Podcast

Building Trust with a potential customer is the one piece of the jigsaw that can switch them from making that purchase, to moving on to a competitor. It's also the one thing that is the hardest to achieve as it forms the emotive part of the marketing funnel – which makes it difficult to measure or quantify.

So how do you go about creating trust factors in your marketing or sales process, and what are the best trust building tactics to use?

Back in the day, when people actually went to shops and services were found in the yellow pages, the majority of "everyday business" happened through referrals or word of mouth. Some of this was supported by print, radio and TV advertising, and that was that.

But in todays world, we can buy almost anything we want from the comfort of our own home. We don't need to talk to people or do our due diligence and research. All of a sudden this responsibility has fallen to the marketer, rather than the consumer.

Also, it has never been easier to compare products, services or even entire companies than it is today. And in doing so, potential customers often feel like armchair experts and don't necessarily realise that they might not be comparing things like for like.

It is therefore of paramount importance that as businesses, we build trust factors into our marketing to reintroduce the personal and bring clarity back tot he potential customer that YOU are the right solution to them.

Roger Edwards has a brilliant talk on this – explaining how essentially marketing is broken, expect when it's done with integrity and a deep understanding of this customer. https://youtu.be/LZO0uQgJiRA

These are values you should carry through all of your marketing communications anyway, but HOW do you include them in your sales process.

People are armchair critics – outlining the scope of your products or services clearly, stating what they DO and DON'T do, is a great technique for setting these expectations and allowing the customer to make a properly informed decision.

If you're good at what you do, you will have done it well for someone else, right? Using case studies and testimonials shows that people have trusted you in the past, AND that you have delivered the results your potential customer expects. Case Studies are one of the most underused tactics in marketing today – you've already done the hard work once, now let it speak for itself!

For every positive result, there is a horror story somewhere else, and the ease of search makes them easy to find. Being open and honest about who you are, where and how you work, how many people are on your team etc, and linking that with the awesome results you deliver, circumnavigates any fears about dodgy outsourcing, or "profit and scarper" business deliverables.

Allowing people to communicate with you in the way that feels most comfortable to them overcomes huge barriers really instantly. Maybe thats having a live chat function on your website, or a clear way to open a message in Facebook Messenger. Whatever you can do to allow people to feel comfortable and show that you're responsive is beneficial to them.

Once you've lead a person to the point of making a purchase or an enquiry, allow them to do just that – don't then start bombarding them with popups or alternative information. Once they're ready to move, allow them to move quickly.