How to increase brand trust: 9 steps to success
As many entrepreneurs know, trust is the best currency. Attracting a new customer is almost always more expensive than retaining an old one. In addition, it is the trust in the brand that ensures sales in the long term, increases the average bill and attracts new customers from the circle of relatives and friends. How to build a trusting relationship with a potential client and strengthen a positive attitude towards the company among existing ones? Let's figure it out in this article.
Find out what people are saying about you
Work off the negativity
Create a testimonial wave
Get Media Support
Invite friends of your buyers
Display product
Offer guarantees
Offer Trial
Remove objections
Before you start working with the formation of the right image of the company, it is worth determining the starting point. The easiest and most obvious way is to simply google the brand name, which is exactly what potential buyers will do when they first encounter the brand. It is in the interests of the company that your site appears in the first lines of the search. So you will become the main source of information about yourself. To do this, you need to optimize the pages of the site, put down the necessary key queries there and, of course, prepare the information. If you don't have a website yet, now is the time to create one. Use the right Ucraft template and you'll have a website up and running in less than a day.
Do not be lazy and check reviews on specialized sites. These include: Irecommend, Otzovik, 2Gis. This analysis will not only allow you to get acquainted with the client's opinion about the brand, but also determine the strengths and weaknesses of your product. And when they are defined, refine them. Trust is not an inflatable bubble, it is impossible to deceive customers for a long time, and this has already been proven by many companies. The basis of the location of the audience is, first of all, a quality product. Secondly, good marketing.
Another place to look during your analysis is Google reviews. If you have issued a card for your company in Google Business , whether you like it or not, reviews will appear there. And it will be better if you are aware of the opinions.
In order not to miss any mention of your company, you can set up the Google Alerts alert system . She will track the name of the specified brand in social networks, look for links to your site. You can also add competitors there. Google Alerts can track mentions on a specific site or across the web, notifications can come to you immediately, once a day or weekly. The service has various additional options that will help you customize the notification system for yourself.
Okay, let's assume an opinion about the company you learned, what to do next?
If, when reading reviews, you see only praise and gratitude from customers - well, congratulations, it looks like you are making a really good product. In this case, you should thank your customers for their loyalty, if the marketing plan allows - you can even offer them a discount on their next purchase. This will work well for the loyalty of existing customers, and for everyone else who sees your gesture. Few of the brands in the CIS market really work with reviews with high quality, so this will allow you to stand out from the others.
However, most often the company has negative reviews. These can be both real messages from your customers, and the intrigues of competitors. In any of the cases, when working with negativity, you should be as delicate as possible and stick to the essence of the matter, not immerse yourself in emotions. Express regret about the situation, this is a must. Then it is worth clarifying the order data - this way you will demonstrate a business approach. The owner of a fake review is unlikely to give you false information, as you can quickly expose him to clean water. The most likely outcome is that he will leave your comment unnoticed. But when third-party users see this situation, it will be obvious to them that you were trying to figure it out and resolve the conflict. At the same time, if this is a real review, then the client is most likely will provide data on the order and then you can resolve the issue and remove the negative. In addition, you can monitor the comments of competitors and draw conclusions or even offer your services, and not necessarily on behalf of the company.
If you do not want to leave the reins of your reputation purely in the hands of customers, you can contribute to the appearance of reviews about the company. For example, Ali has created testers for its products. Many users register there for free products. Ali sends out samples and a prerequisite for the work of the tester is feedback on social networks. It’s up to you to decide how morally correct this approach is, but it works: on the one hand, the company receives feedback on the product, on the other hand, it builds up its reputation. You can use simpler ways to generate reviews, such as simply putting a call for it in the box with the product, or offering a discount in exchange for the next purchase.
There are also reputation management agencies that offer testimonial creation. Although often fake reviews are visible and it is better to rely on a real consumer.
The 2023 marketing trend is micro-influencers . Agree with bloggers with a small audience about cooperation on barter and send them your product. Now everyone is already tired of millionaires and does not trust their advertising, but local small bloggers are willingly believed. A review or feedback from such an influencer will work more precisely, and will cost almost nothing. This approach is especially good if you still have a new brand and you are just starting to promote it. In fact, you will be on an equal footing, close and understandable to the audience of this blogger, since both he and you are a small business.
Another good way to build your reputation is by publishing in the media. Before you start working in this direction, you should carefully work out the portrait of the target audience and choose the site accordingly.
