Alan Gayle is a sales and marketing consultant specialising in the construction industry. In this column he offers advice on how to make an impact in the market. This time he concludes his thoughts on ‘conversion’.

To conclude the series on Conversion, this month I want to talk about social proof in more depth and specifically testimonials.

First a quick re-cap:

• Conversion is: “The point at which a recipient of a marketing message performs a desired action.” (MarketingSherpa)
• It is a crucial element of marketing and will help improve your ROI
• Evaluating your Conversion Rate at least every quarter will indicate the effectiveness of your marketing
• A good Call To Action (CTA) will improve your Conversion Rate
• SEO (search engine optimisation) is virtually pointless without a Conversion strategy
• With reviews on websites like Trip Advisor and Amazon, social proof is becoming increasingly effective to improve your Conversion Rate

OK. Now on with this month’s subject.

I know many, big and tough contractor-types who are up and down scaffold, settling final accounts and beating down suppliers all day that are highly sceptical about the true impact of social proof. In fact, they’re usually the ones that think marketing is a luxury rather than a necessity.

The findings of the Neilson Report should convince even the most anti-marketing contractor how important social proof is to anyone that wants to grow their business.

It should… but in some cases it won’t. It’s a sad fact that, no matter what evidence is presented, some people will never be convinced. For you more open-minded types, consider the following.

Neilson’s Global Trust In Advertising report was published in April last year and is based on a survey of more than 28,000 internet respondents in 56 countries.

When asked ‘To what extent do you trust the following types of advertising’, 92% of the respondents said they ‘trust completely’ or ‘trust somewhat’ recommendations from people they know.

No surprise that it scored the highest.

At the opposite end of the scale, text / SMS adverts sent to mobile phones scored just 29%. There are 17 additional categories that make interesting reading for marketing junkies like me but I’ll try to contain myself and keep the statistics to a minimum. But take note of this, the second highest score (70%) was for ‘consumer opinions posted online’. That’s the social proof we’ve been talking about.

The best thing I’ve found with this particular report is that the results are sub-divided into five geographical regions and there is a category for Europe.

Europe has the lowest trust rating in all 19 categories except for online reviews, which, like the global results, came in second, although a little lower at 64%. Once again, personal recommendations received the highest trust rating at 89%.

Editorial content in newspapers and magazines was third with 48%, while branded websites came in fourth on 44%.

Although online reviews are more synonymous with consumer goods and services, such as holidays, books and electrical goods, in construction, client testimonials are just as powerful if not more so. Especially if the person giving the testimonial has credibility with the people you want to influence.

In her article ‘Testimonials – Your Single Most Persuasive Selling Tool’, Jackie Barrie offers some tips. She says testimonials should be real, just in case someone ever says: “I don't believe anyone ever said that about you – prove it!” You should always quote names, where possible and portrait photos make the quotes even more convincing. If clients don't give you permission to use their names, you can quote their initials, or job titles instead.

And if you can’t use quotes in your client’s own words, tell the story as an anonymous case study instead.

It is worth reading Jackie Barrie’s article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Testimonials---Your-Single-Most-Persuasive-Selling-Tool&id=3405743

Next month… how to set your marketing budget.

Alan Gayle has worked in sales and marketing roles in the construction industry since 1983. Following a successful career with some of the UK’s leading building product manufacturers, he has worked in the stone sector for the past 10 years. He now runs Keystone Construction Marketing, a marketing agency specialising in the construction industry. The agency works with building contractors, subcontractors and building product suppliers to help them increase their sales and improve their margins.