MindValley Labs Internet Marketing Blog

Fol­low­ing this thought on social proof, I’ve been pon­der­ing it fur­ther and came up with a micro guide that may just change the way you think about the topic.

First off, let me get this off my chest: there’s more to social proof that just testimonials!

Ok, now, here’s a lit­tle illu­mi­na­tion before we get down and dirty.

The most pow­er­ful force in mar­ket­ing is buzz (which is why should con­sider a prelaunch process for every prod­uct you release). How exactly is buzz built? I’ve broadly defined buzz as the emer­gence of a com­mon topic among the col­lec­tive con­ver­sa­tions humans are hav­ing with each other at a given point in time.

When you and I learn that Harry and Sally are talk­ing about the same prod­uct launch as us, and then hear about another pair, and another… we become a part of the Buzz.

Almost all buzz is good buzz.

Now ask your­self, when you are about to make a deci­sion (lit­er­ally at the brink of it), what ques­tion is in your head? What are you think­ing about?

What can seal the deci­sion for you?

I would sug­gest that one of the most pow­er­ful influ­ences would be hear­ing from some­one else very sim­i­lar to you that has already made the pur­chase and can thus share the same good results hope­fully that you are look­ing for.

That’s social proof.

That’s see­ing some­one else mak­ing (or already made) the same deci­sion you’re about to make.

That’s some­thing to be a part of.

Social proof appeals to our nat­ural, very basic instinct to be a part of some­thing; a pack, a group, or a larger social unit. We’re hard wired to desire this — it’s pure, beau­ti­ful human nature.

Don’t believe me? What do you do before you buy some­thing? Look for reviews or oth­ers’ opin­ions. Bam. Social Proof.

And you can use this nugget to help peo­ple find their jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for buy­ing your product.

Kinds of Social Proof

Implied celebrity endorsement

This one should be han­dled with care, but can help when done right. Let’s say you’re mar­ket­ing skat­ing shoes, and you sell the same kind Tony Hawk (celebrity skate boarder) uses. Some­where in your scheme you could men­tion “the same shoes used by Tony Hawk.”

This shows the buyer that the prod­uct is good enough for Tony Hawk. If it’s good enough for the stars in your niche, it’s prob­a­bly good enough for the hobbyist.

Tes­ti­mo­nial case study

Do your tes­ti­mo­ni­als explain spe­cific results? Instead of using a 3-sentence endorse­ment, what if you stud­ied a client and then showed exactly what they employed from your prod­uct, why it worked, and how they could build on it?

This becomes much more than the “Prod­uct X rocks and you should buy it!” or “I used Prod­uct Z and saw a 10% boost!” The 2nd option isn’t bad, but the speci­ficity and thor­ough­ness of a case study may be just what the doc­tor ordered.

A 2nd form of this is the before/after/after model. Ask a client how they were doing before your prod­uct, how things improved imme­di­ately after, and then long term ben­e­fits. For example:

I was mak­ing 10 sales a week before buy­ing Magic Mar­ket­ing. Two weeks after pur­chas­ing I was already up to 18 sales a week and now, 8 weeks after pur­chas­ing my aver­age week sees 23 sales! My sales more than dou­bled from Magic Mar­ket­ing and I’m still learn­ing more!

This high­lights imme­di­ate and long term improve­ments, which will speak to a wider audience.

Nor­mal testimonial

(Might as well men­tion it.) You should pep­per all sales mate­ri­als with the pos­i­tive feed­back your cus­tomers have given you.

Quantity-related social proof

Not many peo­ple think of this one, but it can take your life from Good to Super Sweet.

The idea is to have a visual rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the quan­tity being sold, or to have a limit in the quan­tity avail­able. As a side note, be sure to jus­tify a lim­ited quan­tity, espe­cially if it is a dig­i­tal product.

