29 Credibility Factors Guaranteed To Increase Your Conversions

In this episode, I walk you through 29 different credibility factors you can use throughout your entire marketing funnel to increase your conversions on each step of your funnel. Make sure you have a pen and paper handy to write them all down!

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Transcript

Hey, this is Jeremy Reeves here with another episode of the Sales Funnel Mastery Podcast and today I would like to talk about adding more proof and credibility into your funnel, okay.

So I have come up with 29 different ways that you can add more credibility and more proof and more you know, demonstration and expertise, all that kind of stuff into various places in your sales funnel to help you basically increase conversions.

What is cool about this is that these are kind of site-wide increases, okay. So you can use these various pieces, you know, various proof elements not only to increase conversions on one specific page. Say, you have like a main services page or main you know, product sales page or whatever it is, but throughout your entire funnel. So you can use these on everyone of your pages. You can use them on your homepage and your, you know, on your order pages, on your upsells and your emails. Basically, anywhere that you find that it would be relevant.

So let me go through the 29 and then as you go through, make sure you have a pen and paper so you can write all these down. They will also be in the show notes if you want to go you know, to the page. The link will be in the you know, in the show notes page, on your phone or wherever you are looking at this. It will also be -- if you are on our list, you will get the URL to the show notes page.

So let’s go start going through them.

1. Test Data. So if you have any, any kind of any statistics from testing for example, if you did a split test or you know, or something like that any kind of test data in the supplement industry. If you have you know, things like you did test on your, you know, on your ingredients. If you have any kind of data like that, you can use that for credibility throughout your sales funnel.

2. Visualization. So you can actually -- one of the -- you know, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So if you want to sell better, if you want to get in a little bit more deep into somebody’s mind, rather than just telling them, show them.

So you can do, so can turn any kind of data into a visual concept. Any kind of information like an infographic is a good example. You can actually gain credibility by putting the information that you have. So instead of 10 bullet points or this would be a good example, actually what I am doing now, 29 proof elements. I could put this into you know, an infographic and it is going to actually make more of an impact than it would if it were just text, okay.

So anyway that you can put a concept into words. Again, you know, this is used -- I used this a lot when I am working with designers on client projects to help, to help your brain process the information at a faster pace.

So if it takes you an entire page to explain something, a lot of times, you can take that and you can actually get it to the point where you can show somebody that same thing in the matter of maybe a second or two looking at an image, okay.

So think about how you can turn words into some type of visualization.

3. Specificity. Okay, and this goes out, this is through all of your copy, okay. So the more specific you are, with everything that you do, the more you are going to sell. As they say, specifics sell, okay.

So when you are writing, never be vague, okay. That is why, one of the rules in copywriting is to never say things like you know, these things make you stronger. It’s you know, these, these whatever, these new trends or these stimuli or you know, whatever it is. Never be vague in what you are talking about especially if you are talking about a result that somebody is going to get.

So you always want to be specific, okay. Again, it can go through every piece of your copy, from your landing pages, your upsell pages, your sales pages, your emails, you know, if you are doing content marketing, I mean literally everywhere. Always be a specific as you possibly can be, okay.

Actually, specificity comes back it is just a good -- it is just a good way to communicate you know, if you have ever had any communication problems with your team members, your family, whatever, a lot of the times it comes back to not being specific enough, okay, and this is also a proof element.

4. Comparison Chart. So this kind of goes back to visualization, but it is -- you know, it is very different in terms of -- you are using a visualization to actually show people why your product is better than your competitors because it kind of -- you know, people in their mind are researching you know, the various options that they have. So if you put that in a chart it is very easy for them to process, okay, and it comes back to, I will get this in a minute, the logic, okay. And I will come back to that in a minute.

5. Scientific Research and Study. So if you have any scientific research, if you have scientific studies, if you have -- anything, any kind of proof like that, definitely, definitely, definitely use it and go through every individual aspect of what you do whether it is your -- the process that you do things or your ingredients or your product or you know, whatever it is, maybe you have a study that I do not know, you can make up a study that, not make it up I mean, actually you know, do the study, that you are working in your services you know, you get it done 30% faster. Somehow you can turn the study into that you know, then do that, okay.

