Today we’re discussing the significance of brand trust. The majority of businesses are trustworthy, but even still, the amount of newsworthy data breaches across the globe has significantly impacted that trust, adding even more challenges to marketing teams working toward their CX goals.
The main issue here is that expectations on are the rise, making it tough for brands to keep up with personalized demands when customers are scared to share information.
There’s a bit of a dark side to personalization, where companies have exploited their customers’ personal information and found themselves in the surveillance capitalism bucket we’ve warned you about. Such misuse has made consumers more cautious when faced with sharing personal information online, and rightfully so. This is why laws like CCPA and GDPR have been put in place, but that’s another story for another time.
So, how do you build trust? You tell your story the right way.
Marketing your trustworthiness through transparency
The hard truth? It turns out many brands are just not as good at providing experiences as they think they are. If they were as good as they believed, there wouldn’t be so much confusion, discomfort, and distrust within the market. Yes, we know we mentioned the ways distrust mainly come from the notoriety of public security breaches, but this has only made the consumer more cautious. They’re pickier and once they find a brand they can trust, they remain loyal. That’s good news for you.
Trustworthiness is often synonymous with transparency. Brands that demonstrate values and relevance do not face the same challenges as businesses that do not.
For example, The reason we’re seeing successful brands focus so heavily on values is that the market is savvier and people, especially Millennials and Gen Z’ers consumers/influencers, have higher expectations.
Those Millenials and Gen Z’ers have either grown up with tech or were the first ones to jump on the bandwagon.
- They want to invest in the right companies that value consumers and respect employees.
- Are concerned with the environment, human and animal rights,
- Demand privacy and will not settle for less.
Brands need to amplify their story to build a following because the old tactics just don’t work anymore. According to the MediaKIX survey, Millennials have a 12-second attention span compared to Gen Z’s 8 seconds and 51% of Gen Z has installed adblocking on their computers.
The emphasis here should be on your origin story and values. Consumers are likely unaware that you began as a startup or provide employees with yearly bonuses and extra vacation days. They don’t know that your product is “green” or that their information is completely secure and collected strictly for CX purposes. But they should. These are the items that stand out. If you have company goals and values, now is the time to share them.
Technology gaps are undermining your marketing team
If you’re sharing your story and values and still not seeing results, it’s likely that you’re suffering from a technology gap. This, sadly, is a major obstacle many companies struggle with.
Let’s face it, 2020 was tough and 2021 is interesting. The digital transformation has been accelerated, and there’s no going back. The issue we’re seeing as a technology agency is this fight or flight attitude; businesses are confused and unsure how to move forward, so they either freeze in fear or refuse to acclimate to the times and pursue higher technological investment to advancement.
Side note: Having a tech platform isn’t enough if you don’t know how to leverage it properly. It’s like having keys that only unlock half of the doors in your house. It takes the right partner to unlock that potential.
Trust is earned not bought
Social Reassurance – Another important strategy that can be a powerful tool if executed properly, social reassurance helps ease customer concerns by giving them options for how they interact with your brand while given insight into how others are doing the same. Providing options such as visibility into data sharing, customer testimonials, and user-generated thought partnership content can help address this area.
Gartner on Branding and Value Proposition in Digital Marketing
Customers are moving beyond transactional relationships and it’s important that the data you’ve collected is used to build empathy to confidently impact these relationships to drive growth. According to Gartner, the top 10 companies in the empathy index make the most money. It’s not enough to understand your consumer’s wants, you need to be able to predict what they want next. You need to stay relevant and be resilient in order to succeed in today’s economy.
The Edelman Trust Barometer 2020 review surveyed over 2M respondents and produced research that proved the ways trust is “essential for future success”. It is their dollar, after all, and with the number of options available, there is no reason to settle for anything less than the best service/product and trustworthy brand on the market.
Whether a purchase is big or small, technology has made people savvier consumers and it’s likely that a lot of research went into their final transactional decision. Oddly enough, that research probably has little to do with your actual service or product and more to do with your company as a whole; transparency, overall customer experience, and ethics.
The Edelman 2020 report shows 24% of consumers care about a brand’s competency, while 76% find a company’s ethics to be the catalyst to brand trust.
Common values = trust
The reason we’re seeing an uptick in customer values and a major decline/profit loss with bigger known brands in 2020 is due to their lack of transparency, which eludes to a reason for distrust. The way technology has created visibility when it comes to product choice and what brands are doing with customer data, has allowed consumers the opportunity to invest in brands that share their values.
The battle for truth is a symptom of a system that was broken; where marketing and advertising relied on loud headlines and celebrity endorsements. Today we see consumers wanting to buy products from real people who support real causes.
Final thoughts
You cannot manufacture trust or empathy, it must be constructed from a place of authenticity. This is done through personalization and storytelling via the right channels and technical platforms.
If you’re struggling with your strategy, Content Bloom is offering a free consultation with our technology experts. Contact us today to learn more.
