Hi there,
A couple months ago, I talked about how you can
use anticipation to boost sales.
Anticipation is one of many important social triggers that you should be using when marketing your products.
Today I am going to discuss
another trigger: social proof.
Imagine you’re looking for a place to eat dinner. As you drive down the street, you spot two similar restaurants across the street from each other. You notice that
one of them only has a few customers inside, and the other is bustling with people. Assuming you aren’t in a rush, which one would you choose to eat dinner at?
Most people would choose to go to the more popular restaurant, and the reason is because of social proof. We think, "Well, if it’s that popular, then it
must be good, right?"
On
Episode 138, Davia said "a line is actually not a bad thing". She realized that
making her ordering process less efficient actually increased sales. By individually boxing each order on the spot at markets, people had to wait longer to get their orders, which caused a line to build. And
once she had a line, she had social proof: people at the market thought "Well, if it’s that popular, then it
must be good, right?"
But having a line at a market is only one of
many ways that you can leverage social proof in your cottage food business. Let’s explore a few other ways:
- Customer reviews: when someone leaves a review on your Facebook page, Google listing, Yelp page, etc, you are leveraging social proof. Always encourage customers to leave a review and follow up with them if they don’t.
- Testimonials: collect quotes from your biggest fans and place them on your website and in social media posts, which provides social proof that others think your products are amazing.
- Limited products: when you sell out of a certain product, or only have a few left, it gives others social proof that your products are worth buying. Sometimes it is better to make less of a certain product and let it sell out, than to try to make enough for everyone who might want it.
- Social media followers: generally speaking, the more followers you have on a social media platform, the more social proof you have that your business is successful.
- Sales volume: I haven’t had her on the podcast yet, but Amy Mucha (creator of What’s Popping Con) keeps a running tally of how many cake pops she sells in a year and displays it on a sign at markets. When she hits certain milestones, she takes a picture of her sign and posts it on social media. Here’s one such post showing that she sold over 148,000 cake pops last year, which gives her a massive amount of social proof. McDonalds is famous for leveraging this form of social proof ("99+ billion served"), but you can use it too!
As you can see,
social proof is a very powerful social trigger that can allow you to go from an average sales day to a record sales day!And there are many more social triggers to come. Stay tuned for the next one!
Forraging ahead,
David