But it is mostly talking about actual science you know, research studies like in supplements or any kind of like facts, okay. We use those a lot in another copy that we do.

6. Unique Mechanism. So this goes back -- I kind of talking about market awareness, you know, the 5 levels of market sophistication, market awareness, that kind of thing and unique mechanism is essentially the unique way that you do what you do or the unique way that your product does what it does, okay. So it is basically talking about the mechanism that your product or service uses to get such a high-end result for your clients, okay.

So if you can talk about that, instead of saying, we get better results for our clients, you say, we get better results for our clients because of X and whatever that X is for you that is your unique mechanism of producing results, okay.

7. Reason is Why. You always, always, always want to have reasons why you are doing everything, okay. So if you are having a sale or promotion, you want to have a reason why you are having that sale. If you have a specific price whether it is really low or really high or whatever it is, you always want to have a reason why. You always want to tell people why you are doing things and the reason for this is because it makes it more believable, okay.

I do not remember -- there is a study that they did like a social experiment (inaudible 7:05.5) where people lined up at a copier and it was something like, you know, they went behind the person, there were somebody already using the copier and this person went behind and said, hey, can I skip you in line because or hey, can I skip you on line, right. And it was only like, I think it was like 50% compliance or something like that. I do not have the exact, you can look up the study and find the exact you know, the exact data. But it was something only like 50% or something like that or it might have been less actually, and then somebody came and said, hey, can I skip you because -- again, given the reason why, because I am in a hurry and I have to get this done before I go somewhere, okay. And it was something (inaudible 7:48.0) and the compliance level was 96%. So it went from like 50% to 96% and I actually think it was less than 50% on the first one.

The point of that is when you give reasons why, it gives people an opportunity to do you a favor, okay. It gives people an opportunity to believe you because it sounds like you actually are doing it you know, on purpose rather than just like to you know, to take advantage of them, okay. So definitely -- reason why, again, that needs to go on all of your copy.

8. Logic. Okay, so when you are first trying to sell somebody you have to engage them on an emotional level, okay. You have to resonate with them and create a bond and relationship with them on an emotional level, but once they kind of get down the path, once they get through the you know, they are kind of at the end of the buying process and essentially what happens in the purchaser’s mind is that they buy with emotions so they make up the decision to buy your product or your service by emotion, by what their feeling inside even if it is just on a subconscious level and then they justify the fact that they want to buy it with logic, okay.

So you have to have both emotion and logic, okay. There is a whole bunch -- that is actually a whole topic in itself that we could cover but essentially, there are different types of people. There are people that make you know, there are kind of main thing, they get some to decision is emotional that most people and then logic, but there is also very analytical people that won’t allow themselves to buy if there is no logic in it, okay.

So you always want to, again, you hook them in, engage them, get them to say yes inside their own mind, with emotion, okay. Showing them how are you going to transform their life and then you kind of come in with the you know, you come in for the kill essentially, by having them justify with logic, okay. So you want to have logic in there.

9. Specialization. This one is really easy, I mean we all know that specialist make more money, you know. A brain surgeon makes a lot more money than a general, you know, general practitioner or whatever. Someone who specializes for example, when I started specializing in building sales funnels, my fees went up and I started closing more people because I was not just a copywriter, I was a sales funnel specialist, you know, people that specialize in whatever they do. If you think of going to college, you know, you get your master’s degree, you go to specialization and then guess what, you make more money, okay.

So specialization adds a lot of proof. So make sure that if you specialize in something you tell people that that is what you specialize in and you are going to attract more of those people and if you don’t specialize in something you should consider specializing in something, okay.

10. Third Party Verification. So if you have any third party verification you know, there is like review sites, there is you know, ratings that you can get, things like that. Any type of third party verification that you always see those symbols you know, verified by or whatever, then definitely do that and add that to your various pages throughout your funnel.

11. Trust Seal. So this is -- a lot of this is going on your, you know, on your order pages, okay. So you are going to have things like, you know, credit card symbols and security, you know, trust seals, you know, those types of things. You want to make sure because they pretty much always increase your conversions because they make people feel more comfortable buying from your website, okay. This actually by the way goes -- it actually goes, actually the next one (inaudible 11:18.4) online or offline rather.

