Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales

Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales

Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Media
Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales

It’s said that the power of social media can make or break your business. And we couldn’t agree more. After all, there are now over 4.5 billion social media users worldwide! One thing that has changed over time when it comes to building business credibility, boosting sales and earning customers’ trust is the way prospects use the internet and social media.

Previously, brands were focused on topping search engine page results. However, today, this is just not enough for building brand credibility and improving sales. Brands need to focus on ranking in the top searches plus social proofing. Let’s take a deeper dive to understand this concept better.

What is Social Proof?

The driving force behind the idea of social proof is FOMO (fear of missing out). This is a feeling of anxiety we get when we feel we’re missing out on better experiences in life. Therefore, to ensure we enjoy the best life has to offer, we rely on other people’s experiences, recommendations and referrals. That’s where social proof comes into the picture.

Social proof works for both potential customers and brands. It provides external validation from actual users/customers, making a business more trustworthy and credible. In other words, it focuses on positive reviews, comments, or experiences shared by customers. Therefore, when applied to marketing, social proof shows that if the product or service worked for people in a similar situation, it will work for the potential customer too.

And let’s not forget humans are hardwired to care more about what others think. So, social proof can truly help businesses build brand credibility and trust, thereby increasing their customer base and sales. The key to effective social proof is keeping it real. Real opinions of real people; no trickery!

Let’s Talk Statistics….

Nothing shows the true power of any marketing strategy other than statistics. Here are the numbers that reveal the importance of social proof for your business in modern times.

  • 91 percent of buyers read online reviews before they make a purchase
  • 82 percent of people seek recommendations and referrals before they purchase a product/service
  • 79 percent of people prefer to view video testimonials, while 2 out of 3 people are more likely to engage with the brand after watching them

Simply put, social proof builds your credibility and increases your sales opportunities.

Incorporate Social Proof into Your Marketing

As the social media landscape continuously expands, employing the right strategy on the right platform will optimize your marketing efforts and increase your social proof along with your sales opportunities. That said, LinkedIn is a must for both business-to-business and business-to-consumer brands as buyers and consumers will evaluate your personal and company profiles before during business with you or your company.

For business-to-business companies, LinkedIn is the most important social media platform as evidenced by the following statistics.

  • 76 percent of B2B buyers prefer working with recommendations from their professional network
  • 75 percent of B2B buyers rely on social media for making buying decisions
  • 50 percent of them use LinkedIn as the leading source for making purchase decisions

For business-to-consumer companies, Instagram and Pinterest offer great opportunities to engage with consumers and provide a direct consumer sales channel. It is also helpful to have an active LinkedIn personal and company profile to provide additional social proof.

  • 90 percent of people on Instagram follow a business
  • 89 percent of users are on Pinterest for purchase inspiration
  • 83 percent of people use Instagram to discover new products and services and 87 percent said they took specific action, like making a purchase, after seeing product information
  • 60 percent of Pinterest users start their product research on the platform

Other ways to integrate social proof into your customer journey are:

  • Customer testimonials and reviews
  • Case studies
  • User generated content
  • Awards, accolades and certifications
  • Celebrity and influencer endorsements

Every business is unique, so it is crucial to develop a customized social media strategy that works best for you. This is where we can help. Join our free live Social Media Made Simple Strategy Session to learn the best methods to unlock the power of social proof for your business.

 ###

Related Content

Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales
Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales

Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales

It is said that the power of social media can make or break your business. And we could not agree more. After all, there are now over 4.5 billion social media users worldwide! One thing that has changed over time when it comes to building business credibility, boosting sales and earning customers' trust is the way prospects use the internet and social media.

Read More

5 Incredibly Simple Strategies to Skyrocket Your Sales

5 Incredibly Simple Strategies to Skyrocket Your Sales

5 Incredibly Simple Strategies to Skyrocket
5 Incredibly Simple Strategies to Skyrocket Your Sales

This article was originally published on behalf of the Detroit Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program for the Sterling Heghts Regional Chamber of Commerce.

As a business owner, solopreneur, sales or marketing executive, having a well-thought-out and integrated marketing and sales strategy is extremely important to achieve and exceed your targeted revenue goals.

Oftentimes, the marketing and sales functions are “mashed up” into a single effort that increases expenses, lost customer opportunities and results in lower revenue. Worse yet, the marketing function is nonexistent and increases the sales cycle.

There are five incredibly simple and powerful strategies that will transform your revenue generating opportunities and help you achieve your revenue target.

1. Make the investment. Marketing can be a daunting challenge. And, the landscape seems to evolve daily with new digital and social media platforms. If that’s not enough, there are the issues of what to say, how to say it, where to say it, and who should hear it. Marketing is and should be viewed as a critical investment for the financial success of your business. Yet, many business owners and executives view marketing as an expense rather than an important component of a solid sales strategy. Marketing is not optional. It’s imperative.

