Build Trust to Build Your Business

Do your customers and prospects trust your business? Do they have confidence you will always provide the best products and services? With tight budgets and an uncertain economy, it is more essential than ever for businesses to build trust.

Customers and prospects want to know they can trust you with their needs and problems before they fill out a form on your website, email you, or set up a call.

Brand Trust Must Be Earned

Web content or a social post that illustrates that you and your brand can be trusted partners is not enough. Research shows that it takes 6-12 months (or more!) of solid non-sales marketing and communication to establish your business as a truly trusted partner.

Building trust means sharing case studies and testimonials, offering free consultation, demonstrating support, and highlighting expertise and industry knowledge. This needs to be done in a way that speaks to customers’ and potential customers’ interests and needs. It needs to be done consistently, and for a long time.

Understand How Your Customers Build Trust

Do you make a purchasing decision based on one piece of information? Probably not. And, it’s likely your prospects don’t either.

People need multiple touchpoints with your brand before they even take the step of connecting with you in some way. Make sure your marketing makes it easy for those multiple exposures. Make sure that your messaging builds a clear, consistent picture of your brand.

Make It Easy to Connect When Ready

Building trust takes time, but when prospects are ready make sure that is easy!

I recently wanted to contact a consultant who had nothing better than a generic contact form on their website. No phone, no email. No contact information in their LinkedIn profile either! I decided not to contact them at all.

Be sure a contact name (real person, please), email, and phone number are all easy to find. An online calendar tool is easy for prospects, too. They can pick the date and time that works for them.

Your inbound leads are only as good as your continuous, outbound brand messaging. If your marketing demonstrates every day why businesses should trust you, they will reach out when they need help because they’ve prequalified you from afar.