Social Proof to Supercharge Sales using AI

There’s a severe lack of trust in the world today.

It’s not surprising - every day you’ll hear about a new scam or charlatan relieving people of their cash.

This is ten-fold online. People trust very little online.

When we are building a business online we need to make sure that people know they can trust us.

We do this, first, by being trustworthy! That should go without saying!

When you make a promise deliver on it. Nay, overdeliver. Surprise people in a positive way!

But this itself isn’t enough - we need to make sure other people, prospects, know that we are worthy of their trust.

One powerful method is social proof.

Social proof comes in many forms:

• reviews

• written testimonials

• video testimonials

• case studies

• happy customers referring your product

and many more.

Social proof is powerful because it’s not you, the business owner, talking about how great your product is.

It’s other people, people who have purchased, used and love your products.

Testimonials for example can help boost conversions on a sales page by 34% and 72% of consumers will only purchase after receiving a favourable review.

In marketing we tend to work in the realm of adding a couple percentage points here and there - shifting a conversion rate from 5% to 6% for example is a big deal.

With social proof though we have a powerful lever than can mean the difference between a product/service’s success or failure.

This week we’ll be deep diving into social proof and how it can supercharge your business:

• Part 1: Collecting text testimonials

• Part 2: Capturing stories with video testimonials

• Part 3: Strategies to incentivise

• Part 4: Social proof goes social media

• Part 5: Supercharge your website

The basic shape of the week is to first show you how best to collect and then how to deploy social proof.

Let’s get started:

Collecting Text Testimonials

The most basic form of social proof is the written testimonial. Here’s an example:

Thanks Chris! Go follow him on X!

These are not reviews of a particular product or service but instead a general testimonial about you and your business.

This generality makes them very powerful as we’ll see as we go through the week. It allows me to deploy them in many different ways: on websites, on social media, on sales pages, in marketing emails etc. etc.

They become extremely powerful assets that once collected can be used again and again.

How to get them?

People do not write them automatically. Unfortunately!

You need to nudge people, often multiple. Sitting down to write a testimonial takes time and people are busy.

I like to nudge at a few different points, specifically:

• during email sequences after free sign ups. Ie. “if you are finding this valuable please can you tell me how and in what way?”

• after purchases - a follow up a few days later asking for a review and a nudge a month or so later once they’ve had time to fully use the product.

• after providing a service as part of the feedback collection.

Most of your customers (as long as your product/service is good!) will be happy to write you a testimonial - it’s just we need to i) nudge them and ii) make it as simple as possible for them.

Here’s a prompt to write a personal request that you can email them. This will be the heaviest hitting and most likely to lead to a testimonial.

Act as my marketing assistant

I want to request a testimonial from a recent purchaser

Their name is [name]

The product they purchased was [product name]

and the product is: [Description of the product including benefits]

Please write a request email asking them to provide a testimonial

Focus on how they should now be experiencing the benefits of the product. 

Explain that it would be a personal favour and extremely helpful if they are able to provide a testimonial. 

Finish with a call to action for them to give a testimonial here: [give link] 

Keep it to 300 words max. Don't overdo the language, keep it simple. 

I’ve run this using my 10 Steps programme as the product, providing the description to ChatGPT.

That’s perfect - it’s tailored to their product specifically. You can go further and add in any other details you know about them from engaging with them previously.

Is it more work to personalise and send individually? Yes absolutely!

But remember that these testimonials are worth their wight in gold and will help you sell and help more people in the future.

For collecting the actual testimonial you can ask them to respond to the email (simplest, fastest) with their written testimonial.

Alternatively use a tool like Senja.

That’s what we personally use (and love) as it managing, collating and keeping track of hundreds of testimonials becomes a logistical nightmare later on! Senja is free to start with and is my personal recommendation.

Premium Prompt - Keeping it short

Pulling it together

Get everything rolling with text first of all. These will be the bedrock of most of your social proof so just doing today’s work will get you a long way.

Tomorrow we’ll look at video testimonials - a much rarer and hyper powerful format.

