Local Marketing Insider #006 // Social Proof = Conversion

Today I want to use a few data points to answer the question: 

Does social proof impact landing page conversion?

To start, I like Julian Shapiro’s model of how to think about conversion rate:

Conversion rate = Desire - Labor - Confusion

To increase conversion you must increase the desire for your product while simultaneously limiting the effort it takes the visitor to understand what you do and what you want them to do (labor, confusion). 

Customer testimonials are clear, concise, authentic, and believable. They convey credibility. This is why they are such an effective conversion tool.

A word of caution: Be selective in the reviews you present. Off-topic or distracting reviews hurt rather than help.

5 Conversion Statistics

- Landing pages with social proof convert on average at 12.50%, compared to landing pages without convert at 11.40% 👇 

- 34% of top landing pages feature testimonials. 

- The purchase likelihood for a product with five reviews is 270% greater than the purchase likelihood of a product with no reviews.

- When a consumer interacts with your reviews they are 58% more likely to convert.

- Increasing review volume leads to higher conversion rates, even at high volume levels. 50 or more reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates. 

I’ll be the first to admit, these data points are all over the place. But, they're all positive.

So if you already have reviews coming in on Google, Facebook, TripAdvisor, etc., it's an easy win to place on landing pages to help conversion.

More landing pages, more reviews, more leads

This stat from Hubspot stuck out to me:

Companies with 31-40 landing pages get seven times more leads than those with 1-5 landing pages.

Giving shoppers more opportunities to convert is a straightforward strategy to drive more conversions. Combining this with the social proof:

More reviews + More landing pages = More conversions

I hope you enjoyed #006. Thanks for sticking with me these last few months. 

While I have your attention, I want to show you something fun we released last week. We're calling it the Local Business Reputation Grader.

It's a 4-question quiz you can use to put a specific number grade (0-100) on your business's reputation management strategy.

And here's the kicker, when you're done with the quiz (takes about 42 seconds), you'll get access to our in-depth recommendations. I spent 2 weeks fine-tuning all the content, it's some of the clearest information we've put out to date.

To the Grader!

Insider Alley

More ammo for your marketing meeting.

• I need to plug again how much I love Julian Shapiro's guide to landing pages. It's great. It's written "for startups" but I think the principles apply to local business just the same. Also if you are starting to run social ads or feel like your ads need a revamp, read "Make Ads".
• Google's notable "Page Experience" algorithm update, originally scheduled for May, has been pushed back to mid-June. You now have another month to tinker with your site performance. Lighthouse by Google is an easy and free way to test the speed of your site. Google looks at mobile speed first to determine rankings, so start there. When testing widewail.com we found significant performance differences for the same page on mobile vs. desktop - don't assume the two are the same.
• Reputation management is a good customer service strategy, but it's also a great local SEO strategy. Learn how reputation management impacts local SEO.

If you enjoyed this, maybe I can tempt you with the Local Marketing Insider newsletter. I write a bi-weekly email full of practical local marketing insights like this.

See you in 2 weeks - Jake, Marketing @Widewail