Drive and Convert

Announcer:
You're listening to drive and convert a podcast about helping online brands to build a better e-commerce growth engine with Jon McDonald and Ryan Garrow.

Ryan:
Jon McDonald. Good to hear your voice. Good to connect. We get to talk about some fun things today that you've been talking about for longer than I have. Today, we're going to go onto a topic I think people conceptually know. I haven't known exactly how to put it into words or explain it, I guess, would be the best to me. So today's topic, you get to educate us today on social proof on your site and leveraging that to improve conversion rates. So the different types of social proof and what it does now?
We're all social creatures. My friends tell me they like something. I probably go buy it or I'm jealous enough that I have to buy it. But people telling me things are good helps. I don't like making mistakes. I think most people are in that boat. So I think that's where social proof helps a lot. But I'm always curious about the actual data, which I'm sure you probably have a decent amount of that stored up in the back of your head to get out to us. So let's dig into the details of this kind of like how do you define social proof because your definition of that may be different than mine.

Jon:
For sure. Obviously, the goal today is really just to help people be thinking about all the ways that they can incorporate social proof into their e-commerce websites. And obviously we're not going to have an exhaustive list today, right. There's going to be other items that they can be on here. But I want people to start thinking about this because as we get close to our holiday season, it's going to be really important for them to be deploying these. And some of these do take time to build up. There are not things that just happen overnight. So a couple things to be thinking about here, social proof, obviously it's one of the most powerful tools of persuasion that sellers can employ on their sites, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it today. But getting others to promote you is really the definition of social proof. And it's infinitely more effective than just promoting yourself.
You can be talking out into the ether and nobody's listening or you can have a friend tell a friend and that's going to end up with at least a direct connection and someone's going to have a lot more interest there. So I would define social proof to get to answering your question more directly here is that marketing methods that involve others promoting your products or services in some manner. High level, that's really what it is, but there's a really long textbook definition, right, because this has been around for a while. In fact, since 1984.
So if you're familiar with Robert Cialdini, he actually invented this term in a book called influence. And it's a really popular book for marketers. If you haven't read it highly, highly recommended, especially if you're writing copy at all, it's really impactful. But he says that social proof, and I have to read this, social proof is the psychological and social phenomenon wherein people copy the actions of others in an attempt to undertake behavior in a given situation. So what does that mean? Just like you said earlier, Ryan, it is the fact that nobody wants to make a mistake and they think the easiest way to avoid that is to copy what others do. And they think that's the shortcut to success. So really, social proof and deploying these tactics we'll talk about today is the shortcut to getting into people's psyche about saying, hey others approve of this. You should too.

Ryan:
Yeah. And man, I think social proof is evolving quickly with the internet and the last 10 years of social proof probably looks different than what it did, the previous 10 and the previous thousands.

Jon:
TikTok alone has blown up social proof. How many people are buying things because they saw it on TikTok or Instagram. I mean, my wife owns so many things that we've gotten in the house because of Instagram. I literally just bought something because I saw it on Instagram over the weekend. So that's the way it works.

Ryan:
So obviously others marketing a product and persuading us to get something, conceptually, I think we understand this, but how do you put words around why it's effective? Is it simply just FOMO or is there more to that?

Jon:
Yeah. FOMO is a great example. If your fear of missing out, that means that somebody else has something that you think you should have and that's a form of social proof. It's an outcome of social proof actually, I would say, but implementing social proof on your site, one of the most effective methods for increasing your overall conversion rate and that's again why I wanted to talk about this today, but the data says that 61%, that's a large number of customers, read reviews before they choose to buy a product or service. 61% are looking at reviews alone. No wonder why their reviews platforms are so prevalent. And also if you follow direct to consumer or eCommerce Twitter, you'll see so many people debating all the time. What's the best reviews platform or why am I paying so much for reviews platforms? Well, the reality is they work, right.
They know once you have all your reviews in there, you're not going to leave. But if everyone is buzzing about a newly released movie, for instance, everyone was just talking about the new Top Gun. And I was like, I got to see this movie because everyone's talking about it. I'm personally not a huge Tom Cruise fan in modern era, but I think you did a great job in the original top gun. And everyone was like, you have to see this movie. You have to see this movie. And I was like, all right, you know what? I should probably see this movie and I've heard nothing about good recommendations. So I likely I'm going to go see it. I kept hearing about all this. I sat down on an airplane to fly home from New York a couple weeks ago and on the airplane, it was Top Gun and I'm like sitting there.
I'm like, man, I keep hearing it. I really want to watch this, but do I want to watch it on a five inch screen? Everyone says, it's that good. Do I want to waste it on this? So I mean, this is social proof at work. I'm having all of these thoughts about this movie and I'm in a captive audience and I still don't want to ruin it because I think it's going to be so good. Spoiler alert. I did watch it because it's a six hour flight and I was bored and it was a very good movie. You should go see it, social proof at work. But on the other hand, if reviews are really bad and my friends told me the movie was a waste of time, not going to go see it. So I think that's a really good example of why it's effective.

Ryan:
On my side of the fence, the traffic driving. Once you get those review stars, your traffic increases because it's the trust before they even get to the site to improve the conversion rate. It's like, if you don't have it to get the traffic, it's difficult to convert it. So review stars or that what we talked about review platforms does work, I think on both sides of the equation.

Jon:
And you can even get those listed next to your products in on Google. And if you get verifiable reviews, Google, there are ways to have Google list that in your searches and result pages for your particular products.

Ryan:
Click the rate goes up 15% just for having them.

Jon:
There you go.

Ryan:
Before, after. Now I will bring up at this point, there are a few apps, let's say on a certain platform that has millions of websites, that does try to fake social proof. That little thing that pops up that says Bob and New York just bought this. I've seen it in a lot of sites. I'm 99.9% sure that it just feeds random things in there because I've seen some of the analytics behind the scenes on the sites as I'm analyzing them.

Jon:
I agree.

Ryan:
So can social proof like that work in the opposite way? This is hot garbage. Bob did not just buy this. Do I even trust this site now?

Jon:
I think that what's happening is consumers are becoming more sophisticated around social proof. And like you said, 20 years ago that would've worked because everyone would've been like, oh yeah, I don't know. Someone so just bought this great. Now it's like, did they really? What kind of proof are we getting here other than you just telling me, right. Consumers are now weighing much heavily on the proof part of social proof, not just the social part. And I think that's a trend that we'll see continuing.
And that's why videos on TikTok, Instagram, etcetera are working so well because you're able to prove it. Not just say this is a great product. You're able to show the product in use. And that makes such a big difference. But I think just all marketing tactics, marketers can and often will ruin every tactic, eventually. And I think that's exactly what's happened with social proof to some degree is marketers have found ways to let's just say cheat the system. And they have tried to fake social proof. And that example you gave of the little widget that pops up out of the corner and says, Bob from Ohio just bought this. And everyone's like who the hell's Bob from Ohio. And why do I care? I mean, that's exactly it. That is faking social proof. It's obvious to most consumers. And that's you hardly see it anymore. Or if you do, it's on really, really small stores.

Ryan:
Potentially could hurt, but it's just more probably going and proof that's going to evolve-

Jon:
If it's on one of our client sites, it's one of the first thing we tell them to remove and it has never had a negative effect. And in most cases has a positive effect.

Ryan:
Taking it off?

Jon:
Taking it off. Yes. Removing it. Yes.

Announcer:
You're listening to drive and convert, a podcast focused on e-commerce growth. Your hosts are Jon McDonald, founder of the good, a conversion rate optimization agency that works with e-commerce brands to help convert more of their visitors and the buyers and Ryan Garrow of logical position. The digital marketing agency offering paper, click management, search engine optimization and website design services to brands of all sizes. If you find this podcast helpful, please help us out by leaving a review on apple podcasts and sharing it with a friend or colleague. Thank you.

Ryan:
Okay. So there're multiple ways to have social proof, I'm sure. So what are some of the ways that you define are the types of social proof and is there a hierarchy you take people through? This is really the best social proof versus this is good social proof, but it's at the bottom, the last one we go to.

Jon:
That's a great question. I've never actually sat down and really thought there's a hierarchy to this. I think that if there's a way that I'm going to deploy this as an eCommerce site manager, it's going to be, what's the easiest ones to deploy first. And then the hard part is not deploying these tactics. The hard part is getting people to participate, right. So you think about reviews. Let's just start with reviews from purchasers. One of the most impactful. I just said that 61% of people read a review before they make a purchase. With that in mind, the hard part is collecting those reviews, getting people to say, I just gave you money. Now you want me to also spend my 10 minutes or five minutes to write your review. And most people aren't going to do that.
Now there are a ton of tactics for how you can get people to do this. And the better review platforms help you through that, right. Follow up emails, collecting feedback right after the cart and confirmation pages, et cetera. But the reality is most of these, you're going to have to go out and get, you are going to have to continue to contact people. And as a small store, I would even call my customers or email them directly and ask for feedback and say, hey, you know what, could you give us some feedback? Here's a link to leave it, right. And negative, positive, it doesn't matter. Reviews are reviews. And I would say, you don't want thousands of one star reviews, but say, somebody gives you a three star review and they say, hey, you know what? The box was crushed when it arrived, really, what you need to do is just reply to that. It's an opportunity that other consumers are going to see.
And you can say, hey, I'm really sorry that happened. Sometimes shipping providers, aren't careful with the packages. If your product was damaged, here's an email address. You can email, we'll get you a new one out right away. At that point what's happening is you've now taken this social proof twice. You've gotten somebody to leave you feedback, which is a good sign. And then to a consumer, they also show that you care, right, because you're responding, you're doing it in an empathetic way. You're offering to help. Nine out of 10 consumers say, I understand there's going to be issues. This brand can't control that UPS ran over my box. That's going to happen. They obviously didn't ship it flat. It just got run over on the way. So as long as they're willing to help, that's great. I understand. And it's taken care of. They won't hold those type of negative reviews against you, if you address them empathetically and don't end up in a review fight. Those are the reviews. When somebody writes back, you're like, that's not true. And that's all you say, probably not going to help your case.

Ryan:
And if you're going to have the debate, do it over the phone. We had a client do it over better business bureau where you can see the tire string, oh my goodness. He already wasn't perfect on better business bureau. And I was just like, you need to really get a lot of reviews on better business bureau now to push that way down there.

Jon:
I mean the key to reviews and I want to cover, there's nine or 10 of these I want to cover. So you should move on. But the key to reviews is don't respond with anything you wouldn't want the world to see. That's really it. So you're saying however, over the phone, I agree. I think that's great. And then go back to the comment and say, hey, we just spoke on the phone. Just to recap, here's what I said. And say, hey, I said, I would ship you a new one. Here's an address if you have a problem or et cetera. And that's really where the value's going to come in. But don't get in an argument in your reviews because more and more, especially if you want those stars to show up on Google, you can't delete reviews. A lot of brands think, oh, if I get a one star review, I'm just going to delete it. The more trustworthy and better review platforms, won't let you delete reviews. So don't think you're going to go in and alter them or delete them, et cetera.

Ryan:
Nope. I like it. All right. So the next one you have on the notes here is customer testimonial. So is that different than reviews from purchasers?

Jon:
It is. This is where you are scrolling down a landing page and you see a picture of somebody they're holding the product. They're smiling. And there's a sentence next to them that says, this is the best product ever and Jon from Portland. That's the type of testimonial. Now, how are these helpful? Well, they're only really helpful if I can see myself in that consumer. If it's somebody that is not an ounce like me, isn't for a product that I would relate to then likely not going to be much help.

Ryan:
If I'm going to go buy a golf apparel and that's a little gray haired lady telling me on the site, how great this is for golf, I'd be like, eh, it's not me.

Jon:
Yeah. It's not you. And maybe that you're the wrong demographic for this product. That's what it tells you, right. So this works when you have a pretty well defined demographic, that's really what you need to be thinking about here. This is something where you could even pull these out of reviews. So somebody left you a great review, take what's the most impactful sentence. The mistake I see around these, is people do two things. One is the copy that goes next to the picture for the testimonial is too long. It's a paragraph. And as a consumer, I'm not reading it. I miss the main point. Just keep it to what is that really small, what's the main point, the one sentence. The fewer the words, the better to get the point across here.
The second thing is they use fake photos, obviously fake photos. They use stock photography, something of that sort. And then as a consumer, I'm just like, you know what? This whole thing's fake. Even if you were just trying to get a photo up there, you're better off to not have a photo at all than use something that looks fake. And I would say the more consumer or selfie that it looks, the better. You want it to look more real. So even if it's a horrible photo, but it's clear, somebody took it of themselves or that it's not a professional headshot, something that sort, the better off you are.

Ryan:
Okay. That's good to know. I actually probably wouldn't have even thought that. I was like, we can make this [inaudible 00:17:05]. It's great. Looks like [inaudible 00:17:06].

Jon:
Yeah, exactly.

Ryan:
Don't do that.

Jon:
Don't do it. Especially, in the world of Google reverse image search, people can take the photo and if your competitors really want to start calling you out on social media, I've seen this happen recently, they take the photos and they reverse the image search and post a screenshot of that reverse image search. It shows that that person is photo being used all over the internet. You're like, obviously this is not your consumer. You made this up. Even if the quote's real, now it's discredited completely.

Ryan:
Reverse image search is ruining a lot of those opportunities for marketers. Okay. All right. And so a lot of people think of when it comes to social proof, the next one on your list is celebrity and influencer endorsements, which I think are tough. But obviously, if Kim Kardashian calls you out, you take it.

Jon:
But this is one where people, I think understand that it's most likely paid for. I think most consumers understand that now, but I don't think that in this case, that reduces the effectiveness. Really what you're looking to do here is get access to their audience. That's really it. It's like you're buying clicks. And if you look at it in that way, you will be pretty effective with it. If you're looking at it as like, hey, this celebrity really loves my product and really wants people to use it, most consumers aren't going to believe it anyways. Now, if they give you free access and say, hey, to their Instagram, TikTok and say, I just love this product. It's not an ad. I really love it. Great. But they're not going to let you use that as social proof throughout your marketing materials. Maybe you probably still have to pay.
A lot of them won't let you use it because then it becomes an ad and that's a legal liability for them because you have to clearly define on social when you've been paid to share something. So usually they're not going to let you do that.
But I do think this is one that is great for larger brands because it does cost quite a bit. I mean, what's Kardashian? Is several million to have her post about something just once. So leave it or take it. It's not really something that I have a lot of experience with, but there are agencies out there that focus on exclusively on this, connecting you with the right influencers. The other thing is it doesn't have to be a massive celebrity. It could be somebody who has 1,000,000 followers on TikTok and to you and me, that might seem like a massive number, but in the age of TikTok, that's really not. It's something that even that can get you in front of a large audience. And if they say the right things, put that quote with a screenshot of the TikTok up on your site. I think that's-

Ryan:
Where do you put that one on your site? Does it go on a product page? Are you go category homepage?

Jon:
Oh, depends on what they're talking about. If they're talking about a singular product and you offer a wide range of products, put it on the PDP, for sure. Maybe a specific landing page that you've used to drive traffic to where the messaging aligns. That could be good. A good example of this is sled endorsements around shark tank. One of the reasons I even brought this topic up was I had tweeted the other day, hey, does anybody else notice on Instagram that all your ads are products that have been on shark tank and they feature the shark tank clips. And there were a whole bunch of replies. People were like, yeah, me too. And other people were like, you just follow all the sharks and the algorithm got you. And that they now know that, that's what you like.
But I mean, it works, right, in the sense that I enjoy that show as an entrepreneur. And I know most of it's probably fake or whatever, but it's fine. I enjoy the entertainment value of it. And when our product is on there, we've actually had several clients at the good whose products have been on there. And we have a two or three right now that we're working with that are shark tank alums. And the reality is that it converts really well. People say, hey, you must have vetted. Or if you say you got funded, then they're like, wow, okay, because the sharks can rip you apart. And they know that's kind of the MO of the show. With that in mind, most people will say, hey, if you were on shark tank and you got funded, that must mean that you're valid. And they'll use that as social proof.

