How trust can solve everyday challenges for every business

• How do I maximize my website ranking?

• How do I generate leads for sales?

• People keep leaving the site. How do I increase my conversion rates?

• What’s the best way to improve brand loyalty?

• How do I increase basket sizes?

Well the solution isn’t easy, but it is simple. Building trust with consumers can help you achieve all of these things for your business. There are three key things to remember that can help your marketing strategy and help you ensure you’re headed in the right direction. We’ve listed them here below:

It’s easy to forget customers are human when all you see of them is a sale ID number in your database.

Did you know that marketing communications are responsible for 70% of spam? Personalize your communications and make sure they aren’t lost to the spam folder. Connect with your customers. Give customers something that matters to them.

With reviews and customer data, you can start targeting your communications based on what your customers want and expect. A simple way to do this is to separate your customers into different segments so that you can send them messaging more tailored to their business needs. To take it one step further you can even send them to specific landing pages from those communications. With just a few tweaks on each version of the landing page you’re looking at a customer journey that feels a whole lot more specific to them.

This helps customers feel valued and like they’re a part of your company. It also helps give the impression that your company is shooting to be thoughtful and helpful, instead of just seeming like you’re out for their dollars.

There are some common differentiators when it comes to shopping online, like urgency, convenience, and price.

But there’s one key differentiator that’s missing and can have a huge impact on your business. Reputation. There’s a peer-to-peer social economy online where reviews, comments, and more, all have influence on a buying decision.

Online reputation is a cornerstone of online success. We live in a world where customers can readily check the reputation of a company online. There are a few different reasons why having a trusted reputation is something your business needs to be focused on, but as markets become more saturated and competitive this is a really great way to help your brand stand out and shine.

Online reviews are the middle point of digital and traditional business, where customers meet sellers and talk to other customers about their experience with a particular seller.

It’s this customer validation which creates trustworthiness, transparency and credibility.

If you support a particular sports team, it’s probably because your family told you to, your friends supported them, or because you found some sort of community around this team.

You didn’t just randomly choose a team to support . You were influenced by the people around you. A business can harness this same type of energy through their customers by making them fans of their brand. Embrace transparency, gather feedback from your customers, and leverage that feedback wherever possible. Build a community around your brand and it will help new customers find you.

How a business angles itself is key to success. And this is where your fans are a powerful asset.

Reviews are a great, easy way to help with your reputation. You’re going straight to the source and getting powerful content from your customers. But, as we all know, not all reviews are good.

There are some key factors that affect how customers review your business and if you’re not focusing on each of these factors, chances are you’ll be receiving some pretty negative feedback.

Unique product features help you stand out. Yes, your new features might be easily replicated, but if yours work the best, they’ll be reviewed the best. So it’s important to focus on both innovation and function of use here. If you can find the ideal spot in the middle, it’s going to show in your customer reviews.

Price is actually not as important as it once was. To today’s consumers, quality matters more than price. But it can still be a great differentiator against your competitors, as long as quality doesn’t suffer too much to get you there.

An important thing to remember here is that your reputation actually matters more than your prices. So if you’re thinking low prices can make up for a bad reputation, think again. You’re going to need to put in some work and make sure your brand has a reputation consumers can trust.

Even if you have the best product or price, bad customer service can really damage your reputation (and your business). Statistics show 55% of customers would pay more for high-quality customer service. As we move to a more customer-focused world this may well be the most important differentiator for your brand.

This is an area where it’s really important to be monitoring your customer reviews, because poor service is one of the most common things customers are going to talk about. Staying aware of what your customers are saying about you helps you spot any areas for improvement and repairing them does wonders for your brand.

How people perceive your brand matters - a lot. And reviews are a huge part of brand perception. For many people (particularly your new customers) your reviews will be the first place they get an idea of what your brand is and what they can expect from you.

On the flip side, each new review you receive can alter your brand perception and affect your reputation as a whole. It’s constantly evolving.

This is why it’s so important to always be focused on excellent customer service and always monitoring your customer reviews. By doing these two things you’re ensuring that new customers see a positive brand reputation and that once they have a great experience with you, they’ll leave reviews and help grow that positive brand reputation.

A strategy that focuses on all four of these differentiators is a surefire way to have an excellent brand reputation. You don’t need to lead your competitors in all four of them, of course, but keeping each of them in mind is the only way to build a great brand reputation.

If you'd like to learn more about the importance of online reputation, and how you can make trust your ultimate brand differentiator, watch our video and read our latest whitepaper below: