In this episode of Do This, Not That, host Jay Schwedelson discusses the importance of using effective social proof in marketing strategies. He emphasizes the need for quantifiable metrics and contextual details in testimonials and reviews to significantly increase conversion rates. Jay provides actionable insights on how to incorporate compelling social proof across various marketing channels.

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Best Moments:

(00:40) Introduction to social proof and its importance in marketing

(02:09) The ineffectiveness of generic and vague social proof

(02:44) The power of quantifiable metrics in testimonials

(05:39) The impact of contextual details in social proof

(06:48) Incorporating effective social proof in various marketing channels

(07:46) Sponsor message for Marigold email platforms

(08:26) Personal anecdotes about holiday gatherings and social interactions

(10:41) Announcement of upcoming free email certification program

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MASSIVE thank you to our Sponsor, Marigold!!

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Regardless of your size, check out Marigold today to get the solution you need to grow your business!

Check out this free content from marigold that Jay has loved digesting, 5 Steps For Selecting The Right Email Marketing Platform.

Foreign welcome to do this, not that, the podcast for marketers. You'll walk away from each episode with actionable tips you can test immediately.

You'll hear from the best minds in marketing who will share tactics, quick wins and pitfalls to avoid. Also, dig into life, pop culture and the chaos that is our everyday. I'm Jay Schwedelson.

Let's do this, not that we are here for do this, not that Presented by Marigold. Today we're talking about social proof and I'm here to tell you probably doing it wrong.

You are, because you think with social proof that okay, great, we got some testimonials, we got some reviews, we, we're going to stick it on our website, we're going to stick it on our social media posts and we are good. You are basically checking the box that you're doing social proof and I'm telling you just like anything else, okay?

Just like the words that you put in your search ad, just like the subject line of your email, there are very little things that you can be doing that can change the outcome of everything by how you're leveraging social proof of business and consumer marketers. So I want to get into the tiniest detail and how it will change everything specifically. But first, what is social proof? What are we talking about?

Listen, we all know that social proof is the idea that people are more likely right to take action based on what other people say or do. We just follow each other. That's what we do. We want to know what other people think. That's why influencers exist, right?

It shows that if people like or use something, then others will feel more confident in trying to do that too. Right?

And anyway, so this can be testimonials, could be five star reviews, it could be user generated content like photos or videos that people share. This is social proof.

Now here's the thing that doesn't work that we need to stop doing immediately before we get into the specific tactics that do work. What doesn't work is generic and vague social proof.

Taking generic and vague testimonials or reviews and then using that in all of our marketing and is a recipe for failure. So what does that sound like?

Like a generic social proof would be a quote that says something like, this service was amazing and it met my needs perfectly. Who cares? It means nothing. Or the team was amazing and helpful throughout the process. Whatever. The customer support was excellent and responsive.

Nobody cares. It's not real, it's nothing. So what does work?

One of the tactics that works incredibly well is Quantifiable metrics and in your testimonials and in your social proof. What does that mean?

Quantifiable metrics are when there are measurable data points that provide clear evidence of a product's effectiveness or services impact.

So what we did was we took 100 destination pages, offer destination pages, business and consumer, and we had half of the traffic go to pages that had a generic testimonial like the boring ones that I just read. And then the other half of the traffic go to page pages that had quantifiable metric testimonials.

And what we found was that conversion rates jumped on those destination Pages by over 35% when you have the quantifiable metric testimonial. So what does that even. What does a quantifiable metric testimonial sound like? It sounds like this. Let's say something related time savings.

It would say, this App saved me 10 hours a week on my meal planning, allowing me to spend more time with my family. Or even if you're talking about increased sales after using this marketing tool, our sales increased by 25% within six months.

Or my child's grades improved by an average of 15% after using this tutoring service for just one semester. Or by implementing this software, we reduced our operational costs by 20% within the first year.

It is this quantifiable metric that says, oh, that's what I can get out of using this, because that's what this person got. It's not this generic wallpaper garbage. And you need to be intentional about asking for better testimonials, better reviews.

You don't need a lot of them. You just need a handful of them that you can use everywhere.

And you say, can you leave us a review or a testimonial that shares exactly how you use our product? Can you share how, why you love our product, and exactly what you got out of using it?

You have to be more intentional about how you're asking for this stuff. So you get this stuff that then can change your conversion rates. Like, listen, bounce rates are crazy high. They shouldn't be this high.

What is a bounce rate? A bounce rate is when somebody goes to one of your landing pages, your destination pages. I don't care if you're business or consumer, right?

And they get to that page about your product or service, and then they decide to leave the page without taking any action on that page and buying the thing. According to Databox, for both business and consumer destination pages, bounce rates are over 60% on average. They that's terrible.