Ryan:
Got it. Okay. That clears that up. Pretty good. I like it. Thank you. All right. So to get through these ones, we've got wisdom of the crowd.

Jon:
Yes. Quip toothbrushes does this really well. They say over 2,000,000 mouths cleaned every day or something like that. 2,000,000 mouths and counting, right. So that's a good example. Really what you're doing here is just saying lots of people like us. We're well loved and you should too. That's really all this is.

Ryan:
My favorite one of this was growing up. I don't know if you saw this as your drive around, but I always liked watching the McDonald's, how many burgers they'd served numbers keep going up. Whoa, they just crossed 5,000,000,000. That's cool. A couple later, that's 6,000,000,000. I just like seeing that.

Jon:
Yeah. That's amazing. Exactly. Wisdom of the crowd, social proof, right. That's exactly what that is. Great example.

Ryan:
Okay. Earned media and press.

Jon:
Yeah. So let's say that your product gets featured on Good Morning, America, whether you bought that or not-

Ryan:
Mine did. And we put it on the site. I'm following Jon's rules. Good job, Ryan. Woo-hoo.

Jon:
Way to go Ryan. Virtual high five on that. This is exactly it, right. Where Oprah is a huge one for this. People used to have that all the time when she was doing her show every day. There's a lot of media that you can buy and it can act as an endorsement. And when you buy that media placement, most of the time, if you're just buying an ad in a newspaper or magazine, they'll specifically say in the terms that you can't use your logo because they don't want to act like it was an endorsement. A lot of brands will still do that. And I think that's where if you're going to do earned media and this is why I say earned media, if you're going to do earned media, what you really need to be thinking about here is including a quote from that earned media.
Now, if it's video, even better. Good Morning America, show the clip. One of my buddies, he runs a company called cross net. It's a four square meets volleyball product and it was on Good Morning America. And they actually played it for 10 seconds and he's got that clip. And it's a cool clip. It's like, hey, here's the hosts of Good Morning America playing horribly but they're having fun playing, smiling, right. That's great. It shows that it was actually on there. Most consumers, I don't know, maybe they don't know you pay to be on there. Maybe they're just like, oh, Good Morning America found this product and thought it was awesome. But 99.9% of those products have some type of agreement for when they were on there. But again, this is something where don't just show the logo. Instead, show a logo and some proof like a quote of something they said about you, the video, et cetera.

Ryan:
I like it. Okay. DJ, if you listen to us, we are now following your lead. Jon's next point. Certifications and trust badges. Not everybody thinks of these when it comes to social proof, but let us know. What do you think?

Jon:
Well, I mean, I think statistics show that trust logos actually increased the trustworthiness of a brand in about three quarters of respondents. So think about it-

Ryan:
Still? That's a recent stat or is it changed?

Jon:
That stat is within the last two years.

Ryan:
Okay. Wow. That's good. I like it.

Jon:
And here's the thing, Ryan, even if you just put the little lock on there, that is a form of trust, social proof. You're saying, hey, you know what? We care about you. Even if it's not a brand like Norton or any of those, and this is one you don't want to overdo though. If you put it on the footer of every single page of your site, you are inducing fear. You are saying I had to get this badge because something went wrong and that is what consumers are going to take it as. They're not going to look at it and say, oh yeah, okay. I get it. They're trying to be safe. They're going to say what the heck happened on this site that I had to go out and get a badge. So put this where people are giving you sensitive information to tell them it's going to be kept securely. So where is that? Checkout is really the only place you need these badges.

