How your target audience sees your brand is critical for your business’s long-term success. Creating and sharing high-quality, industry-specific content is one of the most powerful ways to shape that perception.
A positive, trustworthy brand reputation isn’t merely a way to earn word-of-mouth marketing. It’s also an amazing shortcut toward engaging your prospects. And according to consumer behavior analyses, it’s an essential element of driving sales.
Research suggests that people actively evaluate brand trustworthiness when making shopping decisions. Many won’t even consider buying from a business they don’t find dependable. Almost half are willing to pay a premium to buy from reputable brands.
Plus, shoppers actively compare brands based on trustworthiness. And they almost always choose the business with the better reputation.
There are many practical methods for establishing brand credibility. However, if you’re looking for the biggest bang for your buck, consider doing it with content.
Building trust with industry-specific content is an effective way to position your business as a go-to in your industry. Moreover, it’s a marvelous way to drive conversions and encourage customer loyalty.
This guide will give you easy-to-follow tips for building trust with content. You can implement any or all of these in your existing content marketing strategy. And, with a few personalized tweaks, you can ensure they align with your ideal customers’ idea of what a trustworthy brand should be.
Highlights
- Leverage industry-specific content. Share high-quality, relevant resources. These position your brand as an authority and build audience trust.
- Show transparency and authenticity. Explain your processes, decisions, and brand differentiators to earn consumer confidence.
- Align with the three pillars of trust. Highlight expertise, prioritize customer value, and maintain consistency across all content.
- Incorporate social proof. Use reviews, case studies, and user-generated content . These help you earn credibility and help users with buying decisions.
Employ industry-specific content to demonstrate authenticity and transparency
What makes a robust content marketing strategy that delivers results?
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the best way to drive conversions with industry-specific content is to focus on quality.
Well-written, unique, and genuinely helpful resources help your prospects resolve their pain points. They’re also a great first step toward establishing brand credibility.
Source: edelman.com
Prioritizing quality is an excellent path toward building trust with content. However, it’s not always enough.
Check out Edelman’s latest research above. The organization discovered that being accountable and transparent are some of the best ways for brands to earn consumer trust. Even more so than establishing emotional connections with their target audiences.
With this in mind, use digital content to showcase your brand’s transparency, accountability, and authenticity.
Don’t hesitate to be vocal about key brand differentiators. Explain the how and why behind your solutions. And address the exact ways your brand’s decisions impact your customers.
Check out how Chisos does it in its Controversial Decisions article.
In this resource, the brand explains its untraditional design decisions. In fact, Chisos even goes so far in terms of transparency that it cuts a pair of its cowboy boots in half. This may seem over the top. But, at the end of the day, it’s the best way for the business to explain unique design features and show how they benefit buyers.
Source: chisos.com
Align brand positioning with the three pillars of trust
Is there a science-based method to build trust? According to leadership research, there is.
An entity must possess three characteristics to be considered trustworthy. These include expertise, benevolence, and consistency.
In other words, a brand must demonstrate its expertise. It must demonstrate its willingness to prioritize user satisfaction over profits. And it needs to do these two things consistently. If all three requirements are met, it will earn its target audience’s confidence and can use it to drive conversions.
So, try to align your brand’s reputation with these three elements.
How to prove authority
First and foremost, use your digital content to demonstrate your competence.
Give prospects access to unique industry insights. Share your experience and know-how. And be very straightforward in communicating what value your audience can expect to receive from your brand.
Furthermore, don’t hesitate to highlight your experience when producing trust-building and conversion-driving content.
Check out how DialMyCalls does it.
In their Best Mass Notification Systems post, they include a handy author’s bio, emphasizing that the writer has 15+ years of experience in the industry. Paired with the high-quality advice in the article, this is a great tactic for establishing brand trust. And it’s a super-easy tip you can apply to all of your content pages as well.
Source: dailmycalls.com
How to establish benevolence
Secondly, always prioritize user value.
When building trust with industry-specific content, consider how your resources can benefit your audience. Yes, offering high-quality advice is an excellent way to help potential customers solve pain points. But don’t just limit yourself to this element of the user experience.
Explore additional content marketing tactics to enhance the impact of your resources.
For example, you can optimize for readability. This will make your content more enjoyable and boost comprehension. That’s crucial for nudging consumers toward the bottom stages of the sales funnel.
Use immersive formats like images, videos, and interactive content. These will engage your prospects and allow them to extract more knowledge from your content.
Finally, show that you are more interested in helping readers/viewers than making a profit.
Don’t hesitate to give some of your most valuable resources for free — like Classical Guitar Shed does. This will allow you to earn your audience’s trust. It will help them see your business as an industry authority. Plus, it’s a great way to capture leads you can nurture into customers.
Source: classicalguitarshed.com
How to approach consistency
The final aspect of building trust with content marketing is implementing consistency.
This doesn’t only refer to posting consistency — though that’s essential for branding, too. Instead, think about being predictable in terms of what your audience can expect to receive from your brand.
For instance, always uphold the same quality and editorial standards in all your posts. Use the brand voice your prospects have learned to associate with your business. Or be committed to delivering the latest industry insights to your newsletter subscribers. This is what McKinsey does with its Mind the Gap curated bi-weekly email.
Source: Screenshot provided by the author
Leverage social proof in your content marketing strategy
Incorporating social proof in your digital marketing efforts is one of the best tactics to build trust and drive conversions.
Research suggests that almost all consumers perform at least some pre-purchase research. 93% of buyers say that reviews influence whether they purchase a solution, as stated by PowerReviews.
In fact, positive feedback about a brand or product is so impactful that it ranks higher than price and free shipping in factors that can make or break a sale.
Source: powerreviews.com
So, if you’re interested in building trust with industry-specific content, explore ways to incorporate social proof in your digital marketing strategy.