Here’s a reminder of what we’re covering this week:

• Part 1: Collecting text testimonials

• Part 2: Capturing stories with video testimonials

• Part 3: Strategies to incentivise

• Part 4: Social proof goes social media

• Part 5: Supercharge your website

Until then, keep PROMPTING!

Kyle

Today we’re looking at video testimonials.

Video testimonials are like written testimonials on steroids.

Much more than text, video testimonials can capture your customer’s emotions and feelings about your products.

You’ll (probably!) have far fewer video than text testimonials.

And that’s absolutely fine - their potency more than makes up for it.

Let’s get started:

Capturing Stories with video testimonials

Asking for video testimonials is very similar to asking for text testimonials.

The main barrier is that (most) people hate being on video!

We need to i) assuage their fear of shooting a video and ii) make it as technically simple as possible for them.

Basically we have to remove barriers to make everything easy.

Any remaining fricton will be enough for them to think “I’ll do it later”.

Here’s our prompt for an outreach message:

Act as my marketing assistant

I want to request a testimonial from a recent purchaser

Their name is [name]

The product they purchased was [product name]

and the product is: [Description of the product including benefits]

Please write a request email asking them to provide a video testimonial

Prompt the questions:

Who are you?
Why did you start using the product
What do you like most about the product

Explain that it would be a personal favour and extremely helpful if they are able to provide a testimonial. 

Explain that they just need to shoot a video on their phone and not to worry about quality. We're most interested in what they have to say, not the video quality. 

Keep it to 300 words max. Don't overdo the language, keep it simple. 

This will generate a basic testimonial request, adapted for video.

Here’s the most relevant section :

This will work with some people but ideally we need to make this even easier. Two methods we can use here:

• incentive

• simple record tool

First up, additional incentive. Video testimonials are worth a fortune to your business because they’ll help you convert more.

Incentivising video testimonials is a high ROI investment - basically find something valuable that you can give them for free in exchange for a testimonial. The more valuable the better - you’ll get a higher submission rate.

In your messaging position it as a “thank you gift” rather than a straight up bribe! 😂 

Second, make the recording even easier. Everyone can record something on their phone but there are still barriers - they have to then email it to you. Reducing the number of steps is important.

Personally I use Senja for this - it has a built in video collection tool that captures from the customer’s camera and uploads straight to you. Here’s what it looks like:

Very slick.

Again the name of the game here is to make the process as easy as humanly possible for our customers by removing any possible resistance.

Premium Prompt - Conversion to Text

Pulling it together

We’ve covered the two main types of testimonials - written and video.

In the next Part we’ll cover some more strategies to incentivise and increase the number of testimonials you get. Then we’ll wrap up by looking at how best to use your testimonials to generate more sales.

Here’s a reminder of what we’re covering this week:

• Part 1: Collecting text testimonials

• Part 2: Capturing stories with video testimonials

• Part 3: Strategies to incentivise

• Part 4: Social proof goes social media

• Part 5: Supercharge your website

Until then, keep PROMPTING!

Kyle

With social proof the name of the game is overwhelm - we want to be able to show lots and lots of high quality testimonials.

We don’t expect them all to be read.

Instead we use the sheer volume of praise to convince prospects.

This Part will focus on speeding up acquisition so you can overwhelm with positive testimonials!

Let’s get started:

Strategies to Incentivise

The fastest way to gain a high volume of positive social proof is to operate at volume.

Think about it - if you sell 10 products you might get 1 testimonial. 10%.

If you sell 1000 products you might get 100 testimonials. Again, the same 10%.

OK great you’re thinking - I just need to sell more? Great, really useful. Not. 😂 

What we’re going to do is instead offer something for free but with a “bonus” that we send when someone gives us a testimonial.

This allows us to get volume (by using a free offer) and incentivise testimonials (by using a bonus bump).

You are still getting a testimonial - it’s just for a free product rather than a paid one. That’s fine though because it will still be about you and the valuable stuff you have produced. This gives us a really solid base of testimonials - most importantly: at scale.

First up you need a killer freebie.

Let’s use a prompt here:

Act as a content marketer

My business niche is [business niche]

My customer main problems are [list out problems]

Prepare lead magnet ideas. 

