How to Build Trust with Consumers to Power Up Your Business

In today’s buzzing marketing environment, to be on top of the wave and stand out from competitors, you have to win the crowd by showing them you’re trustworthy. Actually, according to AdWeek, 63% of consumers will opt for your brand if they consider it authentic. The statistics clearly point to the fact that gaining and retaining leads is directly connected to appearing to them as a trustworthy source of information.

However, under the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), leads are your ONLY source of information regarding what your audience needs, responds well to, and is interested in. Gaining prospects’ trust is now as important as converting them to clients, as data is the new fuel for market success.

After we’ve considered the problem, let’s focus on what the chances are to succeed. Well, the news might not be as great. The initial perception of consumers regarding a brand is that they should be careful. HubSpot did detailed research and found out that just 3% of people surveyed trusted marketers and salespeople. Therefore, building consumer trust might be a harder task than you thought.

At Devrix, we believe in inbound marketing and have proven its effectiveness over the years. After all, what better way to gain consumers’ trust than to base your campaigns on real data and deliver memorable customer experiences at the right time. Here are our tips on how to become a valuable, trustworthy source of information for your prospects:

Know Your Audience

If you want to gain consumer trust, you have to understand your clients on a deeper level. You have to look past their demographics and focus more on things like common interests, behavioral patterns, problems, and expectations.

Crafting content based on this data with the intent to deliver valuable consumer experiences, helps you reach a smaller, yet far more precise and easily-convertible audience. To help brands target consumers through psychographics and create content maps based on such information so as to implement a cost-efficient effective marketing strategy, Devrix has made a thorough guide explaining the concept.

Educate Through Content

The easiest way to turn viewers into leads and clients is when you have something to offer in return. Providing your audience with valuable content that helps them acquire expertise in a certain topic, is like reaching with a helping hand. This approach builds trusts with consumers and reputation as an expert in the field.

Data-Driven Blogging

One of the most natural ways to provide content to your leads is through your blog. The most crucial thing you should never forget is that you’re doing this for your clients, so you might as well base your articles on the information you already have about your buyer personas. This way you’ll be able to provide more consumer-tailored content that gets viewers engaged and turns them into clients over time.

This said, keep in mind that your content has to build up on the knowledge people already have. It has to offer something more, a new experience, a lesson, a handy trick, or a latest trend. Presenting readers with practical solutions makes them see you as trustworthy and professional.

Moreover, blogging is one of the easiest ways to test what content performs best with your audience. This way you’ll be able to provide more materials that your customers are interested in, nurture a community, educating it and giving them a solid base for long-term trust.

Pro Tip: Don’t forget that once you lose a consumer’s trust, you’ll hardly ever regain it, especially when it comes to written materials. This is why it’s essential to speak through real-life examples and back what you’re claiming with statistics and reliable data from authoritative sources.

Share Expertise Through Social Media

No matter if you’re operating in the B2B or B2C niche, social media nowadays is the place where you most often interact with society and build brand awareness. It’s a channel that provides you with the opportunity to speak to the public and reach out to far more people than your already engaged audience and convert them. To turn viewers into leads though, you have to first appear to them as a brand that brings value and that consumers can trust.

As you most probably know, video content is the king of engagement, especially in social media. With 73% of consumers buying products after watching a video about them, the importance of such materials is evident.

However, for a lot of the people that are going to watch your video, it will probably be their first contact with your brand. It’s essential to both gain their trust and appeal to them. This is why we’re recommending you share “How to” videos and other tutorials with your audience. Furthermore, social media gives you the opportunity to retarget people who saw your video.

Another way to appear as a trustworthy professional to the public is by becoming their source of industry news and trends. Sharing valuable new information on such topics helps you reach a broader audience and project strong overall image.

Show Social Proof

Your history speaks of what you can deliver to your clients. Use your background to showcase who you are, build on content with additional value and capture consumer trust.

Ask for Testimonials

One of the easiest ways to present positive feedback regarding your services, and from authoritative sources, is if you ask your clients for their testimonials. Most, especially B2B customers, feel more appreciated and involved in what you’re doing through this approach.

Furthermore, viewers trust 3rd-party feedback about your brand, which puts testimonials into the unique position of both laying the foundation for users, who may eventually become leads and help consumers, at the consideration stage, choose you over competitors. The best places to present feedback from already satisfied clients is on the home page, services page, or in a video about your brand.

Present Your Awards

Consumers care about two core things that are often intertwined:

• What they receive – The value of a product, quality, user experience, how they are treated, etc.
• How it affects them socially – Does it contribute to the community, do you have a social cause worth backing, what’s your brand’s messages and how society sees it?

Awards can state both professional and social achievements. Furthermore, they’re given by authoritative sources, which helps align the general social perception with your achievements. So, make sure you’re showcasing them in a visible place on your site like the homepage or services section.

