How to Convert Skeptical Prospects with Social Proof
Converting skeptical prospects into loyal customers can be incredibly painful when you are not doing the right things.
You could give everything, and yet 99% of people who visit your website may not buy.
You may sit down and think that you’ve “given them so much value and they are still walking away.”
Digital marketing is a highly competitive field. It’s more competitive than the offline world because of the ease of starting a business online.
Interest in digital marketing increased dramatically over the last decade, according to Google Trends.
To compete in the digital world and turn skeptical prospects into customers, you need one thing.
It’s called social proof.
What is social proof?
According to Wikipedia:
“Social proof is a psychological and social phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior in a given situation.”
When many people are doing something, you’ll consider it the right thing to do.
Social proof is important when marketing online because prospects rely on the feedback and actions of others to determine what is right or wrong in a given situation.
When you visit the site of Go Smart Solar, a company that does both commercial and residential solar panel installation in San Antonio, Texas, you’ll see the logos of the companies they’ve worked with. That’s social proof.
So, how do you use social proof to convert prospects into customers and loyal fans of your brand?
Earth Class Mail uses social proof. The company helps businesses go paperless by digitizing their mails. They help you manage your mail like email. And the site shows that companies like Lyft, Expensify and BookKeeping USA use their service.
Publish case studies on your website
People spend 46.9% of their waking hours daydreaming, according to a study by Harvard.
“A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” — Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert, psychologists at Harvard
The best way to capture a wandering mind is to tell stories.
Case studies are the best stories you can share with customers.
Most blog posts that are being published on the web every single day are rehashed. They are not new ideas.
Case studies carry more weight with buyers because they’ve not seen them before.
Your case study is unique and new. That makes it interesting to prospects.
For example, Ryan Stewart published a case study, explaining how he took Laces Out’s organic search traffic from zero to 1,155,763 in six months.
This is a unique story no one had seen before Ryan published it.
Case studies like this are a great way to tell the world how valuable your products or services are.
You show prospects real-live examples of how you helped a client achieved their goals.
By using case studies, you highlight your success in a way that makes a prospect wants to become your customer.
Circle Surrogacy, one of the top surrogacy agencies in the United States also publish case studies on their blog in the form of testimonials from both surrogates and parents.
Here are the points you must include in every case study you publish on your website:
- Write the name of the sample customer and what they do
- State the sample customer’s goal in the case study
- State the sample customer’s needs in the case study
- Take readers through the step-by-step process of how you helped the sample customer achieve their goals and meet their needs.
If you may, you could also do a follow-up case study a few months later narrating how your product or service continues to benefit the customer in the long term.
For example, Push Crew published a case study showing how their tool helped Leadpages gain 6,000 new subscribers and increase their click-through rate by 25%.
Shopify published a case study, detailing how LilGadgets used their service to increase conversions by 38.3%.
Inside the case study, Shopify shared everything their prospects need to know about the sample customer.
A case study is a social proof that convinces people to buy your product without pushing for the sale.
Big Sun Solar sells and installs solar panels in San Antonio. Although they don’t publish actual case studies on their site, they still show you through a calculator how much you can save on energy depending on how much you spend right now. The calculator is a perfect case study for any prospect who wants to know if solar energy will work for them.
Collect and show customer testimonials
It’s one thing to write about your customers and how your product or service is helping them.
It’s another thing to let the customers rave about your business, using their own words.
Customers’ testimonials are another powerful form of social proof, which when used, could turn lots of prospects into customers.
“A brand is no longer what we tell customers it is — it is what customers tell each other it is.” — Scott Cook, co-founder of Intuit
Your current customers are your hidden wealth and most important asset.
Prospects form their own opinions of a brand within the first 8 seconds of their visits. That means you have 8 seconds to impress a skeptical prospect.
You can use those 8 seconds to show what current customers are saying about your business.
Karen Brody offers relationship coaching to men. When you visit her website, you’ll see testimonials from her clients.
Consumers believe testimonials than what you say.
Testimonials are probably the cheapest, but the most valuable marketing tool you can use to grow your business within a very short time.
