03 May Focus on Trust, Not Product Pushing

Gone are the days where you can pump out traditional ads to sell products and services. Why? Consumers can now get as much information as they need online, which is making them more informed and reluctant to trust sales tactics. According to a recent Hubspot survey, only 3% of people said they consider salespeople and marketers as trustworthy. They considered salespeople and marketers only 2% more trustworthy than a car salesman or politician – ouch!

As marketers and sales professionals, how do we reach the millennials and reluctant consumers? We build trust through content. People want to know your company and feel like your company is a trusted expert.

Think of it this way: Max isn’t really thinking of a vacation anytime soon, but he’s into travel and reading about cool places to see. When he’s online, he’s always getting ads for cheap vacations, airfare, hotels, and other services trying to sell to him, which he often just glazes over. While looking up ideas for the weekend, he stumbles across Expedia’s travel blog. He reads about popular poutine places, small-town getaways, and even some cool places in Mexico that look super fun. He follows them on Instagram and Facebook, commenting on posts and interacting with the brand and their audience. When it’s time for spring break, it’s a no brainer for Max – he saw a sponsored post about Spring Break from Expedia and heads over to the site to book his all-inclusive trip for him and his buddies.

Yes, Expedia sends newsletters and has ads for their products as well, but they use a content strategy to complement their sales tactics. Once their ads hit the eyes of their target market, chances are most of their audience already has a positive relationship with the brand. You can achieve this too with a strong, thought-out content strategy.

How To Build Trust Through Content

One: Write about what your audience wants to know about

Be an expert. Sephora wouldn’t be as popular as they are now if they wrote about fitness and dating – they write about makeup, hair, skincare, and beauty. Know your niche and own it. People want authenticity.

This also means you excel where you’re the strongest and work to build your brand within your niche. Once you’re established, you can go to the next level by partnering with other bloggers in your niche or influencers on social media to expand your reach.

Two: Longer is better

Quality is better than quantity when it comes to content. People want to read a good, thought-out post over something short and snappy. Plus, Google likes ranking longer articles over short snippets, making longer posts better for SEO.

When writing a long post, lists do extremely well – they’re sharable and easy to read. If you’re not writing a list, make sure to break your text up with useful headers for those readers who like to skim.

Three: Analyze what works

When you first start out, try a bit of everything when it comes to content. Examples of content you can try are:

• How-to articles
• Industry insights
• Case studies
• Sneak peaks & releases
• Interviews

Every month, check your Google Analytics or whatever measurement tool you have in place for your content and cross-check it with your social media analytics. What articles perform well with your audience? If it’s a how-to article, now you know to try and do more of those. Insights are everything in digital marketing, so use them to your advantage and don’t spend your time writing articles people don’t want to read!

 The Bottom Line

Building trust with your audience is going to take time, so create a plan and start working on a content strategy to complement your other digital marketing efforts. Content is the backbone of any great marketing, so invest in it. Once you have that foundation, you’ll have a network of active listeners who will move from an audience to customers.

Want to learn more about how content can help build trust for your business, visit our website DalliDigital.com

Written by Brad Dalli

Founder and CEO of Dalli Digital