant.
In using Social proof as a tool for persuasion and influence, marketers should always rank quality over quantity.
Angie Schottmuller also has a scorecard she uses to rate the quality of Social Proof.
7 Factors of Social Proof Persuasion Quality
1. Credible
2. Relevant
3. Attractive
4. Visual
5. Enumerated
6. Nearby
7. Specific
Using a rating system where, Bad= -5, Missing=0, OK=1, Good= 2, Exceptional=3, Angie advocates that we use this CRAVENS scorecard to grade and compare social proof persuasive quality.
Other tips you can use to make social proof more effective:
1. Use precise numbers when you are quoting figures. Precise numbers are more trusted, believable, and less likely to be inflated. Rather than say, “over 100,000 business owners have signed up for this service”, say, “101,233 business owners have signed up for this service”.
Which seems more believable, 100,000, or 101,233?
I thought so too!
2. Always tie Social Proof the greatest benefit your product or service promises. For instance, when using testimonials, only relevant and meaningful ones that tie into your USP should be displayed.
3. Photos and Videos decrease the likelihood of falsehood. Use them frequently as it humanizes the brand more.
4. If possible, express social proof using emotional language.
5. Avoid using Social Proof for items that thrive on exclusivity e.g Luxury goods/services, status symbols, arts, and craftworks.
In conclusion, the bottom line is that when it comes to online persuasion and influence, the audience will always be more persuasive than the marketer.
But he can effectively use that fact to his advantage.
This is the 5th Post in a series of 12 Review Posts I’m doing for my mini-degree in Digital Psychology and Persuasion at CXL Institute. You can find the 4th post here
