We should all understand that what others say about you and your business is 1,000 times more persuasive than what you tell them.

This is why publicity works so much better than traditional advertising.

So how can we leverage this as designers?

One way is to utilize the concept of "social proof" in your marketing efforts.

Social proof is the phenomenon that occurs when an individual makes a decision based on a larger group. For example, Bob buys a new album because he saw the artist profiled on television, plus his three buddies all bought the album. Bob figures the album must be pretty good.

This is one of the topics I'm going to cover in the upcoming course, WebSavvy 2009. So consider this a sneak peek.

Here are a few things you can do on your website to incorporate social proof:

1. Include testimonials from your clients as well as from other design professionals you've collaborated with. Each testimonial should speak to a very specific point or idea about your service.

2. Include a "Press Room" page on your website. This can include press releases, articles you've written, and most importantly, articles that you've been featured in. If someone wrote about you, then you must be pretty good, right?

3. Include the names of specific neighborhoods or communities you work in. If you frequently work in a very upscale neighborhood, tell people about it!

4. Create a "Customer Map." This works well if you have a lot of clients in general, or if you have a lot of clients in upscale communities. Visitors to your website will actually see the exact number and location of your customers (no addresses included of course). This can create some serious social proof.

Here's a map I created for LandscapeLeadership as an example:

http://tinyurl.com/c48je3

You can scale this to any state or local level.

I'll discuss all of these tactics more in depth, and show you exactly how to create a customer map, during the course.

Until then...

All the best,

Chris Heiler, Editor

Follow me on Twitter- http://twitter.com/chris_heiler