The following is a guest post by Carsten Schaefer. Carsten is the founder and CEO of crowdy.ai, the first Clients-Convert-Clients Marketing platform. Inspired by principles and mechanisms of social proof, Carsten is currently on a mission to help businesses become trustworthy and thrive in the digital landscape.
Every business needs customers to survive. The math is simple: get more clients, and your profit will grow too. The not so simple part of this equation is how to convert potential clients into existing, and preferably, long-term ones.
Let’s say that you own an online shoe store, and a potential customer Amy comes to your site. She wants to buy a new pair of shoes, and she likes several models found in different stores. You have never heard about them before. How do you convert Amy into your customer?
The psychology behind conversions
Before the internet, people relied on the limited information they could gather from the following sources: ads, TV, radio, newspapers and talk with friends and family. The rise of the internet significantly increased our opportunities for gathering information. We can find recommendations for nearly anything with just a few clicks today.
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Too many potential customers just stop by, click here and there, and quickly leave. All online businesses face this issue at some point. The ongoing question is how to keep them engaged and convert them into clients and customers. The main ingredient that’s missing in most cases is something we all keep losing a bit of as we’re growing old: trust. We don’t trust ads that plainly say “This is the best product.” We want some proof. Who made that statement and under what circumstances?
So, to convert Amy into a new customer, you need to present her with some kind of proof of your authenticity. For example, while she browses products on your website, you can show her the number of visitors currently viewing the exact same product, alongside with how many pairs are left for purchase. This creates scarcity which is a number 1 driver for increasing revenue. This is drawn from the study of effects of 29 treatments on website revenue carried out by Qubit, a data analytics and personalization software provider, over the course of 4 years across nearly 7,000 websites.
When people visit your website, seeing the real-time activity helps them notice your brand is alive and valued by other customers. Their experience is improved through their exposure to popular products, being aware of other customers shopping with your company, and proofs that your site is a place where people like to shop.
What is Clients-Convert-Clients (CCC) marketing?
The main principle of Clients-Convert-Clients marketing is simple – people don’t like to be the first to try something, and they tend to place their trust in the good ratings of previous customers. Presenting other clients’ favorable opinion about your product or a service converts potential clients into new ones. The goal is to use a positive experience of existing customers and clients in order to gain some new.
The behavior we exhibit when we turn to others for their opinion and imitate their actions is known as social proof, the term first mentioned by Robert Cialdini in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. It describes how and why people imitate other people’s actions when they’re not sure what is the appropriate behavior in specific situations.
You will get various information and probably go to websites of recommended brands to learn more. As the owner of a store, you want to keep the visitors and convince them that they should be there with you, not with your competition. In simplest words, you want to convert visitors into buyers.
How to implement Clients-Convert-Clients marketing on your website?
To implement the concept of CCC marketing on your website, you can add these suggestions manually, one by one. Or, you can automate the process by using some of the available tools like crowdy.ai.
Display newest conversions, opt-ins, and new sales, for example. This helps raise awareness about your conversion rates and builds trust. If you don’t have enough conversions to show each day, it’s a good idea to show the total number of conversions during specific time periods.
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Show testimonials. Collect testimonials from your clients and show them on your website. Follow up with your clients and customers, ask them to leave a testimonial and add it to the website. Or, you can do it automatically, by using some of the available tools like crowdy.ai, which includes “Testimonials” feature. This function helps you gather testimonials and displays them on your website. To implement crowdy.ai functions on your website, you need to install a WordPress plugin if you use WordPress, or install it manually if you’re not using WordPress.
Present the number of followers and subscribers on social media. The higher the numbers, the more powerful social proof you have. An additional benefit is that clients can quickly and easily follow you and join your community. This way they can become new clients who convert clients.
Show the number of visitors on a specific page, either at a current moment or during a specific time period. By doing this, you show the potential client that there’s interest in that specific service or a product. This also creates a feeling of trust, which is proven to drive sales up.
Implement a star rating system on your website so clients who tried the product or service can quickly rate it. Beside having visible stars on your website, when potential clients find you on Google, they will also see the stars in the search results. This way, you will not only build trust but gain more organic traffic and get potential new clients on your website. The new upcoming features (summer 2019) of crowdy.ai let you either send an email from the dashboard or enable an option to send an email after each purchase.
Publish news about your business. This way, you are informing existing clients and customers about your business’ new events and promoting new features. Write blog posts about your niche, build trust and position your company as an expert one. News would show your users any updates you want them to see. At the same, you are improving your click rate.
Use push notifications to connect with users, even when they’re off your site. How does this work? When someone visits your site, they will see a message asking them to allow these notifications. Once they confirm, you can send them notifications. For example, they can contain information about discounts, new products or services, or notifications promoting new articles you just published. This way, potential customers are coming back to your website, which gives you a new chance to convert them into existing ones.
This is the power of CCC marketing: instead of investing a ton of money in traditional marketing, you can let your clients do the job for you by implementing the above-mentioned techniques.
Summary
You need new customers to grow your business. The everlasting question is: How to get new customers? One way is to use CCC (Clients-Convert-Clients) marketing concept on your website. You can do it manually, or by using tools that will automate the process, like crowdy.ai.
The goal is to offer social proof to your potential clients to convert them into existing clients. The social proof can take many forms. For example, the number of visitors currently on the page, newest conversions, testimonials, push notifications, etc.
This way, you build your business’ trustworthiness, which is an important factor in client conversion.
