Trust us. Although brands may not say those words directly to their customers, there’s a big push today for organisations to earn customer trust. That’s because without it, customer loyalty and retention are at serious risk or even non-existent.
Fortunately, the marketing strategies and tactics you use to convert and connect with your customers can go a long way towards earning and maintaining their trust. Here are five ways to increase brand trust with your marketing:
1. Permission-based marketing.
First and foremost, recognise that you won’t earn trust by sending emails or SMS messages to people who haven’t said they want to hear from you. Permission-based marketing means that your recipients have opted in to receive your email or text messages, making these individuals more responsive to the messages you receive from them. In addition to increasing trust in your brand and improving your marketing performance, permission-based marketing can help you avoid running afoul of the growing body of laws and regulations that govern email and SMS marketing.
2. Subscription management.
Consumers today expect choices now more than ever, and they appreciate and trust the brands that are willing to give them the power of choice. Subscription management is a great way to deliver, allowing email subscribers to choose which emails they receive from an organisation by allowing them to opt in to some types of messages while opting out of receiving others. This can not only improve brand trust by showing you respect customer preferences, it can help cut down on global unsubscribes.
3. Helpful content.
Content marketing is so prevalent today that in some circles it’s now just thought of as marketing. That’s because businesses have found that educating and informing customers is far more impactful than overtly selling to them. When creating content, always step into your customers’ shoes. What keeps them up at night? What will help them do their jobs better? What do they want to learn? By developing content around those questions, your brand becomes a trusted resource for both potential and existing customers. Sharing knowledge is a powerful and effective way to build trust.
4. Engaging on social.
Put the “social” in “social media” on every social network where your organisation has a presence. Respond to comments, participate in discussions and share posts from others, rather than simply putting your own content out there. This demonstrates that your company is a fully engaged member of a given social platform, which can help drive followers and build trust in your brand.
5. Personalisation.
There’s nothing like a batch and blast, one-size-fits-all email marketing message to make a recipient feel like a brand doesn’t know them at all. Instead, use dynamic content in your emails to personalise for your recipients. From their name to their geographic location to the date they became a customer, you can use the data in your CRM to customise your messages. This helps foster trust in your brand by showing customers that you know them and view them individually, instead of them feeling like just another contact in your database.
ClickDimensions is the leading marketing automation platform for Microsoft Dynamics 365, natively built inside your CRM environment. Our solution brings together email marketing, campaign automation, web intelligence, surveys, web forms and landing pages, social marketing and more to help organisations attract more leads, close more sales and more effectively engage customers – all from the comfort of Dynamics 365.
Find out more by visiting ClickDimensions.