Top 5 Ways to Use Social Proof as a Marketing Tool

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Social proof is one of the most powerful psychological phenomena out there.

What is social proof? It's the idea that we're more likely to do something if we see other people doing it.

For example, if you're thinking about going to a new restaurant, you're much more likely to do so if you see that your friends, family, acquaintances, or favorite influencers have been there and enjoyed it.

Marketers and entrepreneurs know that social proof is incredibly effective when it comes to acquiring new clients.

Think about it. If you're considering buying a new product, you're much more likely to if you see that other people have bought it and liked it, right?

Moreover, social proof is especially powerful when it comes from someone who is similar to the person seeing the message.

So, if you're trying to persuade young adults to buy your product, what type of testimonials should you showcase?

Testimonials from other young adults.

In the same way, featuring before-and-after photos of people who have used your product and improved their skin appearance would be the best choice if you're promoting a new skin care brand.

It sounds very logical, doesn’t it?

Yet, some people ignore social proof as one of the most powerful marketing principles and leave money and opportunities on the table.

If you are not using testimonials or would like to improve your execution, this article will give you the blueprint.

Testimonials are a great form of social proof because they show potential customers that real people have already tried the product or service and had a positive experience.

When used correctly, testimonials will help business owners increase sales and build trust with potential customers.

Let’s dive a little bit deeper into the why.

There are a few reasons why social proof is so effective.

First, humans are social animals, and we are hardwired to want to fit in with our peers.

Second, we tend to trust the opinions of others, even if we don't know them personally.

And finally, we often base our decisions on what other people are doing because it saves us time and effort.

Marketing newbies may consider running a social proof and testimonial strategy for a business secondary or even unnecessary.

However, as the reasons above suggest, humans are programmed to respond very positively to the unconscious influence of social proof.

The effects of using testimonials on your marketing are always very positive.

This is evident in examples like our friends at Ship 30 For 30.

Dickie and Nicolas did an exemplary implementation of testimonial strategies on their sales webpage and even on their checkout page. Superb!

A regular checkout page includes a reminder of what the product can do for you and all the add-ons, bonuses, or upsells available.

I loved how the Ship 30 for 30 included their best testimonial in the middle of the regular elements.

The student even closed her comments with the words, “Don't hesitate!”

How many prospective students have read that testimonial and clicked the “buy” button instead of abandoning the checkout page or “leaving it for later”?

I’m pretty sure that single testimonial has generated a ton of extra sales for this business.

While the return on investment of a testimonial marketing strategy is sometimes difficult to calculate, I would dare to say its average results, when executed properly, can beat those of paid advertising and SEO campaigns.

Start a social proof and testimonials strategy if you want:

Increased sales

Improved customer satisfaction

Higher conversion rates

Trust and credibility for your brand

To get the benefits, you should put in the work first.

Start by getting as many testimonials and reviews from happy customers as possible.

You can use a tool like Testimonial to help you with this endeavor.

One thing to consider is that Testimonial comes with a landing page for collecting your social proof.

There you can set up questions and directions to guide your customers through the feedback and storytelling process.

Testimonial allows you to easily capture your customers’ comments and ensure they are clear, straightforward, and mainly positive.

This type of control is a great advantage if you are trying to add social proof strategies to your marketing efforts.

It doesn’t matter if you collect video, image, or text testimonials; Testimonial will get the job done.

According to BigCommerce, when a prospective buyer interacts with your testimonials, three things happen:

Website conversion increases by 58%

The average site visitor revenue increases by 62%

The average order value increases by 3%

If those are the facts, why leave social proof on your website homepage or any product landing page?

If you have a website, use social proof to increase conversions.

Include testimonials from satisfied customers, and display the number of people who have purchased your product or subscribed to your service.

You can go one step above your competition and use the Testimonial Wall of Love.

A Wall of Love is a digital page where you can showcase the love your clients send you in the form of testimonials and reviews.

Imagine a landing page entirely focused on the best experiences of your most amazing clients!

This game-changing feature is available in every Testimonial plan (even on the free tier).

It allows you to put EVERYTHING in one place:

Video testimonials

Text testimonials

Comments from social media

Reviews from external sites like Capterra or G2

And more

Including social proof in your email marketing efforts can be a great way to increase your conversions.

Marketing emails are usually the same as a landing page or sales page but in the format of an email.

Start your email copy with a powerful hook.

After showcasing your product or service and the problem it solves, you can either discuss how your solution helped a specific client or go one step further and include a text, video, or image testimonial.

You can do this in the middle of the email if you want to focus the attention on the testimonial and include the screenshots or highlights at the bottom.

Alternatively, you can add a link to your Wall of Love at the bottom by hyperlinking it to a text that reads, “Check out what other happy customers said.”

A good point here is that you don’t need to wait for promotional emails to use your testimonials.