A few ways to do this:

• Show an image of the phys­i­cal prod­ucts or a screen­shot of a report show­ing unit num­ber (some­thing like that)
• Tell your audi­ence the site will go down once you’ve sold out
• Decrease the num­ber avail­able at the last minute (fig­ure out a rea­son why)
• Use a count­down for prod­ucts available
• Lim­ited quan­tity bonuses

These items, espe­cially the lim­ited quan­tity bonus, give you a rea­son to email your list:

Just so you know, the first 100 that included the bonus have already sold out, so you bet­ter get mov­ing and purchase!

All these quan­tity dis­plays show that oth­ers are buy­ing, prov­ing to the lead that other peo­ple are mak­ing the plunge and they are not alone.

Blog Com­ments

If you run a blog around your prod­uct or blog, make com­ments easy to find. You could even high­light some of them or use them as tes­ti­mo­ni­als. If you run a blog, remem­ber that peo­ple almost always scroll down right away to see com­ments — imme­di­ately look­ing for social proof that the post is worthwhile.

Dif­fer­ent ways to col­lect and show social proof

Host a call and let users mes­sage in ques­tions that you then answer on the call

1. Ask your cus­tomers for sto­ries of extremely awe­some con­quest (really great out­comes), then send them out and chal­lenge oth­ers to send in their own reports. This not only gives social proof, but also encour­ages con­sump­tion.
2. If you send out an email blast to your list and get ques­tions, you can use those ques­tions as social proof in future emails (“so and so asked this great ques­tion… here’s the answer”)
3. Casu­ally show the num­ber of times some­thing was down­loaded, or a post was viewed, num­ber of peo­ple watch­ing, etc

For the record…

Yes, you can overdo it. Once it becomes unbe­liev­able you are then only hurt­ing your­self. Find­ing the bal­ance is key.

How To Place Tes­ti­mo­ni­als & Other Forms of Social Proof

Key point: when some­one looks through tes­ti­mo­ni­als (or what­ever social proof) they are try­ing to find a tes­ti­mo­nial by “them­selves” or some­one like them.  They’re look­ing for the eas­i­est touch point to relate to, so the most influ­en­tial social proof are the ones from their same peer group.

Or, they may be look­ing for proof that some­thing works. To help give your ben­e­fit or fea­ture list more IMPACT, fol­low it with a tes­ti­mo­nial attest­ing to the result. If I’ve got a tool with a key automa­tion fea­ture, right after list­ing it I’d throw down a tes­ti­mo­nial from some­one who saved a boat load of time.

Another exam­ple would be putting a tes­ti­mo­nial in your sign-up form from some­one who loved your free lessons.

Place your tes­ti­mo­ni­als so they are directly related to the minute con­text of that part of your sales message.

What if you don’t cur­rently have a community?

If you’re launch­ing a new prod­uct, don’t have yet have a com­mu­nity, or have weak tes­ti­mo­ni­als, how do you col­lect & show social proof?

CREATE IT.

Use the num­ber of opt-ins, num­ber of times peo­ple Google a key niche-related search term, or some­thing else to cre­ate a peer group on the fly.

Your audience’s com­mon inter­est in your niche is enough to mold a com­mu­nity out of it. You just have to get a lit­tle cre­ative (gasp!).

High­light­ing the exis­tence of this peer group will act as social proof and build fur­ther buzz around your product.

Let’s Wrap it up Here

When you’re craft­ing your social proof remem­ber these key points:

• Social proof is most effec­tive when given by some­one sim­i­lar to the reader; sim­i­lar “sit­u­a­tion,” sim­i­lar inter­ests, and reach­ing a sim­i­lar desired outcome.
• Social proof is more than testimonials
• Peo­ple want to be a part of a group and that group/community is inher­ent social proof that other peo­ple are doing or pur­chas­ing some­thing the tar­get wants

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About the Author

Mike is an internet marketer at MindValley responsible for running marketing tests, designing product launches, and leading an eCommerce project.

Check out other posts by Mike W.

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