While nearly every marketer today understands the power of social proof, it’s still unclear to many how social proof can directly impacts their bottom line. If you’re still new to using social proof as a way to drive organic growth, check out this article to learn more about the psychology behind the strategy. Social proof can positively impact your business in many different ways.
In this article, we’ll take a look at 3 ways social proof boosts customer acquisition, drives sales, and raises your ROI’s bottom line.
1. Builds Brand Trust
With brand trust at an all-time low, more and more customers are turning to the people they know and trust most before making a purchase. While friends, family––and even celebrities are all impactful players in your brand’s social proof strategy, many of today’s customers are going online. Research from the ROBO Economy shows that 82% of smartphone users consult their mobile phones before making an in-store purchasing decision.
That’s why you need to be there waiting for them. Or, at least your most enthusiastic customers do. By encouraging past customers to share positive brand experiences through social media, forums and review boards, your business could drive massive organic growth. Consider that 45% of consumers read reviews before making a purchase. Add it all up, and your business could be providing potential customers a more trustworthy and authentic avenue for learning about your product. which can have a huge impact impact on customer acquisition.
2. Lowers Marketing Costs
Influencer marketing is all the rage among marketers, and the influencer marketing space continues to boom. In fact, it’s on track to be worth up to $15 billion by 2022. But as we all know, with every other social media star touting their follower count on Famebit, it can be easy to lose a chunk of budget investing in a campaign that simply doesn’t deliver on your final ROI.
Meanwhile, leveraging organic social proof through user-generated content can drive sales, create more authenticity and raise your ROI. Just a few short years ago if you had a good experience with a brand or product you shared it with those you met. Now, it gets posted on social media and shared organically, reaching tens, hundreds or even thousands of people. By encouraging return customers to share their love for your brand, you’re essentially paving way for your most loyal users to do all the talking for you.
3. Creates a More Authentic Brand Experience
This leads us to our next point: since social proof originates directly from real people rather than brands, customers have the opportunity to gain a more authentic understanding of what your product has to offer. When a potential customer reads a review from a past customer, they it can give them a more authentic understanding of the real-life value your product or service has to offer. Most importantly, past customers know your product better than anyone else.
All this creates a more authentic customer experience. Instead of selling directly to your consumer, having loyal and passionate customers do the selling for you through first-hand accounts and user-generated content that is sure to drive traffic, referrals and viral organic growth. Plus, customer review ratings are not only included in organic search results, but also factors into your organic search result ranking.
With tools like Innercircle, you can drive organic social proof seamlessly. By incentivizing your most loyal and engaged users to share their positive experiences, you’ll be giving your brand’s most valuable mouthpiece an outlet –– all while driving sales and raising ROI.
Turn Your Customer Into Your Competitive Edge
Your power users are an untapped resource of value and information. Let’s face it, who knows your product or service better than the customers who use it most? Recognize your most valuable customers for their true value, and they’ll reward you right back with loyalty and the social proofs you need.
So what are you waiting for?
Start building better relationships with your power users today with Innercircle: