How To 2X Your Sales With Social Proof Tools
by Startacus Admin
Carsten Schaefer, founder and CEO of crowdy.ai, shares all on how with new and improved tools, social proof is becoming one of the most potent and easiest methods to turn visitors into paying customers.
The modern marketer has to know and use many tools and techniques to maximize website conversions and increase their sales. Social proof is one of the most effective conversion rate optimization techniques out there and it’s been used for a while now. However, with new and improved tools, social proof is becoming one of the most potent and easiest methods to turn visitors into paying customers.
Here are some ways to leverage social proof to its full potential and double your sales.
Use testimonials and reviews
According to Hubspot’s research, customer testimonials and reviews are the fourth most important factor in influencing a purchasing decision. It only makes sense – we trust those that have tried a product or service before us. Large companies such as Amazon use reviews and star ratings for their product pages to increase conversion rates and educate their buyers. In fact, it was shown that having over 50 product reviews per product can increase your conversion rate by 4.6%.
Unfortunately, getting testimonials and reviews from your users can be a pretty daunting task, and displaying them properly can take a while to figure out. Modern social proof
tools such as crowdy.ai allow you to collect testimonials and reviews and display them on your home page, landing and product pages. Instead of collecting testimonials manually, you can just set up a social proof tool and let it do the heavy lifting for you.
Show real-time data
We live in an instant age and we’re used to getting things on demand. It takes seconds to make a purchase and transactions move at a quicker pace than ever before. Instead of worrying about this, you can use it to your marketing advantage.
There are a number of tools that let you show real-time data on your website. For example, when someone 
makes a purchase, books a demo, subscribes to a newsletter, signs up for a free account – whatever you consider a conversion. You can turn these actions into live notifications for anyone browsing the website to see. It shows that your products and services are in demand and even creates a sense of urgency.
Use social media count
Your visitors spend large amounts of time on social media every day. If they see a piece of content they like, they will share it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or some other platform. Social media count plugins will display the number of shares and influence visitors to share the content themselves. This is fairly easy to set up in modern CMS such as WordPress and it’s low-hanging fruit you shouldn’t neglect.
Drop some names strategically
Your visitors trust other visitors, but they also trust other brands they are familiar with. If you’ve been featured in well-known media outlets, you can let your visitors know simply by including a banner with “Featured in…” and listing a few well-known websites that covered your business.
If you’re in the SaaS realm, a great way to use this tactic is through integrations. For example, if you have an up and coming tool, no one knows about you yet. However, if your tool integrates with Trello, MailChimp, Slack or some other giant, that’s a social proof signal to trust your business as well.
Finally, you can use the names of real people who support your product. Whether they’re celebrities or influencers, this tactic can work beautifully to your advantage. For example, this SaaS company uses the famous marketer Neil Patel and his quote for social proof >>
Case studies
Last but not least, case studies have been around for a while as a popular social proof format, especially in the B2B sector. Case studies are longer and describe in detail how a customer was able to solve their pain point with your product or service. While they can be extremely effective, they cannot be automated like the rest of this list and they 
require significant time to prepare and write.
Conclusion
Social proof is one of the most effective ways to turn someone just casually browsing into a customer paying for your service or product.
The most challenging aspect of collecting social proof used to be the time and effort it required. Nowadays, there are so many tools for social proof that make using this form of marketing easier than ever.
Carsten Schaefer is the founder and CEO of crowdy.ai, the first Clients-Convert-Clients Marketing platform.
Inspired by principles and mechanisms of social proof, Carsten is currently on his way to help businesses become trustworthy and thrive in the digital landscape.
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Published on: 8th May 2019
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