In this episode, you’ll learn how to make your consulting website far more persuasive using social proof.
The website used in this example is Inscape Consulting.
[Slides]Transcript
Welcome to Consulting Website Design 005: Social Proof.
In today’s episode, I’m going to give you a quick primer on social proof and how to use it on your consulting website.
And we’re looking at the Inscape Consulting website, which is one of my favorite consulting websites.
One of the reasons I really like this consulting website is how Greg, the founder, uses social proof throughout the website.
As I scroll through it, you can see that we have some professional photography at the top, we have some client logos, we have some feature logos here, we have a slider for testimonials, and at the end we have some neat little counter section to show his prospects some of the numbers in the business.
The combination of these social proof elements make the website, and his business looks far more persuasive and credible.
To illustrate the point, I’m going to strip away these social proof elements, and then compare it to the original.
First I’m going to get rid of the logo section.
And then I’m going to this headshot as well as the “As Seen On” images.
Next I’m going to get rid of the testimonial section.
Finally, I’m going to get rid of the counter section.
Let’s start from the top.
So when I scroll through this again, notice how it’s not nearly as persuasive and compelling as the original, and that’s because it’s lacking that social proof.
Now the original.
Again, the original is far more persuasive than how I removed it because who you work with and what people say about you is critical in your marketing as a consultant.
This quote, taken from a Nielson-Norman Group article, explains the power of social proof:
Occasionally, in usability studies, users tell us that they don’t care about user reviews, they don’t trust other people’s opinions, and they make all of their decisions based totally on their own independent perspective. Unfortunately, thousands of psychology studies prove this “lone wolf” theory to be quite false — another example of why we should base design decisions on what users do rather than what they say.
Social-psychology studies have repeatedly indicated our conscious and unconscious reliance on each other for cues in almost all decisions that we make.
It’s easy to think that you aren’t affected by social proof, but it’s baked into your nature as a human being.
If any of you have read Robert Cialdini’s great book, Influence, you’ll know that Social Proof is one of the 6 principles of persuasion.
And when it comes to your website, you want to put these principles of persuasion to the test.
If more people click on his various CTAs — the download button for his lead magnet — because of the social proof he has on his website, then it’s a great design decision to include all of these elements on his website.
Action Step
Today’s action step is really simple: beef up your website with some social proof.
Use a mixture of testimonials, client logos, features, and some design elements throughout your consulting website to make it more persuasive.