Social proof is critical when creating
influence and trust.
Can I
trust you? If I can trust you, I'll share a little secret with you. I want to
buy from you! Of course, if I can't trust your business, I'm going to buy from
a company that shows me I can trust them more than you.
This is the subconscious
mind of your customers whispering to their conscious brain while visiting your
website and deciding who is going to win their hard-earned money today.
It's harder than ever to
earn the trust of a would-be customer, and the competition is only becoming
more intense. With the entrepreneur being the new rockstar, starting your own
business is almost as cool as being the lead singer or guitarist in a band --
almost. As a result, new businesses are opening their doors every day and
looking to take your customers away from you.
With such fierce
competition, how do you stand out in a competitive marketplace? One key
strategy to focus on is to leverage the power of social proof by implementing a
reputation marketing system.
According to Robert
Cialdini, author of best-selling books Influence and Pre-Suasion, social
proof is one of the critical elements to creating influence and trust in minds
of others. Examples of social proof includes online reviews and testimonials.
Think about it. When you need to make an important buying decision, do you read
and evaluate reviews prior to buying? If you're like most people, you do.
In this fast-paced world, people use reviews and testimonials to help them
quickly make decisions and to prevent them from making costly mistakes.
Facebook beta testing
“reputation marketing.”
It may come as little
surprise when Facebook contacted one of our clients to invite them to a new
"reputation marketing" system. Facebook recently invited this Port Saint Lucie chiropractor to
participate in a beta-testing program that allows business owners to include
their Facebook reviews as part of their advertising endeavors to win new
business.
The most important
takeaway from this message is that the ratings only appear with an average
rating of 4 stars and higher and only when there are more than 5 Facebook
reviews. What's interesting to note is our client did not even have a
Facebook ad account at the time and had never advertised on Facebook before.
However, Premier Wellness Centers does have more than 100 Facebook reviews, so
perhaps that played a role in being chosen for inclusion. Although
currently in beta-testing, it would seem likely that the program will become
widely available.
"What a minute. But
I don't advertise on Facebook?"
Okay, perhaps you're
marketing your business using other marketing channels like SEO and PPC. How
influential are reviews and testimonials when it comes to Google's perspective?
Google spills its guts
about reputation marketing.
Bright Local conducted a study on
the impact of reviews on click-thru rates when people are searching on Google.
With 6,283 people participating in the study, the results showed that
businesses having an overall positive review rating got more clicks and visits
to their website. In fact, going from a 3-star rating to a 5-star rating gets a
business 25 percent more clicks from Google Local Pack. They also
showed that negative reviews resulted in less clicks and visits to their
website. Duh, right?
However, having negative
reviews meant getting less clicks and visits than if the business had no
reviews at all. More importantly, when the participants were asked after
the experiment why they picked the result they did, 56 percent of the people
said they chose to visit the website of the business because it had positive
reviews and star ratings.
Even Google explicitly
states in their help center,
"Google review count and score are factored into local search ranking: more reviews and positive ratings will probably improve a business's local ranking."
When Google flat out
tells you more reviews and positive ratings will improve your local SEO
efforts, you'd better invest in reputation marketing. If your competition is
already ahead in their overall review count, you risk being left behind and
possibly never catching up.
Are you a local business
owner? If so, you should be 100 percent focused on reputation marketing.
If you're currently investing in SEO and paid advertising campaigns, and doing
so without a reputation marketing system in place, you're wasting money every
single day. Shifting your efforts into acquiring reviews will only enhance your
search engine visibility and convert more visitors into customers.
"Well, who cares. I
don't own a local business. I sell my products online."
Google announces new
customer reviews program.
Well there's good news
for you too. Google just announced their new program called Google Customer Reviews,
which replaces their Google Trusted Stores program. Their new system allows you
to collect valuable reviews, for free.
This new system not only
helps companies collect customer reviews, but also empowers them to market
their reputation online. The Google Customer Reviews are aggregated, along with
other sources and data providers, and can be displayed in marketing channels
like Product Listing Ads and AdWords text ads. Google states that showing your
seller rating in your text ads can increase the CTR of your ads by up to 10
percent.
Google even offers a
Google Customer Reviews Badge that you can include on your website, which in
theory should help provide social proof that can help boost conversions and win
you more customers.
Adding testimonials and
reviews to your online or ecommerce store matters too. In this article about
testimonials and reviews, there is an abundance of references and examples
showing how even the simpliest review statements can boost conversion rates by
34 percent.
That’s why all companies
must have a solid reputation marketing system in place. You can call them
reviews, testimonials or stories, but ultimately your business needs to
provide a memorable customer experience that compels your customers to want to
positively review your business and share their story.
-Eric Christopher
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