As a startup or small business, one of the most important, yet challenging things to do is to get your target audience to turn customers—understanding that not everyone in your target market is your customer, no matter the level of market research you do. But based on your market research, you are aware that your potential customers are a part of your target audience.

Building trust with your customers is one of the fastest ways to grow your small business, how do you build social proof and generate more leads?

Consumers have a hard time trusting new brands or companies especially when older brands have established dominance in that market. If you want people to stay connected to you, you have to show them that you are a brand they can trust.

Today we would look at how you can build social proof for your business while increasing sales and boosting your lead generation effort.

What is Social Proof?

Social proof is the idea that people are likely to commit to a company if they see other people liking and using the same product. It is more of a psychological effort grounded in trust.

A relatable example would be the Indomie brand. One of the reasons Indomie has become a household name for every noodle is because, over time, they have built social proof, getting the market to trust them even to the extent that the market in some cases make excuse for them when delivery is short of the usual.

A parent would prefer to buy Indomie instant noodles for his child because that is what every parent buys for their kids, and that is what kids in his/her child’s school talk about. And this phenomenon is relative and applicable to all modes of business.

Do you understand?

Building Social Proof for Your Small Business

As a business in its early stage, you must understand that you are not a big business and you cannot afford the oversight or negligence the bigger businesses’ can. And you will make an extra effort to gain paying customers.

 We have talked about how you can deliver exceptional customer service to your customer, or in this case your target audience before they turn customers. Showing people, you genuinely care about providing a solution to their problems makes the statement ‘you can trust me’ without you having to print it on a billboard.

Treating each customer like an individual and not just an added number speaks a lot about your company.

What this does for you is that it gets people talking about your company, it is easier to gain and build social proof organically than using cliché methods to draw people towards your company.

Also, do not forget to get feedback and reviews, they are vital for building social proof for your business. The mistake you would make would be assuming you understand and know the pain point of your target audience without adequately taking your time to find out.

When you find what bothers your target audience, continuously refine your process to better provide a solution to that problem.

Getting feedback and reviews helps you to evolve your solutions to better serve your target audience. As a result, the people who made the suggestion will trust your brand more because you recognized their needs and took action to solve their pain points.