Marketing: A Matter of Trust

For many, the goal of marketing is ambiguous.

Some believe that it is an essential part of the business and, therefore, that they should just do it because it is what you have to do.

You have to get your name out there after all.

Some might hear influencers talk about how important it is to post and to keep posting,

after all, volume is what we’re after. After all, “there's no such thing as bad publicity.”

More impressions and views must end up as more dollars in the bank, right?

In this article, I will present another view. The view is that the goal of marketing should be to develop trust with your audience.

Rather than only looking for views, or even only looking for sales, marketing is the first step to a lasting relationship.

Here I am arguing that lasting business success is not only built on views, or impressionss, or even sales,

but trust and relationships.

Business success is about the relationships we develop with our customers. When we develop healthy relationships, customers come back and buy from the business again and again.

They tell their friends and family and the reputation of the business spreads by word of mouth.

This word-of-mouth marketing is the most powerful marketing out there, and it all is a function of trust.

The better relationships a company has with its customers and potential customers, the more likely this business is in a healthy profitable position.

So rather than simply seeing marketing as how many views or impressions, or even sales numbers, take a step back and ask,

am I developing a relationship built on trust with my audience?

In some cases, it’s even possible that even if the marketing campaign results in sales, you are sacrificing a short-term sale for a long-term relationship.

Often times, our marketing material is the first contact point with the customer. It is the first time the customer sees us or sees our product.

That is why examining the content from a lens of trust becomes so important.

After creating content, ask

“Is this likely to increase the level of trust with my audience”

We hear the act of "giving value” being preached a lot.

Common advice is to make sure to “give value” to your audience and potential customers in your content.

I believe this is important, but ultimately we must remember why we are doing this.

We are not simply giving value for the sake of it. But by educating or entertaining the prospect we are increasing the levels of trust.

Viewed from this lens, we can restructure our marketing material to maximize the potential for a reciprocal and healthy business relationship.

For example, educational content is commonly used as a way to “give value” to the audience.

This can be a great way to build trust, but we can go one step further.

Rather than simply lecturing to the audience, we can ask

“What can I teach or show them that will not only educate them but also develop higher levels of trust”

By doing so, we may choose a different topic or show our expertise in a different way.

Many times, the audience does not necessarily want to learn everything that you are an expert in, that is part of the reason why they might buy your product or service.

Essentially, what this educational content is doing is showing that you know what you are talking about, and that you are an expert to be trusted.

With this, we can create content that not only teaches but builds our authority on the topics we are so passionate about.

Viewed from this lens, we are structuring our content to create higher levels of trust by both educating and building our authority.

We can apply this analysis not only to our content but to our customer journey.

The customer journey refers to every step from the first impression to the initial purchase and can even include items after the sale.

Simply ask “Does this step increase or decrease the levels of trust” for each portion of the journey.

For example, we can look at the landing page or homepage of our website and analyze it from the lens of trust.

Then we can review our product or service pages and do the same.

Repeating this step all the way to the final purchase.

Now there are many items that go into this analysis that are beyond this short article.

Essentially, each step should add to the overall levels of trust. Then this is reinforced by the product or service itself.

The goal is to maintain a high enough level that the customer will come back for repeat purchases and start a relationship that lasts months to years rather than this single purchase.

We must keep this in mind when creating all future marketing materials. This then becomes the standard that we hold our content and all touchpoints before a purchase.