A Business Guide to Building Credibility with Customers
There are advertisements everywhere. From billboards to buses, even online commercials and soon to infiltrate your mobile phone, the average consumer is constantly besieged. The constant submersion in advertising makes it crucial for marketers to develop strategies that focus on building credibility with customers.
According to a survey conducted by About.com, 84% of respondents felt that brands needed to prove themselves “trustworthy” before they would interact with them. The study identified ten primary trust “elements” that a brand had to have. These included accuracy, expertise and transparency to help building credibility with customers.
Social media represented a great way to build that trust. Instead of promises and offers that came directly from the company, customers wanted to see a significant number of consumer reviews. The survey found that 41% of respondents counted reviews of the company on social networks as contributors to a brand’s credibility. “Likes” also boosted a brand’s credibility, but not as much as recommendations.
Location-based services also added credibility to a company. Seeing “real-world” deals or solutions that were geographically accessible boosted a company’s expertise.
The ideas of building trust and credibility with customers isn’t any new concept, they just have huge potential in social media marketing strategy. It’s the same premise as the customer testimonial, or the value of referrals. Customers are more likely to trust a recommendation from a friend than a company. Even if it is a fellow consumer, peer reviews help boost a company’s credibility, expertise, and trustworthiness. Social media simply provides a multitude of new ways to execute it.
Credibility is one of the most important factors that you can have for your brand. A new type of marketing technique has surfaced as experiential or guerrilla marketing to help your business on building credibility with customers. Experiential marketing aims to give the customer an experience rather than send you a one-way message. Experiential marketing lets you interact with the product and associate your immediate emotional responses with that brand.
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