The lead magnet ideas should be highly valuable, text based, short and easily consumable, relevant to the main problems my customers have. 

Give me 10 alternatives and ask for my decision. Wait for my decision before continuing.

Then for the lead magnet I want to have a bonus offer. This bonus should build on the initial lead magnet and follow the same requirements. 

Provide 10 bonus ideas and ask for my decision. Wait for my decision before continuing.

Then write the lead magnet outline and bonus outline in full.

For the example I use these parameters:

My business niche = “helping businesses implement AI for growth”.

main problems = “ lack of understanding about AI, uncertain where to start with AI, lack of technical skill.”

The prompt will first generate 10 ideas.

Here are the first 5 I got:

Tell ChatGPT which you prefer to continue. I’ll go with #2.

ChatGPT will then generate bonuses based on that specific freebie. Here are the first 5 ideas it gave me:

I love the first one, AI project planner, and know that I can easily mock that up. So I make that decision. ChatGPT will now outline both the freebie and its bonus.

These will be outlines only. You can ask ChatGPT to flesh them out in full but personally I’d recommend you work from the outline build the freebie yourself our outsource. It needs to be high quality!

You now have the two parts needed: the freebie and its bonus.

The setup now is:

• publicise the freebie

• when delivering the freebie mention there’s a bonus for giving a testimonial

• send a testimonial reminder a few days after delivering the freebie

• if they send in a testimonial send the bonus

I personally use DM giveaways on X to do the first steps. I’ll outline this properly in the Premium Prompt below.

Other ways to do this are to set up the freebie in Gumroad as a free product then have “thank you” email mention the testimonial bonus. Then they can either manually email you the testimonial or use Senja.

The exact technical set up depends on your tech stack but this is the basic shape and can be applied using whatever tools you use. Need specifics? Post on X with your current tech tools and tag me in. I’ll see it and answer.

Premium Prompt - X DM Giveaways

Pulling it together

You now have the tools to start pulling in lots of testimonials.

The next step is how we deploy them. In the final two Parts I’ll cover using social proof on social media and on your website.

Here’s a reminder of what we’re covering this week:

• Part 1: Collecting text testimonials

• Part 2: Capturing stories with video testimonials

• Part 3: Strategies to incentivise

• Part 4: Social proof goes social media

• Part 5: Supercharge your website

Until then, keep PROMPTING!

Kyle

Well, what are we going to do with them now?

In this Part we look at the power of testimonials on social media.

Let’s get started:

Social proof goes social media

The first use of your new testimonials is to make sure to publish them on social.

First we’ll cover text testimonials then video.

For text there are a number of levels of doing this:

• text

• designed image

• designed image

Each is more complicated than the last.

First up is just copy/pasting the text of a testimonial and posting it as a quote to social.

I see people doing this but don’t personally - the reason: anyone could make up anything! We need to build trust, not destroy it.

The second option is a properly designed image.

For instance look at these Canva templates:

To make these yours you’d do some branding adjustments and then simply copy paste testimonial text into the template.

It’s some manual work but Canva thankfully makes it a lot easier.

Got lots and lots of testimonials? Senja can output beautiful graphic versions for you - if you have a larger volume and need a workflow this is definitely the way. There are a tonne of social asset templates that it can export to - some examples here.

What about the third option - this is the one I tend to use the most myself: simply screenshot new testimonials.

Here’s an example:

And one from an email testimonial:

Crude right? Looks unprofessional? I agree!

But this is what works best for social engagement for me.

Probably because it’s looks the least manufactured? Because…it’s not manufactured at all!

This causes a pattern break that disarms people. Most scrollers are used to flash looking ads from companies. A raw screenshot undercuts that and stops the scroll.

Obviously testing is the name of the game here. I’d recommend running some social proof testimonials as both a more designed version and a basic screenshot. Same text, different format.

See what works better with your socials.

OK what about video?

First thing first I recommend hardcoding some subtitles in.

Why’s that?

Most people scroll social with their sound off. Unless they are on the same London bus as me and then they are using Tiktok at full volume like a sociopath.