Yum Yum Videos, an explainer video company based in Argentina, created a customer testimonial video and posted it to YouTube.
In the video, a Yum Yum’s customer explained their experience working with the company.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pi25ozkBw8
The above video has been viewed over 1,000 times.
Testimonial videos like this have helped the company win popular brands like Red Bull, American Express and Heinz as customers.
Green Socks, a lawn mowing service in Australia collects and displays customers’ testimonials on their website.
Add the customer’s identity to make the testimonial genuine.
Never make up a customer testimonial.
Let the customers speak for themselves using their own voice or writing style.
Checking their Google Analytics report, Orbit Media claims their testimonials page is the 31st most popular page on their website.
People care about this page because it tells them what customers are saying about their services.
Nicholas A. Parr, a Maryland lawyer that deals with car accident, personal injury and DUI cases displays customer testimonials on his website.
Use numbers in your sales copy
Numbers grab people’s attention on the web.
It’s probably the reason why web users love list-style posts like:
- 15 Common Words You Probably Didn’t Realize You’ve Been Pronouncing Incorrectly
- 13 Types of Annoying Co-Workers — Make Sure You’re Not One of Them!
Numbers can also be used to show social proof because people pay attention to numbers.
For example, when you visit Buffer’s homepage, they tell you that over 4 million marketers are using their services.
Their use of numbers as a social proof isn’t limited to their homepage alone.
They also use numbers when trying to make you join their newsletter.
Numbers like these grab people’s attention on your website.
ProofLeads uses numbers as a form of social proof on their homepage too.
These numbers will impress anyone who lands on their website.
Big numbers like these impress prospects because it shows people are buying your product or using your service.
Get featured in major media publications
Getting your company mentioned in the news, or established sites are social proof.
Lots of people read those major newspapers and sites.
ShoeBoxed helps scan and organize their receipts online. The company has been featured in major publications like the New York Times, PC Mag, and Time Magazine. That helps the company sell.
By getting your business featured in the media, you’ll win the hearts of prospects who are still questioning the trustworthiness of your brand.
When your business appears on major publications prospects read, they’ll start to see your company as an authority in its niche.
The best publications to get featured are the ones your ideal customers read.
If you’re a global business like HMH Ship, a parcel forwarding company based in Ohio, you could appear on international sites like Entrepreneur.com, USA Today, Business Insider and the Huffington Post.
But if you’re a local business like Elville and Associates, an estate planning and elder law firm based in Maryland, you’ll want to appear in local publications like The Baltimore Sun, The Herald-Mail and The Daily Record.
For example, Elville and Associates was mentioned in The Baltimore Sun, the largest-general circulation daily newspaper in Maryland.
Mentions like this will boost the company’s reputation and increase awareness for its services.
You can display the logos of the top media publications you or your business has appeared on your homepage as Stephanie Carls does on her site:
Display trust seals, industry certifications and affiliations
First, you need to help people feel safe while they are on your site.
How do you do that?
Install an SSL certificate on your website.
An SSL certificate makes your site has “https” before its address instead of the ordinary “http.”
Https tells web users that your website is safe to browse without the fear of getting hacked.
Here’s how it looks like in the Firefox browser for the URL of Nielsen Professional Insurance Services, Inc., a local business that offers insurance services in California, New York, and Texas.
The padlock is green.
And here’s how an insecure site looks like:
If you click on the exclamation mark that shows in Chrome browser for insecure sites, you’ll see this message:
While having “https” in front of your domain name isn’t a social proof, it ensures that visitors feel safe on your site.
Digital Ocean has written a comprehensive guide that will teach you everything you need to know about installing an SSL certificate.
Your SSL certificate provider will give you a trust seal you can display on your website.
You should also show your industry affiliations to give prospects more reasons they should choose your business.
For example, Elville and Associates display their affiliations.
Industry affiliations and certifications are a form of social proof too. They tell potential clients that your business can be trusted.
Social proof is one of the essential things you need when selling online.
A business with a few or zero social proof has a less chance of turning skeptical prospects into customers.
If you don’t want visitors to think twice about doing business with you, start using the combination of these social proof types that are listed on this page.
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