12. Certificates. And so what I was just talking about was if you have a certificate, so for example, you walk into a doctor’s office, let us just say you are going to I do not know, psychologist, just for example. You walk into their office, the more plaques, you know, the more degrees you see in their wall, the more comfortable you feel because that shows you that that person is an expert in what they are doing, okay.

So if you can have certificates of anything it is going to help you be more credible. It is going to help you demonstrate that you know what you are talking about and it just gives people, it helps people feel more confident in your ability to help them, okay.

So any kind of certificates you can do make sure that you are showing them.

13. Real Company Status. What I mean by this is that you have things like an actual physical address that people can see. You have a real email that people can see and you have a real phone number and this one is the most important, an actual phone number that people can call and it does not matter -- you can do a 1-800 number, just as long as there is a phone number there and people feel that you are real company that they can actually talk to you if they call that number. That makes people feel more confident in your ability to help them. It makes them feel more trusting in you and that you know, adds more credibility which helps you increase your conversions.

14. Case Studies and Testimonials. This one is obviously pretty simple. You want to have case studies and testimonials because they, again, demonstrate your credibility and your expertise. They demonstrate that you can help that specific type of person to get the result that they are looking for, okay.

15. Client List. If you go into my website, you will see all the various clients that I have listed. And if you noticed, they are not all of my clients, so I do not put all of my clients on there. I put the clients on there who my prospects are going to recognize, okay.

So I work with a lot of people. I have work with a lot of very high-level you know, they are like in the spotlight types of businesses and I have also worked with a lot of more underground business owners that most people would not, have never heard off because they are not out you know, in the spotlight, they are just kind of you know, in their underground thing like you know, doing their own thing, but they are not like in the spotlight where people would actually recognize them.

So if you have any type of -- if you are in an industry where you can showcase your client list, then definitely do so.

16. Social Media Proof. This is, you know, things like showing off your Facebook likes. If you have a page or a lot of Instagram followers or youtube channel or whatever your big social medial platform is, if you have a big following, make sure that you are showing that. So for example, I just look at somebody’s website the other day and he had 84,000 Facebook likes. As soon as I saw that, I thought okay, this guy is real, okay. And that is what your prospects are thinking as well.

So if you have social media proof, show it. If you do not have it by the way, do not show it. Do not show if it is like you know, 3 likes, do not show it and there are plug ins by the way that you can actually set it so that it does not show the number up until a certain point, okay, so like it would not actually show the number let us just say you set it so that it would not show until 96, so at 95 visitors it does not even show a number it just says whatever Facebook, the little icon. Soon as you hit 96 it says Facebook 96 likes, there are 96 people liked this or whatever it says.

17. Social Proof and the Media. Social proof is a little bit different than social medial proof. When I am talking about social proof is like other people talking about you, you know, people saying that you are an expert, you being you know, something like an author or something like that, and also the media.

So you have been talked about in the media you know, if you go to my website you can see that I have the little symbols of places that I have been in the media, okay. So you will always want to make sure that these are throughout your entire site to show that you are credible.

18. Product review. So if someone has done a review about your product or for example let’s just say that you sell a product on Amazon or there is anywhere or maybe sometimes you sell products and your customers can rate your product like an App Store or something like that or if you have physical product and you sell it on something like Shopify a lot of times they can actually rate your product. You will see this in you know, clothing stores a lot, things like that.

So make sure that you are showing stuff like that.

19. Demonstration. This comes from infomercials, okay. I am working right now with a company and I actually just got done working with another company. I was just working with NuWave Oven if you guys have heard about that. I know probably most of you have. I was just working with them on essentially taking their everything they are doing on infomercials bringing online.

So they had you know, they kind of took it and did their own thing and then you know, and then we came and redid their pages and bumped their average value per visitor. So basically, you know, the revenue from each person that hit their page by over 50% which was you know, totaled up to millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars. So that was kind of awesome and then I am working with another not them again, but another similar company, now that is also doing infomercials and were essentially doing the exact same thing for them.

So they are all about demonstration so if you have a product that you can demonstrate, then you need to be making video showing demonstration, okay. Watch infomercials. If you are not familiar of this go and you know, stay up late one night with a bottle of wine and watch a couple infomercials and you will notice that -- why they are so successful is because their product demonstration is absolutely incredible. In fact, there was a -- I forgot what the show is called but they used to -- they used to kind of -- there is a show with Billy Mays, and they would kind of go behind the scenes on this launches in infomercials.

