How to Implement Social Proof on Your Website Using Trust

You can potentially have a superior product, but if nobody claims that it’s great, the product will seem less attractive and reliable to prospective clients than it is.

Why is this happening? The reason is quite simple: nowadays people are so familiar with different types of social proof (reviews, testimonials, star ratings, etc) that they take it for the necessary component of the products they consume.

There is another fact about social proof you should know: our purchasing decisions are affected mainly by social proof. This phenomenon is based on the psychological and social principles which say that people imitate others in situations when they are not sure what to do or what to choose.

That’s why every single successful company use social proof on their website to increase revenue and the number of closed deals. Social proof can be a game-changer for your business.

Trust implements social proof in testimonials and ratings. In a nutshell, this platform uses the existing satisfied customers’ experience to acquire new ones.

Trust offers various types of social proof:

Testimonials
Video Testimonials
Ratings
Conversions (paid add-on)
Visitors Count (paid add-on)

All of these tools are a good addition to your growth strategy because they help in building user trust and credibility. Although all social proof techniques are worth to be chosen among others, their implementation varies widely. So, what social proof methods can you adopt to dramatically boost your number of new clients and company growth?

Testimonials

What is that?

Testimonials are written endorsements created by your customers about the experience they have had with different companies. Testimonials affirm the performance, quality and value of a certain product or service.

Why you should care

There’s a reason why businesses gather testimonials from their customers about the successes they have had using their products. Whether it’s a positive customer review on the company’s website or testimonials on a third-party website, this content can significantly contribute to the client conversion strategy. This works even better if the customers are well known in their industry.

Main features

Notification Widget

Feature a testimonial as a clickable notification widget.

On-Page Element

Show testimonials as static or carousel elements on your home page, product pages or landing pages.

Customization

You can fully customize testimonials to match your website look and feel.

eSigning Contracts

This useful feature will help you document the agreements with customers regarding publishing testimonials. This establishes a GDPR compliant relationship with your clients.

Integrated Email Services

How it works

Traditionally, using testimonials is a lot of work: You have to follow up with your customers, get them to leave a testimonial, wait for them to send it to you and then you have to manually add it to your website.

Instead of waiting and begging your customers to leave a testimonial, let Trust gather and display your testimonials – all you have to do is approve them and they’re on your website.

Here’s how it works: once the customers purchase your product or service, you send them a simple link. Once they click on the link and share their impressions with their picture, customers can find an option to e-sign a contract. After that, Trust will automatically process data. Once you approve the testimonial, it goes live on your website.

Best practices

There are a few tips for making testimonials better. First, when asking for testimonials, encourage your customers to describe their situation before and after using your products or services. Considering that, ask clients to tell a small, yet completed story that describes their problem, the reasons why they’ve chosen you and how you have solved their challenges. The stories are very persuasive because people tend to imagine themselves as the character of the stories they read.

Second, always include a photo and name because people trust actual people. In other words, the more generic, the less believable. And one more ground rule: make sure that testimonials featured on your website are real (sorry for being obvious). Your prospects are clever enough to identify fake testimonials.

Third, to make the most of testimonials, place them where they will definitely impact your conversion rate: next to a contact form or call-to-action button, on an ordering page, on your ‘About us’ page.