One easy way to do this is to embed reviews or ratings in your blog posts. However, to take this tactic to the next level, consider producing content around the positive customer experience your brand delivers.
Both case studies and customer stories are a marvelous way to leverage UGC.
For inspiration, check out how Shopify does it in the Case Studies section of its website.
Knowing that proof is essential for SaaS buyers, this brand regularly interviews. It inquires about the positive results they have achieved thanks to Shopify solutions. Secondly, it has them review the tactics they utilized, providing other customers with excellent ideas on how to grow their brands.
Source: shopify.com
Of course, the ideal method to implement this tip for your brand doesn’t have to be a carbon copy of this strategy.
Instead, explore alternative ways to leverage UGC to demonstrate your brand’s positive track record of removing user pain points. Sure, you can use your site’s Blog section to highlight reviews. Social media channels are also great for sharing positive feedback.
Or, you can do what SopranoVillas does and embed a social proof element in the hero section of your homepage.
Source: sopranovillas.com
Harness the power of data
Sometimes, the best way to earn consumer trust isn’t to try and show your brand’s credibility. Instead, it’s to give your audience what they need most at a given moment.
Consider why people go online in the first place. Most often, it’s to find information and learn how to do things.
So, why not help them accomplish that goal quickly and effortlessly? That way, they’ll be bound to form a positive opinion about your business.
Additionally, consider presenting them with valuable data, insights, or research that they can’t collect on their own. This will remove their pain points, but that’s not all. It will also position your business as the ideal answer to their needs.
Check out how Real Estate Skills implements this trust-building content strategy.
This brand recognizes that its target audience requires assistance in increasing real estate sales. So, it presents web visitors with valuable downloadable resources — like the Calculator spreadsheet.
These do a great job of helping Real Estate Skills’s prospects solve their needs. They are high-quality, contributing to the brand’s trustworthy reputation. Finally, they include a lead capture element, which means they play a prominent role in attracting leads into the sales funnel.
Source: realestateskills.com
Invest in post-purchase resources
Building trust is not just about making impressive claims to encourage prospects to convert. Instead, it’s much more about upholding your promises in a way that creates an enjoyable customer experience for all your clients.
Just look at the research on what consumers expect from brands. You’ll find that post-purchase support ranks high among most consumers. It’s no surprise that investing in customer care boosts brand loyalty.
There are many ways to provide the required support. However, remember that today’s consumers don’t mind getting their hands dirty. That’s why investing in self-service resources is a great way to help customers get more out of their purchases.
For inspiration on how to do this, check out BioLite.
This brand includes instructional videos on its blog section, teaching new buyers how to use its products. Notably, the video format makes for a better user experience. It’s also a great tool for maximizing product understanding and information retention. That makes it a genuinely useful example of post-purchase, trust-building content.
Source: bioliteenergy.com
Of course, video content won’t work for all scenarios when providing your audience with post-purchase support. So, don’t hesitate to invest in these resources because you work in a more niche industry.
For example, check out Somewhere. The brand regularly publishes blog posts meant to help customers get more out of their purchases. The Somewhere Onboarding Guide is a splendid example of valuable content meant for the post-purchase stage.
For starters, it provides readers with helpful advice for remote hiring. It also gives specific tips on what to pay attention to when onboarding remote workers. It covers overlooked points like equipment, power grid limitations, phone services, and holidays.
Source: somewhere.com
Engage with readers and followers
Producing and publishing user-oriented content is great for building trust and driving conversions. But, unfortunately, it’s not always enough.
Today’s consumers want brands to prove they genuinely care about their customers. Valuable, personalized, and unique content is an excellent way to achieve this goal. Nonetheless, there’s more you can do to build brand trust.
One excellent tactic is to continue engaging with followers — especially on social media platforms — after publishing a post.
By doing this, you can demonstrate your brand’s dedication to CX. You can help customers solve unaddressed pain points. Moreover, you can use the comments section as a topic research tool to ensure you’re investing in resources that genuinely benefit your target audience.
Check out how Sprinto does it on YouTube.
In the comments section of each video, this brand answers viewers’ questions on the topic. It thanks followers for taking the time to interact with each post. And the brand even welcomes suggestions on how to make its videos more enjoyable, showing that it’s fully committed to delivering value to potential and existing customers.
Source: youtube.com
Highlight brand values
Finally, to enhance your brand’s reputation and drive conversions, consider sharing your organizational values.
Today’s consumers want to support brands whose values align with their beliefs. They’re even willing to spend more with businesses that make ethical and sustainability claims.
So, if your business supports causes or prioritizes ethical practices, be prepared to share these. This tactic will help you build stronger relationships with your customer base and deepen their brand trust. It might even encourage them to choose your solutions over your competitors.
For a great example of this strategy in action, check out Too Good to Go.
In its Blog section, this brand presents readers with tons of valuable tips on how to reduce food waste. The Choco-late blog post, for instance, provides tips on what to look out for to avoid consuming spoiled food. It offers a few simple hacks for preventing food waste at home. It also encourages readers to try out one of its recipes to make the most out of the groceries they already have at home.
Source: toogoodtogo.com
Final Thoughts
There you have it, some of the best ways to use industry-specific content to build trust and drive conversions.
As you can see, incorporating these tips into your content strategy shouldn’t be too difficult. In addition to basing your future posts on these tactics, you can also update existing content with these tricks to guarantee the best possible results.
Ultimately, investing in brand trust always pays off. You shouldn’t expect to see results instantaneously, but a consistently committed approach is guaranteed to pay off. It will benefit your conversion rates as well as your business’ reputation.P.S. Need help creating content that drives conversions? Book an intro call with our team. We create strategies that compound.