And one of the major deciding factors if the infomercial producers are going to actually you know, make an infomercial about a product is whether or not they can demonstrate and show the effectiveness of that product, okay.

So if you have a product that you can demonstrate, you need, need, need absolutely need to be making videos, showing you know, that the product actually working in action.

And also, if you don’t, so for example, if you have a service business or if you are in any type of educational role, then your content is your demonstration. So me, right now, this is my demonstration of my credibility and my expertise, okay. So it is exact same thing it is just doing it in content versus in like a physical form like a video.

20. Photos. So if you have photos that you can show and this is going to be different for everybody you know. If you, for example, if you look (inaudible 18:42.4) let us just say a personal trainer. Who do you feel more comfortable with, a personal trainer, you went on their website and there was no photo or a personal trainer and you went in and you are going to whatever, you are going to select one of their personal trainers and you got to actually choose the person. You are going to probably choose someone that fits the part. You are not going to choose someone that is 50 pounds overweight. You are going to choose someone that has the body that you are trying to get, okay.

And this is -- that is a really easy example. You will also find this if what you look like does not match what people expect you to look like. So if you are on the younger side, then people might shy away little bit even subconsciously because what they see does not match up to what they think you should look like.

Also, if you are too old, I mean it really depends on the market that you are in and what you are selling, okay. So if you are -- for example if you are selling something to a very young crowd and you are you know, 75 or 80 years old, you might want to consider having someone else be the face of the company you know. It does not mean you have to, but if you test your conversion rates and I have actually done test like this. I actually had, one of my friends, he was black right, and he actually tested right, he was not bad looking guy, he was just a normal looking dude and he tested his face on his own website right and the funny thing is he was not even selling in a market that was like a very predominantly wide market. He was actually selling Beats you know, like music you know, Beats that you could put into like when you are producing music right.

And so you would think that would match up, well he tested his face on the website. His conversions went down by 50% when he put his face you know put his picture up there and then it was funny because he validated it because he took it off and the conversions then went right back up to normal.

So the thing is like you never know. So a lot of times photos will help because they show you that you are real. Sometimes they actually hurt. So you want to test photos to see if they are helping or hurting you.

You also want to test, by the way while we are on the subject, you also want to test the type of photos. So if your personality that you are portraying in your market is one of a very professional and you know, authentic and you know, like a very professional guy that you would imagine in the suit and your picture of a lifestyle business picture like you, you know, in the pool with your kid or something like that, that also plays a very big role, okay.

So you want to make sure that you are essentially matching up to the expectations of people who are considering doing business with you, okay.

21. Association. So this is kind of, if you are familiar with the term, juxtaposition, this is kind of like that. You are associating yourself with other authorities in your marketplace. So for example, I am moving into a new niche right now, okay and one of my first things that I am going to do is I am going to go and I am going to meet and have other people who are already in that industry you know, industry you know, players if you will and I am going to kind of team up with them because then I can take their credibility. I can borrow their credibility, okay.

If you see a picture of me and I am with let us just say, Tony Robins right, I am going to be instantly get more credibility than if it was just picture of myself, okay. You know, again, if you are in like the fitness space, if you get a picture with I do not know, Jillian Michaels or something like that or Tony Horton from P90X, you are going to get that borrowed credibility, okay.

So think about that as you are doing your pictures and as you are trying to increase your credibility throughout your website.

22. Awards. So if you won any awards for anything then obviously you are going to want to tell people about that okay. Pretty simple.

23. Humanization. This is essentially showing that you are not some cold heartless company right. This is showing people that you have personality that you are a real person and you can do this in a lot of different ways. One of the ways that I talked about a lot is doing it in your marketing right. Do if you make videos. Do personality-driven videos you know, show people your truly personality. Be your authentic self. Do not try to hide behind some kind of wall. Do not try to, you know, be somebody that you are not. Be yourself whatever that is because if you try to be somebody else, it is going to backfire on you and people are going to pick up on that, okay.

So all throughout your marketing, just think how can I show people who I really am in a core level, okay.

