What is social proof?
We've talked about social proof a million times before, but just to remind you about what exactly it is again I'll give you a quick rundown, so you can see how you can leverage social proof to sell more. Social proof is when you rely on the behavior of people around you to choose purchase, services, and do other things in your life. What this means is that we trust the opinions and recommendations of our peers and often we like to follow what they do. This is easy and realized in the real world, but often it's missing or hard to recreate in the online eCommerce world.How to use social proof to sell more online?
We're going to discuss a few ways of how to use social proof to sell more online. We're going to go through reviews, counters, and notifications that will help add some social proof and trust to your eCommerce website. Previously we've gone through 7 apps that are great to use for social proof, so check out this article to see what the best option for your business is.Reviews
Having and showing customer reviews is an easy way to add social proof to your site and build trust and credibility with your visitors. What better way is there to show new customers how great your products are than by having existing customers express how awesome they are? Reviews can be hard to get, but often it's because people simply aren't asking for them or incentivizing properly for them. Often times eCommerce owners underestimate how easy it is to leverage your users by asking them for reviews. You can simply send emails after purchases that thank the user and offer them a 5 to 15 percent discount off their next purchase if they take 5 minutes to leave a review. This doesn't always work, but even if only 1 out of 10 people leaves a review, that will still help to build reviews overtime. The worst-case scenario is that they don't leave a review and ignore your email, but the best case is you get a glowing review for the next visitor to see and a potential second purchase with the discount code!
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Counters
Notifications
Examples of brands that are using social proof to sell more
Here are a few examples of brands using social proof to build trust and make more sales.1. GymShark: Reviews
GymShark lets potential customers know what the product is like based on other customer's reviews. This helps to build trust and community.
3. Quai: Customer Photos
Ouai is a great hair brand that often shows before and after hair photos for different treatments and products to show you what you could be missing out on!
4. Fera.ai: Customer Testimonials
Showing off customer testimonials helps us show potential clients that existing clients love our app! Displaying testimonials helps us get users to try us out. That is why we feature testimonials on our homepage!
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5. Lucidchart: Case studies
Lucidchart has case studies with major brands that people recognize. These will help push their products by showing other brands they were able to help. They also make some hilarious and really popular YouTube videos.
6. Mia Belle Girls: Currently viewing counter
Mia Belle Girls highlights social proof by showing how many people are currently viewing their products.
7. Knockaround: Social Proof Popups
These popups show how popular their items are and induce FOMO.
Knockaround Popups
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8. Peloton: As Seen in Logo Banners/Mentions in Media
Getting other big brands to promote you or leave comments can be extremely helpful in creating trust and social proof around your brand. Peloton is a great example of this by having Good Housekeeping, Forbes, and Best Health promote them.
9. LootVault: Trust badges and certifications
A brand like LootVault shares all of the trusted payment types they can accept
10. Daniel Wellington: Customer Photo Wall
Daniel Wellington watches are often promoted by users sharing their photos wearing the watch. These are usually really aesthetically pleasing and make it easy to share without it seeming like a blatant add.
11. Pela: As Seen In Logos
Pela highlights its amazing cases by letting browsers know where their products have previously been featured.
12. Wren and Ivory: Member reward programs
Wren and Ivory created a rewards program to keep their customers coming back and to show new shoppers that they're loyal to their customers.
13. Indie and Harper: Influencer Marketing
A lot of brands may start an ambassador program or call for shares on Instagram like Indie and Harper. These programs can help you share your products far and wide across the internet by using influencers.
14. Toothpaste everywhere: Expert testimonials
If you work in a market that values the input of other experts it may be great to highlight this. Show that your brand is backed by experts and build trust among shoppers. We make fun of toothpaste examples where 9 out of 10 doctors recommend it, but oftentimes this kind of tactic works.
