Often used synonymously with influencer marketing, celebrity social proof capitalises on the huge audience that celebrities have. Celebrity endorsements are essential for building a successful brand, especially in fashion niches like lingerie. Consumers are constantly looking for inspiration and guidance from their favourite style icons, whether they’re a fashion model, A-list celeb or a well-known YouTuber.
How you can use it
Celebrity social proof doesn’t just mean reaching out to the most popular stars on the planet – it’s about getting an endorsement from an influencer in your target market. And with the rise of Instagram and YouTube personalities, getting an endorsement has never been easier.
Start following celebs and influencers who fit iPaaS Vendors with your target audience and see what kind of deals you can make. If you’re a small, fairly new lingerie brand, target someone with a few thousand followers. The bigger your budget, the more popular an influencer you can reach out to.
Celebrity social proof is important, but it’s also important to find the right celebrities. Think about your target audience. What celebrities would they most identify with? For example, someone who identifies with high-fashion models like Adwoa Aboah will probably be less receptive to sponsored ads featuring someone like Kim Kardashian.
User social proof
When trying out a new brand, especially one with a small reputation, consumers want to hear from your previous customers. They want to know if the products arrived on time, what the quality was like and how well they fit. These reviews and ratings can be the difference between a new customer and an abandoned browser.
How you can use it
To utilise user social proof, share positive reviews, videos and pictures about your product from around the web. You can encourage these reviews by including a note with their order or on a follow-up email, asking customers to share pictures on Instagram and tag your brand in them. Offering incentives like 10% off their next order is a great way to build up these reviews.
Another way to open your brand up to reviews is by signing up to user-generated review sites like Trustpilot and Quora. By allowing customers to rate your brand and share any positive or negative experiences they’ve had, these sites can help reduce first-time buyer hesitation. In fact, Trustpilot reported that showing your brand’s ratings on results pages can increase click-through rates by up to 94%.
The hardest part about building up user social proof is guaranteeing those 5-star reviews. That’s why you need to deliver a great customer experience. Before even thinking about encouraging reviews, make sure your order fulfilment, customer service and product quality are all world class.
4. Wisdom of the crowd
We’ve all heard the saying “follow the crowd”. It’s human nature. If you see dozens of people queuing outside a restaurant, you assume that restaurant must be nice. If you see that thousands of people have signed a petition, you assume it’s for a good cause. After all, thousands of people can’t be wrong, right?
Describing this social phenomenon, psychologist Robert Cialdini writes, “Whether the question is what to do with an empty popcorn box in a movie theatre, how fast to drive on a certain stretch of highway, or how to eat the chicken at a dinner party, the actions of those around us will be important in defining the answer.”
How you can use it
There are several different ways you can encourage potential customers to “follow the crowd” and buy your products. One of the easiest ways is to have a ‘most popular’ or ‘trending’ section on your site, showcasing the products that other customers are loving right now. This avenue is great for selling to potential customers that aren’t sure what they’re looking for or need some inspiration.
Another way to show off your brand’s popularity is to build up a strong online presence and showcase your socials on your site. If your brand has hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, YouTube subscribers and social shares, consumers will assume you’re an industry leader and are more likely to take you seriously. You can increase your follower count by holding giveaways, following your competitor’s followers and using geotags to boost local discovery.
5. Wisdom of your friends
We tend to surround ourselves with like-minded people. That’s why recommendations that come from a friend are much more likely to have an impact than other forms of advertising. In a global consumer survey, 77% of people said word-of-mouth from family and friends is the most persuasive source of new product information.
How you can use it
Similarly to crowd social proof, one of the best ways to reach your consumers through their friends is by building up a strong online presence. Social platforms like Instagram and Facebook suggest users pages to like based on who their friends are following, so boosting your follower count is the best way to gather this social proof. Encourage followers to tag their friends in relatable posts and giveaways, and share news and videos that are relevant to your target market.
The key to getting social proof
The only guaranteed way of building up an arsenal of social proof is to deliver an exceptional shopping experience. You can have a Fortune 500 marketing budget and a host of celebrity sponsorship deals, but if you can’t fulfil orders on time, it won’t matter. Order fulfilment and customer satisfaction are the make-or-break of brands, and a stream of negative customer reviews can result in a loss of up to 70% of potential customers.
Getting order fulfilment right can be especially tricky for lingerie brands. With more product variables than any other fashion niche, brands have to order each variation in low quantities to keep their stock levels manageable. Which means products are more likely to sell out, and manually updating website stock levels becomes an impossible task.
That’s why big lingerie brands are choosing to automate their data.
By connecting your warehouse, logistics, returns and ecommerce software through an integration platform, you have complete control over your essential business data. You can schedule data syncs in time with peak sales periods, eliminating the need for manual input tasks.
With automatic updates and live inventory figures, your website will always have up-to-date stock levels – meaning no more overselling, and no more unhappy customers. More importantly, you’ll be able to provide the kind shopping experience that gets you those 5-star reviews.
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