If you are running a newsletter that includes a call to action to sell your services or products, you can benefit from social proof, even if it’s a light mention or promotion.

Then, when you have a newsletter issue that is dedicated to a more direct promotion of your offering, you can use the social proof strategy in the same way as I described for email marketing.

Remember that the more you ask, the more you will sell.

Every call to action backed by social proof has a much higher chance of ending in a sale.

Social media is another great place to use social proof.

There are multiple ways you can use testimonials to increase awareness of your brand, improve your credibility, and generate traffic that ends up in sales.

These are a few ideas:

When creating your content calendar, make sure you schedule a specific number of text, video, or image testimonial posts each month.

These are literally posts where you are sharing what your customers said about your business.

Testimonial gives you the tools to make this easy and fast. You can:

Generate nice-looking images from your Testimonial dashboard in seconds.

These images can be generated in the size of your desired social media platform.

Access and download all of your testimonial videos to share them on your social channels.

You can share links to individual testimonials, your full Wall of Love, or create new Walls of Love based on handpicked testimonials or tags.

Another great idea is to share your social media testimonials directly from the account of the customer giving the shoutout.

How can you do that? These are a few examples:

Repost what others have said about your brand on X

Share Instagram mentions on your own Instagram story

Share screenshots of Facebook comments or DMs as regular posts or in your stories.

This will give you extra authority because the context of the review or opinion is clear: it’s them speaking about your business and not you.

Enriching your blog content is another way to leverage all of the user-generated content from social media and the social proof you capture using Testimonial.

You can:

Include video, text, or image testimonials that support the topic you are discussing in your blog post. The social proof needs to be relevant to the content or enhance it in some way. The more natural and relevant, the better. You want to avoid making your testimonial look like a banner ad.

Embed tweets or other social media posts that are relevant to the content and where your brand is mentioned.

Link to other relevant blogs, posts, or sites where your brand is mentioned. Google will see these content backlinks very positively, build your domain authority, and improve your organic search results.

It’s not that people hate ads. People dislike bad ads.

You can make your ads good by using social proof.

When you are not the one speaking about your business, things change.

These are a few ways you can ensure your ad spend is well invested:

FOMO is one of the most powerful forces when it comes to influencing buyers.

By sharing how many users have used your services or how much money they have made using your products, you ensure they experience FOMO and want to belong to the same group of people having the same experience or results your solution provides.

Do you how perfect social proof is for this?

Share a testimonial or experience that showcases outstanding results.

Include your Testimonial badge on an ad and make sure people know users love your product

Rely on the voice of experts

In some cases, your prospective buyers want to see the endorsement of high-level users to trust your product is what they need and are looking for.

Showcase one of your most famous, expert, or influential reviewers on the ad and see the magic happen.

If one of your users is an influencer or thought leader in the industry you are trying to conquer, you will make a lot of points.

Speaking about your Testimonial Wall of Love, you can highlight specific testimonials so they appear on top of it if you want to ensure other users see their opinions and experiences first.

Run ads featuring case studies

If you want to build on your users’ testimonials, you go and create a case study.

In marketing, a case study is a thorough evaluation of a product or service. A case study can take different approaches, but it is usually used to illustrate a business's quality, effectiveness, and veracity. In B2B, case studies are normally written to portray how the assessed business helped another business succeed, thanks to their solutions.

You can’t share all of this information in an ad.

However, you can create an ad that links to the case study in a natural and compelling way.

You want to show the ad to readers who think these case study (which looks more like a blog post featuring a customer story) may have a solution to their problem.

You can use your testimonials on the case study and make it a big success.

Testimonial even has an AI case study generator if you need it.

Conclusion

Testimonials are lifelong marketing assets for your business.

Send every social media shoutout to your Testimonial Wall of Love by adding the URLs of the mentions on the “Social Media” tab of your dashboard or by using our Chrome extension to capture them.

You can do the same with social media comments, email replies, YouTube videos, and reviews on third-party websites like Google Reviews, Yelp, etc.

These assets are pure gold.

You can use these images, videos, and text mentions to indefinitely impulse your brand’s growth.

Don’t forget that creativity is your best mate in this endeavor.

From adding social proof to your email signature to linking to your Wall of Love on social media comments or customer service tickets, you have the tools to succeed with us.

I hope you find this post useful, and please stay tuned for more high-quality content on this topic.

Top 5 Ways to Use Social Proof as a Marketing Tool

Why Does Social Proof Boost Sales?

How to Use Social Proof to Your Advantage

Use social proof on your website

Use social proof in your email marketing

Use social proof in your newsletter

Use social proof on social media

Post your social proof directly

Share what others have said about your brand on social media

Use social proof in your blog

Use social proof on your ads

Share the right metrics

Rely on the voice of experts

Run ads featuring case studies

Conclusion