I mean, think about what's happening. Somebody's clinging on a search ad, an email, a social post. They're interested in the thing that you're promoting, right?

And then they go to that destination page and over 60% of them leave because they're turned off by what's on that page. They're turned off by your vague, generic, horrendous testimonials. Another one, Another version of testimonials and.

And social proof that I love is contextual details. This is gold. Okay. And increases conversion rates by over 40% versus generic ones according to World Data Research. What does this even mean?

Contextual details and social proof refer to when the specific background or circumstance that that make testimonials or endorsements more relatable or persuasive to the audience. What does that actually mean? Let me give you examples. Okay? Instead of somebody saying our software improved efficiency, right?

You would say as the operations manager at a manufacturing plant, switching to this software reduced our production time by 20% allowing us to meet tight deadlines consistently. Right? That is contextual. Or this blender is amazing. That's generic and useless.

Versus as a health conscious college student, this blender has made my morning smoothies quick and easy. I love how it blends everything perfectly in just 30 seconds. You can ask for these kind of testimonials or social proof. You don't need a lot of them.

You could literally get a handful.

And then you put them in your emails, in your headline of your email, you put them in the subject line of your email, you put them as the lead content in your social posts, you put them on your destination pages, okay? You put them everywhere. And this is how you win. This is how you win.

When someone opens up one of your emails and the headline of your email, for example, the big letters when it is a testimonial versus just the standard offer that you're promoting. Right? When it is a testimonial that you're you putting in that headline spot.

We see click through rates on those emails go up 25% for consumer and 32% for business to business emails because it's speaking directly to what the person is thinking about for your product or service or offer. This is secret sauce stuff. All right, before we get into.

Since you didn't ask, I want to let you know that by the way, that's the ridiculous portion of this podcast I want you to know. This podcast is presented by Marigold. Listen. Marigold is a roll up of the best email platforms on Earth.

Sail through campaign monitor, my Emma Cheetah Digital Live clicker. They're all part of Marigold, and I am telling you, I've been using Marigold for years.

Whether you're a business or consumer marketer, you got to check them out. You need to at least check them out. And listeners of this podcast, there's a special offer up to 50% off.

All you need to do is go to jschweddelson.com save that's jschwettelson.com S A V E. And that is the only spot that you're going to find this amazing offer. I'm telling you. Check out Marigold. Strong endorsement.

I've been using them for years. Listen, since you didn't ask, I think that I need to hide out because we've been having lots of people over.

We have people in town for the holidays and hanging out with lots of these people. And everybody's driving me crazy, and I don't know what else to say.

They are, because everybody wants to talk about things I don't want to talk about, right?

We'll have football games on the tv and we're sitting there, a bunch of us on the couch, and then invariably we'll have one or two of these people that know everything about every player. Did you know this person? And they rattle off these stats and the random things and the history of this. And I'm like, who cares? Who are you?

What did you go ahead and Google every player on the team, like the starting backup, tight end on whatever. Who cares? And I'm not impressed. I'm not like.

But I shouldn't be sitting near people because instead of me absorbing the information, like, oh, that's really interesting. I'm like, enough with you. Enough with whatever you're saying. I don't care.

And then the other, I, I think the most annoying thing any human being can do, and this is not just related to the holidays, but in general. Let's say I got a good story to tell about something happened in my life, okay? I'll tell this story to somebody.

This is what keeps happening to me right now. I tell the story to somebody and I'll go, this, this is. This, whatever. We did this. And they'll go, oh, I got one that's even better.

And then they tell me their story, which they of course think is better. And all they were doing while I was telling them my story was that they were getting prepared to say, I got one even better.

Like this, this one upper person, whoever you are out there, don't be that person. Just take in the content, take in the information. The person said, oh, and say that's an amazing story. That's so interesting.

And then you ask them a question about their story. You don't say, I got one. Even better. That's like the rudest thing in the world and it's driving me crazy.

I'm very anti the one upper person out there. I think I like the one upper person less than I know everything sports person. All right, so wow. This is like a rant. I need to chill out.

I just need to chill out. Listen, I appreciate you being here. If you want to leave this review then you would be way cooler than a one upper person. That's for sure.

I would appreciate that's your holiday gift to me. I appreciate you. And also we're about to open up. CertifiedGuru.com this is the 100% free email certification program that my company's putting out.

Only the people on the wait list are going to be able to get on this thing. It's opening up in a few days. CertifiedGuru.com, we've been working on this for months.

It is going to be the most amazing email marketing specialist certification. It's 100% free. Check it out. Thanks for being here. And keep it real. You did it. You made it to the end. Nice. But the party's not over.

Subscribe to make sure you get the latest episode each week for more actionable tips and a little chaos from today's top marketer. And hook us up with a five star review if this wasn't the worst podcast of all time.

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