How to Build Customer Trust in a World of Scandals

Trust in the world is at an all time low. Time and time again, the public’s trust has been broken by corporations, politicians, celebrities, newspapers, social media, and more.

Scammers and hackers run rampant online, trying to take advantage of anybody they can. It’s becoming harder and harder to build trust, as everyone just expects you want something from them.

Yet, in order to make sales, you need the trust of your customers. Before they’ll pull out their credit cards, they need to feel like your business isn’t going to rip them off. If you can’t build trust with your target market, you won’t make sales.

This is especially true if you are a newer business without a long history to back you up. Gaining the trust of your potential customers isn’t easy, but it’s still possible.

Show You Are Trustworthy

Before you can start building any trust, your business needs to be worthy of that trust. If your plan is to scam or mislead customers into buying a product, then you’ll never build long term trust.

Part of being trustworthy, though, is matching up with your target market’s ideals. If your target market strongly dislikes huge corporations, then you definitely don’t want to come across as a corporation. Instead, you’ll want to give the sense of a small local business.

Do research on what your target market trusts and distrusts. This could include things like general political beliefs, how they were raised, what kinds of businesses and organizations they do business with and more.

By figuring out these beliefs, you can better position your business and marketing to start off on the right foot with them. This can include how they like to be engaged with, what voice you utilize, what style of content to build, and even the design of your website.

Be Real News in a World of “Fake”

“Fake news” has become a major part of our society. Whether it’s from rival political parties fighting or outside countries influencing our opinions, fake news is on everybody’s minds. In fact, many parents worry about how to raise their children in a world of fake news. People are unsure who to trust when getting their news, especially on social media.

Become a bastion of truth, especially when it comes to your industry. Share important news, inform your followers how it impacts them, and don’t just self-promote. The 80-20 rule on social media is more important than ever. If it feels like you are only sharing articles to get sales, people will learn to ignore you.

Get Reviews

Of course you are going to say your product is the best and that your company is trustworthy. Consumers take everything a business says about itself with a grain of salt. But if other people are vouching for you, your credibility shoots way up.

Get reviews on everything your business does. All of your products, your customer service, even your entire business need their own reviews. That way, potential customers can see that not only are your products good, but other aspects of your business are worth giving money to.

Positive reviews can also be a major deciding factor when customers are trying to choose between your competitors and you. More positive reviews, and ones that are well written, can persuade a customer better than anything you can do.

Get Involved in Good Causes

People judge each other off of their actions, and your business is no different. If you take the money you’ve earned from sales and use it to help the world, people will have a better opinion of your business.

The thing is, simply throwing money at a charity and then bragging about it isn’t enough anymore. If anything, it feels like businesses that do this are simply trying to toot their own horn. Instead, try to partner up with your customers to do good.

Some popular ideas include donate profits from a single day of sales to charity or matching donations of customers. By doing this, you help create a bond with customers and hopefully lead to trust and sales from them.

Just be sure that you partner with the right causes for your target market. Partnering with the wrong charity could actually do more harm than good, especially if the cause goes against your ideal customers. For example, you wouldn’t want to donate to the NRA if your target market is against guns.

Constantly Testing New Approaches

Are you building as much trust as possible? Probably not. There are always different tactics to try out, and A/B testing is the best way to find the optimal approach.

By testing out new strategies and approaches, you’ll learn more about your audience and how your business interacts with them. That includes what kind of things earn trust. Different things to experiment with are: writing voice, types of images, design choices, colors, presentation, types of content, and even different products.

Build Trust Every Day

Every day, new people come to your website. They are opportunities to build trust and make sales. Making your business more trustworthy isn’t a one time effort, it needs to become a key part of your marketing strategies.

Instead of focusing on marketing hacks that trick or mislead into higher sales, find ways to gain trust and improve sales at the same time. That includes being a business that can be trusted and showing the public you are a force for good.