Use Social Proof To Elevate Your GTM Efforts
Scrappy is the new authentic - Social Proof Mega Guide
Dear GTM Strategist!
Social proof is becoming a norm on landing pages, sales decks, ads, and other marketing and sales materials in B2B. When we’re talking about social proof, it means that in addition to us saying that we are great, we have other people saying that too. We can show some numbers, photos, or videos - and that makes our “we are great” statement much more credible than if we are praising ourselves.
Still, many people do it in a vague and non-credible manner and are wasting tons of time and resources to produce vanilla social proof.
Hi Joe ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ , CEO who thinks your software is excellent. 👋
Most ICPs will not be convinced by Darren’s testimonial.
They are browsing your website to grasp answers to mission-critical questions in their purchasing cycle, such as:
What is it?
Should I care about it?
How is it better than existing alternatives?
Will it work for me?
Can I trust it?
They want much more solid evidence than “game-changing” by CEO Darren.
Let’s do better!
This newsletter is sponsored by Icypeas.
Icypeas is a GTM tool to build your prospect lists and enrich leads with triple verified emails to protect your deliverability.
It is used by top-tier GTM products (Apollo, 6sense, Lemlist, Instantly, Phantombuster, etc.) and outbound agencies (ColdIQ, Growth Engine X, C17 Lab, Scalability, etc.).
Get 500 Icypeas credits for free by signing up using the link below!
Meet my brother Jure Knehtl. I learned so much from him about Meta ads and ecommerce that I must pay him a special tribute this time. Since 2019, he demonstrated that User-Generated Content (UGC) outperforms all other ad creatives at his $60 million a year ad spend. In his career, he generated $200 million in ecommerce revenue, built two studios for recording ads, creatives and scaled three brands to $40-100 million in 2 years with this approach.
Then came AI: Jasper, CreativeOS, ElevenLabs, Synthesia, and now even ChatGPT’s own new image generation…. and changed how UGC is created.
While images with product fakes and photoshopped “people” could fool me any day, videos are still a bit robotic 🤖. But we are maybe a quarter or two away from mainstream dirt-cheap tools to solve this last frontier of faking user-generated products with AI.
Fun fact: More and more music on Spotify might be AI-generated - a smart move for saving on copyright.
I have been using AI for Meta ads - not to fake humans, but to test different voices in video ads, and it definitely sounded better than me reading the script. 🤠
With recent developments in AI image generation, the authenticity of your social proof materials is more important than ever. While I envision we will have a trust shield for “human-generated content” in the future, let’s dive into how we can leverage our GTM efforts by building more trust.
This is why I prepared this quick guide on generating social proof for your marketing and sales GTM materials that is authentic, verifiable, and effective. We will dive into:
7 Priciples of Persuasion
15 B2B social proof formats
Why scrappy is the new authentic, and
How to build a system for generating social proof at scale.
By the end of the article, you will get at least three ideas on how to build more trust, credibility, and preference for your products and services using social proof. And my bet is that it will help with your conversion rates.
7 Principles of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini
Based on the definition of psychology today, trust is a key element of social relationships and a foundation for cooperation. It refers to a belief that someone or something can be relied on to do what they say they will.
How can we develop trust when transacting with strangers on the internet?
My go-to mental model, which I have been using since 2017, is Robert B. Cialdini’s principles of persuasion, which influence our behaviour and decision-making. They are widely used in conversion rate optimization, marketing, and sales.
Cialdini defined 7 principles :
Reciprocity: People feel obligated to repay favors and return kindness. When someone gives you something, you are more likely to give something back in return. Examples: gifts, lead magnets.
Commitment and Consistency: People honor their commitments and act consistently with their values and self-image. Once they commit to something, they are more likely to follow through with it. Examples: Upgrades on the cart and post-purchase upsells.
Consensus (Social Proof): This principle suggests that people are more likely to adopt a behavior if they see others doing it. Example: “8000+ businesses used the GTM Strategist methodology” makes me more credible than “Hi, I am Maja from Slovenia and I love GTM. 🤦”
Authority: People are more likely to follow the advice of an authority figure. Authority can be established through credentials, expertise, or social status. Example: To all landing pages, I add customer reviews as well as field experts' reviews, VCs and larger companies - I call this one white robe effect 🥼- doctor recommend.
Liking: People are more likely to be influenced by someone they like. This can be due to physical attractiveness, similarity, or other factors that create a positive impression. Example: I was resisting sharing personal updates on LinkedIn for a very long time, but when I tested some videos, I got disproportionally more reactions. It makes me think that you like me more if I show my human side. 🫶
Scarcity: This principle states that people place a higher value on things that are scarce. When something is limited in availability, people are more likely to want it. Example: All my sales promotions have a countdown (limited time only) and I do not take more than 5 consulting clients per quarter.
Unity: The seventh principle emphasizes the power of shared identity and belonging. People are more likely to be influenced when they feel a sense of unity or shared identity with others. This goes beyond superficial similarities and involves deeper connections based on shared values, affiliations, or experiences. Example: When I tell you that I am from Europe where there is more likely that you will see a deer 🦌 than an investor and more likely than not, you will have to bootstrap - that makes the GTM Strategist method more interesting for companies who know that they should do “more with less”.
Next, we will apply these principles and build you a checklist for social-proofing your products or services to make sure that your marketing and sales materials win the hearts and minds of your ICP. Principle #7 = Create Unity. 🤝
First rule of Social Proof - The more specific (and difficult to fake) the better!
Great product!
Lost 10 lbs by drinking soap water every morning.
5/5 - I recommend!
Excellent team!
That is rubbish.
Non-specific, not relatable, or even bought/faked?
Let’s first develop a great taste for social proof pieces that will be so intuitive to you. A great social proof piece should include:
Proof of purchase/usage (screenshot or buyer verification)
Specifics of usage experiences
Results achieved - preferably with numbers
Verifiable reviewers data
Enough company and usage specific that it looks relatable to a viewer
A photo or a video of a person to make it more personal
Just remember how you would choose a restaurant from Tripadvisor, Yelp or Google Maps. You would seek restaurants with thousands of reviews and in the range from 4.1 to 4.7- because 5/5 with 6 reviews looks like a scam or food poisoning.
The same set of brains makes decisions for B2B purchases.
I created this rating of social proof elements that we often use in B2B. I scored it based on credibility (trustworthiness) and “difficulty to fake” (authenticity), and added examples of companies that use that effectively.
Next, I will point out some excellent pieces of B2B social proof from my clients and partners from which you can take massive inspiration. On average, highly converting SaaS landing pages include 7-21 pieces of social proof by my count.
Here are four quick breakdowns of the landing pages from Clay, Amplitude, Momentum AI and Miro - some great design trends there!
In addition to landing pages, you can use social proof practically in all marketing and sales materials - for LinkedIn posts and profile elements, sales decks, one pagers - you name it.
One more thing - highly produced materials look beautiful, but scrappy is the new credible.
You can score big time if you just share screenshots in your communication - like I did in my offer for workshops. Sorry, but if a client publishes something spontaneously on LinkedIn, that is 10 times more credible than all “rate us on (whatever platform) and have a chance to win a $50 gift card” that I have gotten.
The next question is how to get tactical about it.
Build a system to generate social proof
In Q1, one of my key KPIs would become # of testimonials generated. Why? Because I need that for my websites, advertising materials (UGC still works great), and it makes me incredibly happy whenever I hear back from you 💌.
My reviews and testimonials were scattered around the platforms (LinkedIn, email, Amazon, WhatsApp) and for the longest time ever, I did not have a centralized system to capture all the good vibes.
Enough was enough, so I built this form in Notion where I collect reviews.
If you have not rated my products yet, I kindly invite you to do it here.
I have this link bookmarked and every time someone sends me some feedback, I ask them if they can pitch it. I also added this link to post-purchase sequences and I measure the number of reviews received as one of my weekly KPIs. After a while, I could create my very own Wall of love. ♥️
Now what is really important for me is that these systems are kind of automated, so I do not distract my deep work every time I want to add a testimonial. This is how I solved my “single source of truth” social proof problem. I send a link to my testimonials form in my post-purchase sequences, too.
If you are doing this for a software, definitely consider adding the request for reviews to your drip campaigns too. Make sure you keep all the testimonials in a single space. How about if you already have a lot of users and would like to get some social proof from them?
Agnese, cofounder of Ajelix, data analytics platform with 200K+ users (see what social proof is doing to your perception of the importance of this company 🤠) used my before-during-after testimonial framework to send out testimonial requests to the 1000 most active users and asked them to review the tool at Trustpilot.
Here is a quick list of the most popular review sites for B2B products if you are new to it.
That was it, my friends.
Thanks for reading, but you know what would really move the needle in business? if you commit to collecting at least 5 pieces of social proof this week. I challenge you to do it! All you have to do is ask - nobody will stop liking you if you ask for feedback. Challenge accepted?
You can get proven templates, examples, and prompts on how to get and use social proof on your websites, sales decks, and ads in my 100+ Step GTM Checklist.
