In Many cases, people just started with their online store and don’t know how to increase sales, are you one of them? Does your site have traffic but conversion remains very low social proof in your eCommerce?
Not sure how to do it or where to start?
Don’t worry, in this article we explain everything you need to know about this strategy that will help you sell more and improve your brand image.
How Social Proof can be Defined?
Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people assume that the action of other people reflects correct behavior in a specific situation.
This means that we need the confirmation of others to verify that our decisions are correct. Look at this video if not.
And what does that have to do with an online store?
Social proof in marketing is to offer clear evidence to the user that his purchase decision is supported by other people like him.
This will give you credibility and reinforce the user’s trust in your brand, which will also encourage them to buy.
The Most Popular Types of Social Proof are:
- Popularity.
- Positive testimonials from your eCommerce customers.
- Influencers.
- Demand test
This strategy is widely used in marketing campaigns carried out on social networks and terms such as influencers acquire great relevance in its implementation. However, there are other ways to use social proof in favor of your eCommerce.
Join us in this article and we will show you how to use social proof to increase the brand’s reach and consequently the level of sales of your store created in Shopify.
An Example of Social Proof
You like the clothes you wear because of course, it is the one that corresponds to your physical characteristics and preferences. And of course, you cannot imagine wearing another type of clothing and it is not your head to buy another of a different style and brand.
But what was the initial reason that motivated you to wear that type of clothing?
It was probably because you started seeing other people dressed in the same way: prominent personalities, famous artists, athletes, and even some of your friends.
This is real proof of social proof used in favor of marketing. But hey, let’s get to the point, below we will mention how you can use social proof to increase the sales of your eCommerce created in Shopify.
What Makes Social Proof Such a Valuable Proposition?
Social proof is nothing more than a psychological theory that emphasizes the human tendency to rely on the opinions or actions of others when making a particular decision.
Even without the knowledge of the existence of this tendency, you may have made several decisions throughout your life, important or less important, following its concept.
Its main purpose is to attract the attention of customers using the curiosity generated by knowing what is happening, the reason why it happens, what is the behavior of other users, or the correct answer to a question.
Social proof offers great dividends because it validates a choice justifying the time, interest, or money used to make the purchase of a certain product, offering as a foundation the positive experiences of other customers.
Through social proof, you can make social network users stop observing a publication with high levels of interaction (likes, number of times it has been shared, or impressions). You can motivate them to decide to use an unknown brand only because it has generated positive testimonials from other users. Or simply motivate them to buy a product that is generating a lot of sales at a certain moment.
There are several ways to perform social proof in favor of your eCommerce, below we will mention some of them.
What are the Types of Social Proof You can Take?
If you consider it necessary, you can apply social proof on any online platform where your business is present, either on its website or on social networks. In addition, there are variants dissimilar to apply within which are the ones you listed below:
Popularity
There is no doubt that potential customers of your business will feel more motivated to buy if it has a high level of popularity in the market in which it operates.
A clear example of this type of social proof is when a customer is evaluating buying a product between two eCommerce. To make your decision, you decide to visit the social media profiles of the two businesses. Once visited, they discover that the publications of one of the two have thousands of likes and have thousands of followers on their social networks. While those of the other only have hundreds of likes and their followers do not even reach a thousand. Then you understand that the decision is very simple: popularity speaks for itself.
Below we mention several of the indicators that can help you measure the level of popularity of your eCommerce:
- Interaction of posts on social networks: number of likes, comments, views, and number of times they are shared.
- A number of users that make up the audience that follows the Facebook or Instagram live broadcasts of your business.
- The number of subscribers that your online store newsletter has.
- A number of visitors to your business website.
Positive Testimonials from Your eCommerce Customers
When buying a product, customers trust the opinion of other customers who have already bought the product before. And this is precisely one of the main elements that you should use to increase the sales of your eCommerce.
According to a survey carried out in 2017, approximately 85% of customers trust the reviews and recommendations offered for a certain product offer. The level of trust becomes even higher than that achieved by other marketing actions carried out to promote said product. Furthermore, these reviews and recommendations will have a direct impact on the bounce and conversion rates of the products that are targeted by them.
There are two main ways to collect and offer the public opinion generated by your eCommerce, they are:
Product reviews or ratings: they can be shown in your online store through an application, in a related forum, social networks, or even through Google. Showing both general reviews of your business and those of a specific product will offer great benefits to your business and help to gain the trust of your new customers.
Content generated by the clients of your eCommerce: this is the type of content that is generated through the publications made by the clients related to your business on the internet, either on social networks or on another type of online platform.
If you find any way to obtain the consent of your customers and you can share this information in the channels of your eCommerce, do not miss the opportunity to do so, it will help you enormously to gain the preference of new customers who can come to your online store.
Influencers
Influencer marketing can be a difficult type of social proof to create. Paid partnerships are not always considered by customers to be as authentic as peer-driven tests, but they can still be very effective, especially if they are genuine.
There are people with profiles on different social networks with a large number of followers who offer their opinions on certain topics or products (influencers). Many of them are considered by their followers a certified reference of the subjects in which they specialize.
Establishing collaboration links with these influencers is a favorable trend that you should take advantage of in favor of your eCommerce.
Through their collaboration, you will convert all their followers into potential clients of your business, which translates into a great accumulation of profits for it.
The collaboration with influencers most grants scope and authenticity to the message you want to convey to your eCommerce.
Demand Test
This type of social proof shows that customers will not only trust the opinion you are offering, but rather the true qualities of the product they want to buy.
