How to Use Content Marketing to Build Trust

One of the goals of content marketing is to constantly provide your customers with educational and relevant content so you can be the go-to resource for their questions on a certain topic.

Consumers are smart. They won’t believe you if you tell them you are fantastic. You need to prove it. How? By being the industry specialist. By building trust.

The beauty of this strategy is that you can establish trust on a small budget by following these key points below. In this example, I provide ideas for content that you can create if you are an online workflow software company.

Be honest and ethical

It’s critical that you work with integrity because you’ll gain satisfied, loyal customers who’ll tell others about you. According to Global Nielsen, a whopping 78% of 26,000 people surveyed said customer recommendations were the biggest influence on making purchasing decisions.

Ideas for content:

• Capture customer feedback on your website.
• Provide links on your site to third-party review websites.
• Ask your customers to post a review. Yes, you risk getting a few negative comments, but if this happens, use this as an opportunity to put things straight and stand by your services. A few, well-handled negative comments amongst many positive comments will build credibility.

Be authentic

To be trusted, you also want to be viewed as genuine. “Authenticity” is a buzzword these days, but for a good reason: people want to buy from people they can relate to, not a staid business.

Ideas for content:

• Tell stories about your software innovation. Was the concept discussed at the pub one evening? Did the idea of helping people manage their processes from anywhere, at any time, hit you at your school reunion?
• Introduce your employees by taking a video of “The geeks at [your business],” and use this opportunity to do something different! Perhaps the director answers the helpline for an hour each day and talks directly to customers, or someone from the team sings opera when performing backups. Create interest. Remember, your video or images need to be good, but not perfect. A simple video can work in your favor and allow your viewers to identify with you or your staff as real people, who answer the phone, love opera and, oh yes, make the most secure and supported workflow software in the country.

Show your expertise

Be the go-to person in your industry. If you answer a customer’s question, it is more likely he will buy from you.

Ideas for content:

• Answer questions on forums, and offer opinions online.
• Solve problems. Think of problems as opportunities to create customer loyalty. If you solve problems quickly, you’ll end up with loyal and happy customers.
• Load plenty of useful and relevant information to your website and social media sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
• Find out what customers are asking, and answer these questions in a free white paper or ebook. Keep it casual, light and conversational.
• Run a poll on your site and write some articles according to the responses.

What other ideas do you have for establishing trust? Tell us in the comments below!