So for me, I talk a lot about my family you know. I am very big family guy. So that is kind of my you know, that is kind of my shtick if you will. So in my marketing, I talked about my family a lot. I talked about my wife and how happy we are. I talked about my 2 kids. I talked about my dogs you know, my friends you know, we go out every week for guys night, that kind of thing right, because that is part of my marketing personality. I am very down to earth relatable guy you know, and that is what I do in my marketing.

So show people that you are real you know. In your emails, be personal you know, make jokes. Do whatever your kind of style is in life, do that in your marketing as well okay. You can also do this by the way, going back to photos again, you can also do you know (inaudible 24:19.9) companies it is like meet the team, you know, that kind of thing. You can have that if you have a team of you know, 5 or 10 people whatever. You can introduce like your whole team (inaudible 24:29.6) because it makes you feel like a real company and it increases your credibility.

You can also do pictures of your entire team together, okay. So you know, maybe everybody gets outside and you get one of those big pictures where you have your whole team all together. It makes you seem more real.

24. Celebrity Endorsement. I have done a lot of test with clients where they have gotten usually like B-list celebrities to use on their websites and almost all the time, it increases conversions.

So if you can find a way to get in touch with some type of celebrity in your market and by the way, it does not have to be celebrities in terms of you know, going out to like you know, an NFL superstar or a you know, an entertainment kind of figure like an actor or somebody like that.

This could also be people that are perceived as celebrities in your industry, okay. That also kind of falls under this category.

So if you can do that, definitely do that and see if it increases your results, it usually will.

25. Guaranteed Results. So this is basically just having a guarantee in your marketing. And what I would say about this. This is an entire podcast in itself. Having guarantee is extremely important because it reduces the risk in the buyer’s mind okay. If you do not have a guarantee that is basically the worst possible thing that you can do and adding a guarantee is pretty much guaranteed you are going to make more money, okay. So if you do not have a guarantee, getting some type of guarantee (inaudible 26:00.7). If you do have a guarantee look at it and say does this really show that I am confident that I can give people results you know, is it truly showing people that I believe in this product and if you do not think so then make it better.

I have a $7 product right. I sell for $7. I have a $250 money back guarantee on that product okay and basically the guarantee is if you go through this report, again, it is $7. If you go through this report and there is not one single thing that you learned I will give you $250 check right. That is having confidence in your product and guess what I have never had a single person take me up on that offer, ever.

So it shows you that you know that you are basically what you have to look at is, when you -- usually the stronger guarantee you do, the higher your conversions are going to go. So if you have just a 30 day guarantee, test that against 90 days or a year or you know, double your money back, something like that.

Let us just imagine that your conversion rates go up by just a 30% okay. So that is, you know, your right hand goes up 30% okay. Now, in some cases, in most cases, your refund rate is going to stay around the same. So, let us just say that -- you know, whatever, we are baseline here. So your results went up 30% so you are now making 30% more revenue. Well, in some cases your -- you basically, you have to look at your retention rate after that. So if your retention rate decreases or put in another words, if more people return your product, if your returns increase, you have to look at the difference there, okay.

So if your revenue goes up by 30% by implementing the guarantee and you returns go up by 10% well that is a 20% kind of net increase there. If your conversion rates go up by 30% and your returns go up by 20%, you still have a 10% net increase in profits, okay.

So you have to look at that and compare those 2 numbers to make sure that your guarantee is working.

26. Take Away Selling. So we all know that you know, if you are a guy, you have never been in a place where you are trying to, you know, kind of hook up with a girl you are trying to and I do not mean hook up in like a sleazy kind of way, I just mean you know, you are meeting a girl. If you ever tried to do that or if you are in the client industry, if you ever tried to -- if you ever had to be like needy with the client, you have seen how fast it pushes them away, okay. So you want to do takeaway selling and that is basically, number 1 it is not caring about the final you know outcome, it is kind of showing, portraying that you are going to do fine without them. And this is up to them, you know. Your business is going to keep growing whether or not they ever buy your product or your service.

In takeaway selling, you can say, I mean there is kind of several ways to go about this. One of them is that you just show them that you are not needy you know and that this is, that you are the price right. You are the win here, it is them wanting to work with you. The second way to think about this is actually taking things away. So what you can do is say you know for the next 24 hours all of our buyers are going to get these 3 bonuses and then if you come to this page after 24 hours, you do not get those bonuses. So that is kind of another way of doing takeaway selling.

27. Damaging Admissions. Damaging admissions, this is another copywriting concept and damaging admission is essentially showing people weakness in whatever it is that you do or sell but backing that up by why that is actually a benefit, okay.

So for example, in copywriting, I can say, look our projects take you know 30% longer. However, that is actually a good thing because even though it takes a little bit longer you know, we have shown that, you know, our average client increases the revenue by whatever a hundred thousand dollars, five hundred thousand dollars, or a million, you know, whatever that is for you. That is just one example of a damaging admission.

You are essentially admitting that you have a weakness but that weakness is actually a strength, okay, if that make sense.

28. Empathy. So whoever the -- another, you know, kind of thing in copywriting, another concept in copywriting is whoever can show the reader that they understand them the best wins the sale every single time and it is so true. You need to learn to be empathetic with what your marketing is going through. You need to understand this is why it is so important to do market research. You need to understand what they are going through. You need to understand what they need in their business. You need to understand what keeps them awake at night. You need to understand how your product or your service is going to completely transform every aspect of their life or if it does not change every aspect of their life. You have to figure out exactly what aspect it does change and transform and then talk about those specifically, okay.

When you are empathetic with people, think about again, you know, guys talking girls this is, you know we are all horrible at this and this is why you know, I feel that most couples get divorce is because the guys do not show empathy to the girls and sometimes it’s reverse of course, but in a lot of cases, it is the guy that is not quite as empathetic to the girl, okay.

Me and my wife actually just went through this the other day. So I can relate to anybody who has been there and I am usually good at being empathic but that day it just was not and you know, and she told me about it, to say the least.

So that is how your prospects are feeling too. If they are going through your sales letter, you know, they are going through your marketing campaign and they do not feel that you truly understand them at a deep level, they are not going to trust you.

So make sure that you work on being empathetic in your copy and this again is one of the reasons why it is so important to hire a copywriter, because we are trained to do this.

29. Using Stories. Stories are a very, very, very powerful way and it comes back again to empathy. It comes back to -- stories are a way to get past the red flags and get past the barriers in people’s minds that they have set up before they want to do business with you, okay.

So whenever somebody is looking to do business with you, they are reading your whatever materials whether it is a sales letter or podcast or a webinar or you know, your emails or whatever it is, they have reasons in their mind why they should not do business with you. Stories are way to help overcome objections without them realizing that you are overcoming those objections. Okay, I am going to let that sink in for a minute because it really, really powerful. Stories allow you to overcome people’s objections without them realizing that you are overcoming their objections. You are selling them on such a subtle level that they do not even know why.

They get to the bottom of the page or the end of the email or whatever it is and they are like, Wow, I need this and I have no idea why but I just need this thing now. That is what stories do, okay. They allow you to kind of penetrate the subconscious of your prospects minds and get you know, kind of get you know, into their mind so that it opens them up to listening to your further communication and your advice, okay. They are really, really powerful.

So you should be using them in every aspect of your marketing.

And that my friends are the 29 credibility factors that you can put into your marketing today to make more money and more consistency in your marketing.

So I hope you enjoy that. If you did enjoy it, go back through and listen to this. Go and write them down and make sure you know, take a checklist. Make sure they are all in your marketing. We have checklist on our end that we do to clients you know, we go through this exact checklist and we make sure that each of those things is in each of the you know, the marketing campaigns that we build, but a lot of people do not have that.

So feel free, you know, go and look back and go back through this. Write them all down and make sure that they are in your marketing because they are very, very, very important.

So that is it for me today. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your friends, tell them to subscribe to the sales funnel mastery podcast, also, leave us a review. If you leave a review on itunes and then shoot as an email at [email protected]. We will send you a report. It is 101 Conversion Tips that you can implement in your sales funnel to increase your conversions. We will shoot that over to you, we used to sell it for $77 and that is it.

If you like to get in touch about working with us just go to jeremyreeves.com and fill out any of the forms and I would be happy to talk with you, otherwise, I hope you enjoyed this and I will talk to you next time.