Do not miss the opportunity to offer together with the description and information the sales volume generated by each product, this will offer greater motivation to your customers to be inclined to buy the products of your online store.
Try to make the following information automatically visible to your eCommerce customers with the help of an application or tool:
- Number of items sold, which can be reflected on sales counters or simply showing customers when supplies are low or out of stock (taking advantage of another persuasive tool known as shortages )
- Individual customers who recently purchased specific products.
- The number of customers currently visiting your site or a specific product page.
What is the Ideal Place to Apply Social Proof in Your Marketing Strategy?
It is undeniable that social proof is a very necessary marketing principle for any business that offers its services like eCommerce.
But how and where can you do it?
Here are several ideas of where and how you can apply social proof in favor of your business:
On Your Business Website
The three most common variants that can be used to apply social proof on your business website:
- Offering product reviews.
- Offering comments and opinions generated by the clients of your business.
- Through persuasive texts where relevant information is offered to customers ( customer satisfaction rate or the volume of sale of a certain product).
In Your Blog Posts
Content marketing is one of the most efficient ways to perform social proof and present your eCommerce as a trustworthy business.
With a blog, your business will gain greater visibility, a greater authority and will be able to capture a greater number of leads, but above all, it will be able to carry out the social proof in favor of your eCommerce.
That your publications achieve a good SEO positioning will help you give more credibility to your business brand.
On Social Media
Social networks are one of the first places where customers will look for information regarding your eCommerce, which makes them one of the best places to apply social proof app.
You should make sure to make as many publications as possible that contain the necessary elements to motivate users who find your business on social media to visit your website.
Create content that allows you to generate conversions and followers. Here are several examples:
- Instagram Stories ask users to choose between two options and have their responses displayed in real-time.
- Social media contests that ask users to tag a friend, caption a photo, or share an image with your brand’s hashtag.
- Posts asking users what they would do in a given situation.
Through the Emails
Email is another tool for using social proof to drive sales, especially with a database of ready-to-buy leads.
Include positive reviews and opinions on specific products in your emails, use images and topics that capture the interest of leads, and, if possible, as long as they offer their consent the name of customers satisfied with your business services.
Performing social proof by sending an email is not a practice that is widely exploited today, which represents an opportunity that you can take advantage of in favor of your business.
Automate flows to send emails about the most outstanding products with some reviews to motivate to return to those customers who have visited your eCommerce but who have not yet decided to buy or those who have abandoned their cart before finalizing their purchase.
You May Also Read: How To Translate Shopify Multiple Languages- The Definitive Guide 2021
In Paid Campaigns
Another place where you can run social proof is in paid campaigns (effective mainly on Facebook and Instagram).
The more likes, comments, and shares a given ad accumulates, the stronger the social proof, making new users more likely to pay attention.
Shopify Apps to Apply Social Proof
There are many Shopify applications that can help you apply social proof to your business. Here are some of them:
Loox Review
Loox review is a Shopify application that will automatically send emails to your customers requesting reviews, even offering discounts if they leave reviews with photos. Then, make it easy to publish these reviews in galleries that can be placed on any page of your eCommerce, including your home page, your product pages, or a designated review page.
Judge.me Product Reviews
Judge.me Product Reviews is a Shopify app that allows reviews directly from email, as well as on product pages. It also allows you to connect these reviews with Google so that they are displayed as featured results.
Very interesting is the synchronization function with other apps, such as:
Facebook Messenger Bot, Checkout Reviews, and AliExpress Reviews Importer
Other interesting features include the inclusion of FAQs, floating review windows, review carousels, video, and photo reviews, among others.
Omega Facebook Reviews
Facebook Reviews by Omega allows you to display your Facebook reviews and ratings on your Shopify store to customers who are unfamiliar with your brand, reducing the gap between off-site and on-site social proof.
Fera.ai
Fera.ai allows you to send notifications to customers when products are out of stock, when sales or seasonal offers end, or if a limited edition product is withdrawn from your stock. Through this application you can also show your clients:
- The current number of viewers on the site.
- If an item is low in stock.
- Recent orders on your product detail page
Buttons to Share on Social Networks Zotabox
With the Social media icons app, you can increase the level of interaction of your eCommerce pages by adding the possibility of being able to share images and information on different social networks. It allows you to place social action counters (like, dislike, share) to motivate customers to interact with your eCommerce pages.
This add-on is free but has several premia-paid versions. It also has several features that make it ideal for other purposes related to social media such as support for Facebook live chat.
Hero Press Kit
The Hero press kit app offers you the opportunity to create a professional press kit that allows bloggers and journalists to write about your eCommerce.
It will also make it easier for you to view the mentions and social proof your business has been targeting and ensures that the press mentions related to your eCommerce have a longer shelf life by showing them on your website as well.
Social Proof Should Not be Missing in the Digital Marketing Strategy of Your eCommerce
There is no doubt that social proof is one of the most influential or persuasive marketing elements about the buying process of your business’s clients.
According to its concept, social proof is nothing more than offering a demonstration or proof of a certain product or service to a group of clients in order for them to buy or hire it.
The starting point to be able to implement this marketing strategy is to have the ideal buyer persona for your eCommerce well defined. By achieving this, you will be able to focus all the necessary efforts to reach all the clients that meet this profile.
One of its main benefits is that it allows the exploitation of the much-needed social networks in order to increase the conversion and purchase rates in your business.
If you want to improve the marketing strategy of your eCommerce, performing social proof is a great step forward to achieve it.