Ryan:
Got it. Because if I'm just browsing aside, I know that whatever.

Jon:
Yeah. And you're not giving me anything, right. So why should you be worried about it?

Ryan:
Got it. Okay. Couple more left. User generated content.

Jon:
Yes. UGC.

Ryan:
Explain that to me. Well it's a very popular term.

Jon:
It is. And this is basically the celebrity and influencer endorsements, but down to a common level. What do I mean by that? Maybe I have 5,000 followers on TikTok and I sign up on one of these sites to be able to do these. You send me a free product and I review it on TikTok, pretty simple. And there are massive agencies that do nothing but connect you with these people. There are ones who focus as I mentioned earlier on celebrities, and there are ones who also will help you just find a more broader swath of people who aren't typically called celebrities. But this is where you see brands sending out product all the time. And often it has a note.
I mean, even the light I'm using right now, shout out to loom cube, sent me a light because they saw me at a virtual conference that I presented at and they said, hey, the lighting looked good, but we want you to try out our product. And they sent me a light and I was like, awesome, great, thanks. I use it every day now and I've never posted about it because if you go to my Instagram page, it's like, I have six posts. I guess I just gave them a shout out. So that's social proof, right. So maybe they can take this clip and make it generate a content.

Ryan:
YouTube is full of organic versions of this. That if you are out there, you're probably getting user generated content without actually trying.

Jon:
Oh, if you're on social, 100%, you've gotten it.

Ryan:
And so just being able to reach out and ask, hey, you post about this. You mind if we repost this on our social or hey, do you mind if we put that quote on our website?

Jon:
Yep. Yeah. That's exactly it.

Ryan:
Yep. And the next one is one that we've grown up with is everybody talks about the dentists but expert approval. So how many CRO agency owners out of how many agree with this?

Jon:
Yeah, that's exactly it. I'd say 10 out of 10 CRO professionals say that expert approval helps. The reality is that saying things like doctor recommended, dermatologist recommended, dentist recommended, right? It's also one of those things and this is where marketers can ruin things in TV commercials. They often show people in white lab coats and they're supposed to be a medical professional. And it has really tiny text down at the bottom that says, this is an actor portrayal, not a medical professional. I mean the reality is they're trying to play on that expert approval angle here. I would say the first thing you need to do is be thinking larger than just medical. This could be you offer climbing gear and you go out and you find who's the most well known climbers you know.
Maybe it's Alex Hunt. The guy from Free Solo, right. Big personality now. All over the place. You can get him to sponsor, right. That also kind of crosses over to the celebrity angle. But the reality here is there's somebody that is known for the niche that you want to market to. So who has that audience? Who has those eyes and ears? Those are the people that you want to be your experts to talk about you. And that is what really helps. And that stamp of approval, it can carry a lot of weight. So it's something to really, I think should be lower on the list maybe because most experts aren't going to just endorse your product without having some use of it or having some positive experiences with your peers or clients. But it is something that you should have on the list.

Ryan:
And I think it, depending on what your product is or your vertical, it could be even difficult getting the right expert. You might think you have Bob at our climbing gym is the best climb at our climbing gym. But Bob endorsing on the site could be like, all right, that can't be your expert. Oh, Bob's amazing. Look at this. That's got to be testimonial instead of expert. And so understanding where these should go, because it impacts how you use them, is important as well.

Jon:
Yeah, very fair.

Ryan:
And the last one, again, client logos can be a difficult one as well. It's not just, oh, client, put them on there. I mean that can also work against you, but I'll speak to how I've seen it wrong. But how do you see this used best?