In order to be published in magazines, you need either a newsbreak or partner material. Newsletter - some interesting news that is relevant for the publication you are interested in. It can be an innovation, a case or a bright everyday story that happened in connection with the work of the company. It is important to understand that if you plan to publish material for free, then the news must be clickable. The magazine should get its benefit through a large number of views. So when you are putting together your proposal for the media, ask yourself what the publication will get from publishing an article or news about my company. A good option if you have a certain expertise and can comment on behalf of the company in the article. This will perfectly emphasize the level of your product, and help the journalist to make a better material.
Affiliate publishing is an easier way to gain media support and build brand reputation. In this case, you pay for the services of a publishing house, an advertising campaign concept is developed for your brand and material is prepared. In the contract, you can specify key performance indicators, most often, this is the number of transitions.
No matter how good your brand is, people will still be more willing to trust their friends than you. Use this to your advantage and create additional sales by attracting an intimate circle of your customers. This is easier to do than it seems at first glance. If you are selling any service or educational product, make the price for two lower than for one.
Another option is to invest in building a community around your brand. For example, you create a closed club that you can get into only by becoming a buyer. And inside the club you offer various bonuses, discounts and great deals for its members and its friends. This way you can unobtrusively spread the news about your product and engage your close circles of customers.
If we have more or less figured out the interaction with the outside world, then it is time to discuss ways to create trust through the company's processes. And the first step is to show the product in person. Provide lots of images, post the creation process, add photos of happy users with your product. Now the focus is on video content, so it would be useful to record a video about this product. Even if it looks a little amateurish, it will be enough to create the right impression of the product and show your openness. Feel free to talk about quality aspects, where you buy raw materials, how you monitor production levels. With this approach, you do not have to puzzle over how to interest the client. If you are passionate about your product, your audience will be able to get excited with you too.
People like what they understand and what they can present. It is impossible to build trust in a product in the face of uncertainty, so make your product as clear as possible for the audience.
An easy way to increase trust is to reduce the risk of choice. Offer your audience a 100% money back guarantee. For most physical goods, this rule also applies: the buyer can return the unused item within 14 days. Apply this to your marketing strategy by showing confidence in the product. This approach also applies to information products: many coaches guarantee a full refund within the first week if the program does not meet the student's expectations. This is a good way to prevent negativity and peacefully break up with a disgruntled client. In practice, it is extremely rare for students to return money for a course.
Some brands provide a lifetime warranty on their products. For example, the Pollar Bottle company produces drinking bottles, and if one of them cracks, breaks, or something else happens, the company is ready to replace it with a new version. The same approach is taken by the company Victorinox, which is engaged in the manufacture of knives. Their website states that if their products break, rust or crack, the brand will replace the product for free. And this warranty is also lifetime. If you are so confident in your product, then the buyer certainly has nothing to fear.
A trial period is a great way to build trust for technology products. The optimal demo version period is from 3 to 7 days. This is enough to get acquainted with the product, but not enough to get fed up with it. If you are afraid of losing customers in such a short time, then you can offer a demo version for a full VIP package of services, and then leave the free version by default. To some extent, it also works like a demo, building loyalty and fueling interest in the product.
This technique is actively used by the IVI online cinema, offering users to watch movies for free for 14 days for only 1 ruble. Taking an example from them, you can set up automatic debiting of funds and renewal of the tariff, provided that the user does not cancel it himself. In fact, most users forget about it and pay for the service. Although, of course, I would like to hope that your audience will stay with you after the demo period of their own free will.
Sometimes distrust of a product is justified not by the mistakes of the brand itself, but by the peculiarities of the niche. People may have negative attitudes about your products. For example, if you organize exotic tours, then you will have to face objections that it may not be safe. In this case, we advise you to turn to content marketing. Start a blog on your site and talk in detail about your product and fight off objections. Try to work from different sides: from the side of the company, from the side of the client, from the side of an expert. Use emotional and rational arguments.
The same technique is relevant for companies that offer an innovative product. Everything new is scary, it is an evolutionary mechanism that we inherited from our ancestors. In this situation, a blog in which you will fight off objections is similarly suitable. If you, as a company manager, are also the face of the brand, it is a good idea to use your social networks to talk about the product. There, in an informal atmosphere, you will be able to answer all the questions of the audience.
As you can see, there are many ways to build trust. In our article, you have found both paid and free options. However, do not forget that the primary task is to make a good product for people. It is impossible to build trust on poor quality products or deceit. But having already created a solid foundation for trust, it is worth resorting to PR. It is hoped that the product will learn on their own. And so it will happen, but it will take much longer. So, building trust in a product should be done step by step, by managing processes every day.