2. Understand the difference. While marketing and sales is usually used interchangeably, each function has a unique and important role that contribute to producing revenue for your business. Marketing generates and nurtures leads for your sales efforts to convert purchase-ready and qualified leads into customers.

3. Align marketing and sales.If you are a small business owner or a solopreneur, then you may perform both the sales and marketing functions. It is important that these functions are performed separately as they contribute differently to your revenue generation endeavors and can yield immeasurable benefits for your company. If your company has both sales and marketing teams, collaboration and integration are imperative. Without alignment and collaboration, your bottom-line can be adversely impacted.

Why is sales and marketing alignment important to achieving higher revenue? Simply put, harmony and coordination between these equally important functions will lower your costs and increase your revenue. Here are several alignment benefits. According to a 2015 Act-On Sales and Marketing Alignment Survey, 56 percent of aligned organizations met their revenue goals, and 19 percent beat their goals.In comparison with misaligned organizations, just 37 percent met their revenue goals, and just 7 percent beat them.

The Act-On study also found that sales and marketing alignment delivers, on average, a 36 percent improvement in customer retention and 38 percent higher sales-win rates — and it accomplishes this feat by improving only half of the end-to-end customer lifecycle.

 

Your marketing and sales funnels should be jointly created. Employing a six- phase funnel approach, the marketing team owns the first three phases, including prospect attraction, lead generation and lead cultivation.

Once the lead achieves qualified status, a transition or handoff occurs to the sales team that is then responsible for lead conversion, proposal development, negotiation and finally closing the sale.

Following the sale, both teams should work together to cultivate loyal customers and brand ambassadors.

4. Segment your marketing efforts. Oftentimes, a one-size-fits-all marketing approach is used. This approach diminishes your ability to effectively attract, engage and cultivate prospective customers for your products or services. In fact, the one-size-fits-all approach actually trains your sales targets to ignore your communications as they are not relevant and do not resonate with your prospective customers. By segmenting your marketing communications, your messages are more attractive and will increase your visibility and credibility with your target customers.

5. Optimize your Brand. Taking the required time to proactively and consistently manage your company’s brand provides unmatched opportunities to increase your market share, attract purchase-ready customers, retain your top customers and achieve your revenue target. A strong business brand is vital to the long-term profitability of your business and enables your customers and prospects to more quickly understand why your products or services will fulfill their needs and why they must make the effort to move to a buying decision.

Both sales and marketing are two very different, yet equally important functions that must be aligned for your company’s long-term success. Aligning your sales and marketing strategies can yield tremendous financial opportunities, including achieving and likely beating your revenue goals.

With alignment, your actual marketing and sales expenses will be reduced as collaboration significantly enhances productivity and profitability. For companies, create a culture that rewards of respect, collaboration and accountability because what gets rewarded gets done. For solopreneurs, work with an accountability partner.

Always, use a dashboard that equally sets goals and evaluates both the marketing and sales teams, individually and collectively to monitor progress. Good luck!

###

 

Related Content

Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales
Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales

Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales

It is said that the power of social media can make or break your business. And we could not agree more. After all, there are now over 4.5 billion social media users worldwide! One thing that has changed over time when it comes to building business credibility, boosting sales and earning customers' trust is the way prospects use the internet and social media.

Read More

8 Reasons to Manage Your Brand for Greater Success

8 Reasons to Manage Your Brand
8 Reasons to Manage Your Brand for Greater Success

This article was originally published on the Business 2 Community Business Blog.

For business owners and entrepreneurs, every day presents a myriad of new business challenges. Chief among them is the constant and relentless pressure to grow your business in an increasingly competitive and noisy marketplace

As most businesses and consumers are risk-averse, avoiding an expensive mistake is the top priority in their purchase decision process. Having a solid brand strategy will allow your company to be perceived as less risky and as a more reliable choice. Here are the top eight reasons to manage your brand as a key business growth strategy

1. Customer acquisition. Building a brand that consistently (and without exception) places customers first and ensures a first-class experience with your company is the most critical reason to manage your brand. Delivering an exceptional customer experience when things are going well is usually easy. The more important customer experience is when there is a real or perceived complaint that requires delicate negotiation to successfully resolve the concern. Here’s where your brand must excel by living up to your customer promise of quality and service.

2. Innovation or reinvention. All businesses—small or large—must continually innovate or reinvent themselves to remain relevant and to consistently meet evolving customers’ needs and marketplace trends. For businesses, this is especially true, and it requires a commitment to forward-thinking and a willingness to adopt strategic and early adjustments to marketplace trends and changes. In this case, a company’s brand must be strong enough to build upon and to evolve with the changing marketplace dynamics without sacrificing brand equity.

3. Reputation. Managing your brand can significantly influence your reputation and enable your company to break through the marketplace noise to attain top-of-mind industry positioning. Additionally, creating a solid and positive reputation can be helpful when addressing a negative or crisis situation and can create opportunities to promote the company.

4. Profitability. A strong, positive and resonant brand will command premium pricing, as the customer value is clearly and consistently articulated through actions and communications. According to McKinsey and Company, business-to-business companies with brands that are perceived as strong generate a higher EBIT margin than others. In 2012, strong brands outperformed weak brands by 20 percent, up from 13 percent in 2011.

5. Talent acquisition. Want to successfully compete for the best talent? With a strong employer brand, business owners can and do recruit high demand talent. This is an area often overlooked, and even ignored, by many business owners. An Employer Brand International study indicated only 41 percent of companies have an employer brand strategy.

6. Disruption. Stagnation is a common challenge for many businesses. While disrupting an industry may be a long shot, becoming a disruptor within an industry niche is often doable for small business owners. Having a brand that enables the company to quickly build credibility in the new marketplace or to launch new offerings is imperative for success.

7. Resilience. Economic downturns happen, and most brands stumble from time to time. During these challenging times, it is important to expand your knowledge, capabilities and opportunities. Another imperative to remain relevant is to continually refresh your products to meet consumer desires and to stay steadfast to your brand values. Consumer responsiveness is a hallmark of great brands and should be a goal for business owners.

8. Engagement. Highly successful companies cultivate innovation and creativity and empower their employees to create a high performing culture. These companies embody their brand promise throughout their touch points and have no fear of failure as they celebrate, embrace and respect calculated risks with both good or bad outcomes.

Whatever your business status, managing your company brand should be strategic, purposeful and consistent to yield endless opportunities and unlimited success. A proactive and well-thought-out brand strategy is the secret to the long-term viability, growth and success of your business.

###

Related Content

Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales
Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales

Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales

It is said that the power of social media can make or break your business. And we could not agree more. After all, there are now over 4.5 billion social media users worldwide! One thing that has changed over time when it comes to building business credibility, boosting sales and earning customers' trust is the way prospects use the internet and social media.

Read More

12 Powerful Growth Strategies to Increase Revenue

12 Powerful Growth Strategies to Increase Revenue

12 Powerful Growth Strategy
12 Powerful Growth Strategies to Increase Revenue

This article was originally published on the Business 2 Community Business Blog.

Growing a small business is no easy feat and requires a tremendous amount of perseverance, dedication, focus, and even some luck. Knowing how to manage your growth and ensuring your ability to deliver exceptional service to your customers are paramount for long-term success.

While a myriad of strategies can enable a small business to achieve growth, here are several that warrant consideration and implementation.

1. Align Sales and Marketing. The terms sales and marketing are often used interchangeably. However, these vital functions provide very different—and equally important—contributions to the company or organization. They are, in fact, the Yin-Yang that cultivate customers, generate sales, and serve as the fuel for your company. Marketing is, and should be, viewed as a critical investment for the financial success of the organization. Sales without an appropriate marketing function is costlier, less effective and reduces the bottom-line.

2. Establish a formal referral program. Data conclusively demonstrates that customer referrals are a significantly effective but extremely underutilized business strategy. According to Dale Carnegie, 91 percent of customers would give a referral, but only 11 percent are asked. Creating a formal referral program can allow your customers to help you grow by becoming a brand ambassador for your company.

3. Expand your offerings. Your customers and their needs are always evolving. And, so should your product and service offerings. Being aware of your customers’ long-term needs, research and development or industry trends enables you to anticipate their future needs and position your company to service them. This approach also affords your company the opportunity to be first-to-market and a disruptor.

4. Focus on customer relationships. Per Marketing Metrics, increasing customer retention by five percent can increase profits between 25 and 95 percent. Providing exceptional customer service that creates long-term and loyal customers is a sound strategy to grow your business. Upselling or cross selling current customers is significantly more effective and cost-efficient than securing new clients.

5. Develop strategic partnerships. Many small business owners can benefit from strategic partnerships that enable them to service a larger client or business opportunity together. While horror stories abound, careful planning and due diligence can address many issues before they occur. Engaging professional help, including legal, financial and business experts, to form the partnership is the best approach for profitability and long-term success.

6. Become a recognized thought leader and expert. Here’s a surefire way to elevate your reputation, build brand equity and attract ideal customers. Based on your industry and business, creating a blog, podcast, by-lined articles or other content to share your knowledge can be an effective strategy. Even sharing your expertise through speaking engagements, industry panels or other high-profile events provides an excellent opportunity to showcase your company and expertise.

7. Increase your geographic reach. Focusing on a manageable territory is smart. Developing opportunities to expand your customer reach is a significant growth strategy that should be pursued in a phased approach to ensure that additional customer requirements, logistics and costs are addressed.

8. Develop a new client/customer base. Data suggests that selling to new customers is between 5 and 20 percent successful. Notwithstanding this data, a focused effort to attain customers in new sectors, geographies or segments can be prudent. Knowing when to engage in new client acquisition opportunities requires a well-thought-out strategic approach and flawless implementation.

9. Just say no. Here’s a big challenge for many small business owners. The ability to confidently and appropriately address difficult customers, to walk away from an ill-fitting business opportunity or to end a customer relationship requires the self-confidence and fortitude to opt-out. Learning to say “no” when it’s not a good fit or within your wheelhouse is a significant growth strategy.

10. Elevate your brand. When growing a small business, it is extremely important that your brand continues to evolve, as it can unlock competitive advantages for the company. Your brand is a dynamic asset that must always differentiate your company and its products and services. Oftentimes, as a company grows, its brand remains static and becomes ineffective as a new customer segment, geography or service offering is pursued. It is critical to remember that, as the company grows, you must elevate your brand and communications to address the new market requirements.

11. Optimize your memberships. Each year, small business owners expend significant funds to join business, trade or other membership organizations. Yet, they rarely take advantage of these memberships to share their expertise, elevate their executive profile or build mutually beneficial relationships. With the financial investment, consider the additional investment of your time and talent by chairing a committee, serving on the board or supporting an initiative. By engaging, you will showcase your leadership capability, will enable others to take notice of you and your company, and can leverage your engagement to increase awareness for you and your company.

12. Manage your customer acquisition costs. Opportunity cost is the value of a forgone activity or alternative when another option is chosen. Opportunity cost comes into play in any decision that involves a tradeoff between two or more options. The cost associated with the customer acquisition process is an important measure for a business to evaluate in combination with how much value having each customer typically brings to the business. Your customer acquisition cost evaluation should inform your pricing strategy.

Whether your small business is newly launched, is ready to grow or is in a holding pattern, the thoughtful implementation of these growth strategies can help you succeed well into the future.

###

 

Related Content

Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales
Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales

Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales

It is said that the power of social media can make or break your business. And we could not agree more. After all, there are now over 4.5 billion social media users worldwide! One thing that has changed over time when it comes to building business credibility, boosting sales and earning customers' trust is the way prospects use the internet and social media.

Read More

022: Win Buyers and Influence Sales with Client Segmentation

Today, our Pro Tip focuses on the importance of client segmentation as a key business development and growth driver.

Nicole Lewis, the president and CEO of Nicole Lewis & Associates, is a passionate client advocate and solution architect who creates high impact and “out of the box” initiatives to consistently deliver double digit return on investment for her clients. Nicole shares her progressive business development strategies and the importance of client and donor segmentation in this episode.

Watch the video interview here.

Contact Nicole at https://www.nicolelewisandassociates.com/contact/.

 

Related Content

Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales
Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales

Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales

It is said that the power of social media can make or break your business. And we could not agree more. After all, there are now over 4.5 billion social media users worldwide! One thing that has changed over time when it comes to building business credibility, boosting sales and earning customers' trust is the way prospects use the internet and social media.

Read More

Win Buyers and Influence Sales with Client Segmentation

Win Buyers and Influence Sales with Client Segmentation

An Interview with Nicole Lewis, president and CEO, Nicole Lewis and Associates

Entrepreneurs and business owners can be myopic when marketing their products and services. Understanding the buying behaviors, motivations and attributes of your customers enables the creation of segment-specific strategies and the ability to pursue new business opportunities. — Nicole Lewis

Today, our Pro Tip focuses on the importance of client segmentation as key business development and growth drivers.

Nicole Lewis, the president and CEO of Nicole Lewis & Associates, is a passionate client advocate and solution architect who creates high impact and “out of the box” initiatives to consistently deliver double digit return on investment for her clients. Nicole will share her progressive business development strategies and the importance of client and donor segmentation with us.

Listen to the podcast here.

[ratemypost]

YES, SIGN ME UP!

I’d love to send you additional resources, information, tools and more to help you launch and grow your business and accelerate your career.

I respect your privacy and take protecting it very seriously. NO SPAM EVER!

Related Content

Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales
Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales

Unlock the Amazing Power of Social Proof to Increase Sales

It is said that the power of social media can make or break your business. And we could not agree more. After all, there are now over 4.5 billion social media users worldwide! One thing that has changed over time when it comes to building business credibility, boosting sales and earning customers' trust is the way prospects use the internet and social media.

Read More