Ratings and Reviews

While considering to purchase from your brand, many individuals compare you to other companies/competitors. Your ratings and reviews in other channels, social media, and websites matter because consumers can see them and are often affected by the general opinion.

This said, it’s extremely vital to reach buyer personas that will be engaged with your content and abstain from targeting broader audiences which could cause significant rating drops. Moreover, we suggest showing your ratings and reviews on your website and asking consumers to rate your brand or give feedback through inbound marketing practices.

Speak Through Use Cases

The easiest way to show someone they can trust you is by showing them what you’ve already done. Speaking through your work achievements helps you appear as a professional in the field, offering real valuable solutions.

Except for gaining consumers trust, presenting your cases and building on what’s already well-known by your audience through personal experience provides consumers with the “added value” they are so desperately looking for nowadays. Just put yourself in their shoes – everyone would rather prefer a brand that’s already proven its expertise.

Have a Cause and Practice Your Values

People have access to more information than ever before. Almost everything can be found online. Your every action (or inaction) is viewable to the public eye and will be surely noted. However, keep in mind that every person is different and views things through their own prism.

This is why companies need to practice diversity and acceptance actively. Many of the most well-known brands had recent issues with this and felt the power of the public when their market value started dropping after their actions became a target of the media.

Some companies have managed to be on top of the wave and in the media spotlight at the same time. Airbnb has banned alt-right users who went to Charlottesville, Virginia for the “Unite the Right” rally.

Sources claimed that a neo-Nazi website organized these people and after checking and validating the information Airbnb decided to act. They banned the profiles of people, denying them the opportunity to find accommodation through the platform. These actions were dignified by the media and vastly supported by the public. When we take into account the fact that the platform removed fees for people offering shelter after natural disasters, Airbnb got a tsunami of ovations.

Due to recent events all around the world, diversity is a major topic in society. Don’t forget to show your values and practice them actively, turn them into causes and build a community!

Personalize Content

The best content you can present users with is one that you’re sure they’d be interested in. One way of doing this is by working with the data about your buyer personas, listening to social media and monitoring the performance of different types of content.

Another helpful way is if you give users the option to select what topics and content they are interested in. This could happen while they’re registering, through a web form on your site, via the newsletter sign-up sections or when you ask users to allow your cookies or push notifications.

This approach helps you deliver personally-tailored content to various specific groups of leads. It helps you build an image of being a valuable source of information that cares about its clients, which in turn, positively affects consumer trust in your brand.

Other helpful tricks for putting important finishing touches on your content are to address the user by name or username if the channel allows it, to abstain from “too formal” writing style in a direct communication (email, chat, tickets), and to always speak through a brand’s employee rather than a single profile for the whole office.

If you want to gain people’s trust, you have to shorten the distance between you and the consumer and show them you care. For example, writing an email from [email protected] could mean that the audience will just ignore it.

Furthermore, even if they open it, you’re clearly demonstrating you do not want to communicate with them, which can affect your image. On the other hand, sending an email from [email protected], addressing the recipient personally, and speaking on a humane language, helps them feel more relaxed and like communicating with a friend.

Establish Real Relationships with Consumers

The key to running a successful business, building and keeping an image, and evolving is to have the audience on your side. To do this, you have to establish a real connection with them. Personalizing content helps you gain consumers trust and appreciation, however, you should also mind the following:

Don’t Ignore Negative Feedback

Feedback is an essential part of the business communication process which helps brands evolve, polish their content, get significant insights into consumers’ needs, and predict potential problems. Many brands think that if they simply ignore negative opinions, a problem will mysteriously disappear.

This idea couldn’t be more wrong, as people talk, they share news and opinions and influence with one another. It just a matter of time until negative feedback starts backfiring and influencers and media start seeing your brand as a problem.

It’s essential to answer to feedback, especially negative ones. If the user is right, be responsible, apologize, work on the issue, assure the proper measures are being taken and try to resolve the problem as fast as possible.

In more drastic cases, it might be a good approach to also offer compensation. If the user is not right to complain, on the other hand, explain the situation to them politely as well as that you’ve done everything possible for your clients. Reduce any chances that your communication could be used against you if goes public (e.g. via the social media).

Make Your Engaged Audience Feel Involved

Communicating with your community is essential. First of all, they’re the people for whom your brand is built; second of all, your leads probably understand your brand and could be an excellent source of fresh ideas and insights about potential problems. It’s vital to ensure you have a way to communicate with your community, e.g. emails, comments under articles and in social media, chat.

Collect the data from clients’ opinions and use it to polish your content strategy and answer to audience needs. Also, make sure you reward people who’ve helped you come up with useful ideas, this will turn them into ambassadors and stimulate other leads to also approach you. This approach will not only help you build trust but will also significantly impact your image and help you build a community that supports you.

Summary

To build trust with consumers you need to understand what they are expecting from you and how they are evaluating brands. You have to use information to polish your content, product, or service, and drive up real results. Focus on using data to create trust-building consumer-tailored experiences.