Adding subtitles is thankfully nice and easy nowadays. I personally do mine on my phone using an app called Captions.

You upload the video and it’s automatically scanned for audio to generate subtitles. You choose the style and then you are good to go. Very very simple and the basic version is free.

What about editing? My recommendation is do not edit. Again we are building social proof here and authenticity makes the videos more believable.

If your brand is more corporate and professional then take all of the above with a pinch of salt. My personal opinion is still that you’ll do better with less edited, more “real” assets but that’s a bigger discussion!

To wrap up, how often should you be posting some form of social proof?

I find that one a day is a nice balance. More if you can spin it into a success story about why the customer is doing great. Celebrate their wins. The fact that they happened to use your product is a nice by-product!

Premium Prompt - Text to Video

Pulling it together

Here’s a reminder of what we’re covering this week:

• Part 1: Collecting text testimonials

• Part 2: Capturing stories with video testimonials

• Part 3: Strategies to incentivise

• Part 4: Social proof goes social media

• Part 5: Supercharge your website

Until then, keep PROMPTING!

Kyle

Social proof should be used all over your website - your homepage, about me page, blog…everywhere!

But it is most powerful on pages where you are getting someone to act.

For example:

• on newsletter sign up page to get an email

• on a sales page to convert a sale

• on a call booking page to secure a booking

First I’ll give you some advice and examples about where I find them valuable.

Then we’ll going to look at how to analyse your current website and find the best places for testimonials.

Let’s get started:

Supercharge your website

I’m going to use one of my sales pages as an example.

Because I know it intimately. And…so you go visit it. Cheeky eh?

The site is for my AI Business Breakthrough Academy here: link.

Study this as a template and then you’ll start to see social proof everywhere. You just need to tune your mind to the marketing tricks being played on you!

Right after the header my first testimonials kick in:

These are literally the second thing you see on screen - kind words from wonderful people out there who have taken a moment to write something down.

This particular format is a slider - it slides in multiple testimonials, one at a time. Will someone sit and read them all? I doubt it! The point is simply to show that there are lots!

Throughout the long form text of the article you’ll also notice that I break up sections with testimonials. They act as a “OK we’re done with this bit, onto the next section” break. I just use testimonials as the breakpoint between sections.

A little further down you’ll notice I use the “raw” technique we used in the last Part:

Here I break up some text to drop in a screenshot of a Twitter message - complete with date! I could have converted this to a nicely designed graphic asset but instead kept it as a screenshot to keep it “real”.

The last big area I’ll use testimonials is around the sale.

Personally I’ve found they work really well just after the price is given. That’s the moment when someone knows the price and have a decision to make. That’s when I drop in a LOT of testimonials from people just like them to help with the decision.

We’re going to use prompts to help us specifically with a sales page like this. Want to adapt to a newsletter sign up page or similar? No problem - just adjust the prompt and remove “sales page”.

Let’s use a prompt that can assess a page and make suggestions:

Act as a sales copywriter

Make note of all the places I use social proof like testimonials or reviews

Then assess this sales page and make suggestions for where I should include more social proof

Give specific sections of the page that would benefit from more social proof and give examples of the type of social proof to add

[Add website URL]

You’ll need ChatGPT with web access for this. If you don’t have that use Bing/Copilot.

The prompt will cause ChatGPT to scan your site and generate a list of suggestions:

Killer!

Go through your collected testimonials and look for ones that would fit.

In Premium I’ll about how to specifically collect these.

Premium Prompt - Need specific testimonials

Pulling it together

That’s it - we’re again at the end of the week!

Hopefully this has been super valuable in giving you a social proof strategy to apply to your business.

Here’s a reminder of what we covered this week:

• Part 1: Collecting text testimonials

• Part 2: Capturing stories with video testimonials

• Part 3: Strategies to incentivise

• Part 4: Social proof goes social media

• Part 5: Supercharge your website

Tomorrow (Saturday) I’ll send out the roundup issue with all 5 Parts compiled.

Until then, keep PROMPTING!

Kyle