Current EcourseImproving Your Marketing Campaigns with Landing Pages

2.8 Brag a bit: a dash of social proof

The last ingredient to add into the mix for a high-converting page is social proof – also known as customer testimonials.

Social proof is important because, even though you can tell people what your brand is all about, praise is always more believable when it comes from a secondary source.  A good word from other brands or your loyal customers on your landing page acts as a stamp of approval and contributes to your credibility.

Here’s an example of social proof in action on a landing page for Paper Anniversary. This brand sells traditional paper jewelry gifts and Anna, the founder, includes testimonials from the couples who made a purchase. The real photos of the couples enhance the social proof here, and ensure others reading the page that real customers love and recommend Anna’s product.

2.8-Testimonial-A

In our Emerald Developments landing page example, we’ve included two quotes as social proof towards the bottom of the page:

2.8-Testimonial-B

Social media buttons can go on your confirmation or thank you pages, but it’s best to keep them off your landing pages as they distract folks away from your call to action. You don’t want people sharing your page via Twitter, then getting caught up in the latest trending topic. You want them on your page converting!

Note that testimonials or social proof are only valuable insofar as they encourage your visitors to follow through with your call to action. They exist to:

  • Ensure visitors they’re making a wise choice choosing your brand over others
  • Reinforce your great product or service, and
  • Increase the desire people have for your offering

You also don’t have to use quotations. With express permission you can display the logos of impressive companies who use your service on your landing page. Seeing that other brands use your service can be all the reassurance a new customer needs.

Overall, when done right, social proof can have a huge impact on your conversion rates.

A testimonial is only good if it’s authentic. Don’t heavily edit your customers’ words. Quotes should feel like they came from a person or they’ll seem made up. Try asking open-ended questions to get the best quotes from your brand advocates.

And there you have it! You’ve added all five elements to your page. It’s lookin’ good and hopefully reads pretty persuasively at this point.

Watch the video below for a quick rundown of the Emerald Developments Real Estate example with all five elements in play:

Although these are the five elements we recommend for a high-converting landing page, they’re the base. The mold. The best-practice formula, we’ve found works pretty well. You can customize your pages however you like. There are no solid rules to conversion (as you’ll find when you start A/B testing your pages to test your assumptions).