Jon:
Maybe selfishly, but at the good we use this all the time. We take client names and result percentages. Now we don't talk about private information, right. We're not saying we gain them X amount of dollars or we increase their conversion rate by this specific number, whatever. We always say things like percentage revenue gains, et cetera. So we show some numbers that are impressive, but aren't very specific or aren't going to give away private information, if that makes sense. So I think showing client logos is borrowing trust from those brands. So some brands don't like it.
For instance, we've worked with Nike over the years, but Nike is explicitly said, we're not allowed to write any case studies about what we do with them. Adobe is the same way. Adobe will not let us write and say anything about what we did with them. Getting them to give us a quote from one of their team members we worked with had to go through three or four legal levels just to be able to do it. So the bigger the entity, the more of a pain in the butt it might be. And even if it's a smaller one, you should always ask first. The last thing you want to do is upset a client, but you are by putting the logo on there, borrowing from their brand trust. That's essentially what's happening here. And if it's a client that other potential clients would aspire to or look up to, all the better. But again, that's going to typically be a bigger brand. Typically, they're going to be a little harder to work with on this.

Ryan:
Yeah. I've seen just over the years in working ecom agencies, brands, everything, it's always nice to get one of those big clients. God, we made it. When you first got Nike, I mean, that's exciting. That's a big deal, especially here in Portland, but even globally, but I've seen it go the wrong way. A good example recently was a client of both of ours happened to be talking to a company that he was thinking about bringing into his marketing stack and he was asking me for feedback. And so I was like, okay, well let me look at this. And we went to the site together, we were on a zoom, I think, because we were screen sharing. I'm like, wait, this company I can tell is small. And you're telling me one of their logos was Red Bull and it really stood out from everything else.
And they were only doing this one thing. I'm like, if they did this for Red Bull, that's massive. If they've done that, I would wholeheartedly endorse them for what you were looking for them to do because the rest of the stuff kind of like, I don't know about this. So he's like, okay, well, he gets on a call. He's like, so you guys did this for Red Bull. Oh, well, no, there was a regional event that Red Bull needed us to do this really small thing that, I mean, it was maybe a $500 thing. And then they put Red Bull on the site and they didn't get the deal because you guys know. You overreached there by just saying you did that. So it's causing some trust issues in the wrong direction. Be careful. Don't over brag about what you're doing as a brand.

Jon:
And that's the thing too, where if Red Bull caught that on their site, they would immediately send a cease syn desist.

Ryan:
Oh yeah. You did not work for Red Bull corporate. You worked for a small regional Red Bull rep or something. I forget exactly the scenario, but it was along those lines. But also too, I've seen struggles with logical position to a degree because we have such a breadth of clientele that if we're using the logos on the wrong pages that can work against us because some companies will come in say, oh, you've worked with those massive brands. And that's us. And then if you have just small brands, we're talking to big brands, can you really handle what we're talking about here?

Jon:
But all of those are the psychological plays that go back into social proof. And this is why all of these need to be taken into consideration and looked at as a whole, because I bet if they got somebody from Red Bull to give a quote from them and say, hey, these guys did this project and it was great, your friend probably wouldn't have even batted and eye or asked about much about it, right?

Ryan:
Oh, it would've sold itself.

Jon:
Right. Exactly. But of course, Red Bull's not giving a quote in that instance because it wasn't fully legitimate. That's where I'm saying all of these things, all these factors, you look at these different types of social proof we've talked about. It's a laundry list of them. There's way more we didn't cover today. The reality is that you can't just pick one and go all in on it. It's a combination of these that need to happen. And if you're looking to do this for holiday, which is really impactful, you need to start now. It takes months to build this up and do it correctly. So don't wait till last minute and understand that it's a slow game, but once you get it in play, it's really effective.

Ryan:
And we're expecting less traffic this year. So commercial rights become more important. And if you take this list and put all of them on your site, it's going to work against you, if you do it all at once. Not a good idea. Talk to Jon about the strategy of that.

Jon:
Love it. Love it.

Ryan:
Thank you, Jon. I appreciate all the insights and the education.

Jon:
Awesome. As always, thank you, Ryan.

Announcer:
Thanks for listening to drive and convert with Jon McDonald and Ryan Garrow. To keep up to date with new episodes, you can subscribe at drive and convert.