When a potential member views your membership sales page, they fully expect you to be your own biggest fan.

They expect you to be waxing lyrical about how fantastic your product is, how amazing you are and the fact that you absolutely, positively believe it's a no-brainer for someone to join.

Your self-praise is pretty much a given!

After all, you're hardly going to say that your membership site sucks, are you?

This is why utilizing social proof is a great strategy for making your sales page more effective.

Social proof is a powerful, persuasive factor when it comes to making buying decisions. 

If we see others behaving in a particular way, buying a product or, say, joining a membership site, then we're far more inclined to follow suit.

It makes sense – which restaurant are you more likely to want to eat at: the one packed to the rafters with happy diners, or the one without a single customer?

Increasingly, consumers are basing their buying decisions on reviews and recommendations more than sales tactics such as promotions and discounts – so you absolutely want to leverage social proof on your own sales page for your membership site.

Here are 7 types of social proof you can utilize:

Member testimonials

The first type of social proof is also potentially the most powerful for an online membership.

Written or video testimonials from happy, paying members go a long way towards showing people that joining your site is worthwhile.

It also helps contribute towards what Jay Abraham calls “Risk Reversal” too.

You can see that people have paid their money and received a good return, so you see less risk in making a buying decision yourself.

If you can accompany positive testimonials with an image of the member, their name and – ideally – a link to a website or the name of their business then this goes even further towards verifying that this is a legitimate piece of feedback.

Or go one further and ask your members to record video testimonials for you to use on your sales page.

Case studies

You can take member testimonials even further by delving deeper into the experiences and outcomes that your members have had in the form of a detailed case study.

By telling the whole story, you give people who are considering joining your site a journey that they may be able to relate to, and in doing so paint a more realistic and imaginable picture of what outcome they too could get if they take that step and join your membership.

Success stories where you can show the before and after, and give detailed information on the steps that member took, the specific results they got and more, can be extremely powerful marketing assets.

Endorsements from influencers

There's a reason why big name celebs are paid millions for their association with certain brands or products.

To many, the approval of people they look up to is all that is needed to persuade them to make a buying decision.

If your membership includes influential people *cough* humblebrag *cough* definitely highlight this!

If you can secure a positive comment or outright endorsement from respected figures in your field, then that's something you should be leveraging as a major piece of social proof for your membership sales page.

Social media counts and comments

While to a large degree, social media fan and follow counts are just a “vanity metric”; they can compliment other positive social proof as further indication that hundreds and thousands of other people out there put stock in the value of your content, business or brand.

You'll want to avoid linking off to your social profiles – as we don't want to accidentally take people away from your sales page – but including your social media count can be beneficial.

Scotts Bass Lessons highlight their impressive community stats

Services such as Twitter also allow you to easily embed individual “Tweets” – which can give you a quick and easy way of including positive comments that your followers, or even key figures in your market, may post.

Examples of your work or results

Depending on the topic of your membership website, it may be beneficial to demonstrate your credibility in your field by way of showing past work that you've done.

Even if you're no longer offering “services” or undertaking the type of work you're showcasing – showing past work and results you've gained for clients can be a good way of establishing that you know what you're talking about.

As an example, we're no longer taking on clients for consultation or development of membership sites – however that fact that we've helped clients to create sites that generate millions of dollars in revenue is obviously hugely beneficial in showing that we know what we're talking about.

If you've worked with recognizable brands, then you may also look to include their logos on your sales page too.

Again, the social proof comes into play whereby potential members will be led to think “if this huge company thinks these guys are legit, then they must be legit.”

Ratings/reviews from trusted sources

While reviews and ratings tend to be more common in the service industry, or for software, movies etc – depending on your industry it may be possible for you to utilize them for your own social proof.

For example if you have published a book on the same subject that your membership site is based around, then publicizing your Amazon rating can be a good credibility builder.

Similarly if your membership site is teaching other people within the service industry – i.e. teaching restaurant owners how to get more publicity – then you could show positive reviews from your own experience in that industry, or reviews that your customers have received as a way of demonstrating that you can back up what you say.

Awards and Accreditations

Industry accolades can add a lot of “gravitas” to your sales page – particularly if they come from either recognized “big players” in your field, or official industry bodies.

Such awards often come with permission to display a badge on your marketing and sales material – the more badges you have from impressive sources, the more your potential member will be impressed.

Drumeo have collected accolades worth bragging about

Now of course, the opposite effect can happen if your accolades are from unknown or even dubious sources – so resist the temptation to add honours like “Voted 237th Most Influencial Tweeter by WhoCares.com!”

It's not just awards and recognition that you can showcase, industry certifications are often worth shouting about too – for example, a membership site based around teaching people paid advertising techniques would almost be expected to display a badge showing that they are Google Adwords Certified.

What methods are you using to add social proof to your membership sales page?

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