Building bridges: How to build trust in business

The importance of brand trust: What is brand trust?

Brand trust means that customers see the brand as a believable partner. Yes, the brand needs to and wants to make money, but the customer trusts it. The customer sees the brand as:

• doing what’s best for them
• making good decisions that keep the customer top of mind
• offering something of value
• honorable
• believable

Building and keeping brand trust helps companies build relationships with their customers for the long term. But, of course, trust is earned.

The good news is that companies – including marketing teams – can prioritize and continuously work on brand trust. That includes:

• content that consumers see about your brand – everything from email marketing to advertising to blog posts
• the decision-making process – how easy (or hard) is buying from you?
• every touch point with the brand, including customer service, the digital experience, and everything in-between

The role of content to build trust in business

Quality, valuable, and relevant content plays a tremendous role in helping companies build trust. Ashley Guttuso – marketer, strategist, and trust builder – joins me on this live “The Business Storytelling Show” recording to discuss how content builds trust.

The use of reception marketing

RJ Licata, senior marketing director at Terakeet, joined me on this live recording of “The Business Storytelling Show” to give us the scoop. You can listen to the podcast version here. 

Specifically, we discussed the following:

• • What is reception marketing?
  • How can companies use it to build trust?
  • What steps must be taken to start reception marketing and maintain the strategy?
  • And more…

What I appreciated about this discussion is the fact that reception marketing focuses on the consumer. Are they even ready to hear from you? Do they even want to? What message is best for them at this current juncture? Too much marketing is me-me-me focused. It’s about how great and awesome the company is. How the latest feature is going to save the world, etc etc.

And it’s understandable to a degree. Companies are invested in what they are doing. They should feel proud about improving their product or a new offering. But the power of those improvements comes in when they work for the consumer. It’s about when we let them know about them at a time that is good for them.

That can be easier said than done. I know. We work on what we work on, and that’s the centerpiece of our focus. But what really should be the focus is how our actions are relevant to the consumer. Just take this article. I hope it reminds some of us marketers out there about the importance of:

• understanding our consumers
• knowing when and how to reach them
• being helpful and not so pushy
• understanding how the timing of messages matter

Final thoughts

Building trust in business is essential to consider and implement authentically and in a way that drives value to the company and consumer.