On Social Proof

In sales writing, one of the cornerstone components is the Testimonial.

The notion is that when looking at a product or service, you familiarize yourself with the benefits, the price, the guarantees… Testimonials are one of the elements that is often included right near the end (but not always) to give customers that last little ‘push’ they might need to make a purchase.

Why does this work?

As some point, observant salesmen realized that testimonials work and they became a standard of the sales and marketing process. The title that has been given to the psychological trigger testimonials set off is called ‘Social Proof’.

Social Proof is wired directly into us. It’s the part of our social makeup that looks to others for clues to fill in complete information. Things like, “Does this product do what it says?” or “Can I trust this person?” or “Who’s the big dog here that I shouldn’t mess with?”

There’s limits to our own personal experience of the world and we unconsciously look for clues to fill in the gaps. If your best friend introduces you to a stranger and tells you they’re a good person, you tend to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Your best friend vouches for this quality in the other person. Ergo you treat this other person as a good person until you have reason to do otherwise.

Now imagine you’re looking at a widget somebody is selling, and it’s something new that you don’t have experience with. You have some doubts of whether or not it’s worth the purchase price.

Then you overhear a conversation where one person is raving to another about the widget, how good it works, and how much it was worth the price. Even though this person is a stranger, you’re more likely to be swayed by their opinion because they don’t have a stake in the company, so there’s no reason for them to make lie about the product.

Testimonials do the same thing.

Particularly testimonials from a person you know more about (there’s a picture, a first name, a last name, contact info, etc). The more “real” markers can make the person, the more we’re willing to accept their word.

Although not as convincing as advice from your real life trusted advisor, they can be very effective.

If the marketer understands their customers very well, they can use a customer testimonial that speaks to the other potential customers situation:

• If they care about price, marketers use a testimonial raving about how great a deal it was.

• If they care about quality, marketers use a testimonial raving about the high end materials and design.

• If they care about fast results, marketers use a testimonial raving about all the time they saved.

In effect, it's taking that conversation you overheard in real life that swayed your decision, and replicated it for the ten thousand other people that walked by that same widget store.

The best part of the testimonial is that you get good testimonials by doing good work. If you’re getting rave reviews, you’ve got 3rd party confirmation that you’ve got something valuable to contribute to the market place. At that point, it’s your responsibility to get your message out there with marketing and provide the solutions people need.