In business, trust is everything. Violate this tenent and your business is doomed. Maybe not today, but quite soon. Gaining the trust of a potential customer or client is always a challenge because we live in a skeptical world where the continuous white noise of commerce is everywhere. You must gain their trust or they will never buy any products or service from you. So how can you get those potential clients and customers to trust you right away?
- These days, gaining immediate trust means garnering some heavy duty social proof. If you didn’t know this already, Nielsen recently released some marketing research that found early 85% of people trust what others have to say about a particular company and its products or services.
- Gathering social proof means that you have a direct opportunity to engage with people who do not know you or your brand. Perhaps the oldest, and most treasured, of all social proof marketing is word of mouth. While this may not shut down your server from traffic overload, it does demonstrate to potential customers and clients that others have already engaged with your brand and have found you to be reliable and trustworthy.
- Another more reliable way to boost you social proof marketing is through the use of testimonials. Too many small businesses try and rely on social media influencers to provide them with testimonials. This can be an enormous waste of both time and resources when you likely have more than a few current customers or clients who would be more than happy to provide testimonials. Written testimonials are great but video testimonials are even more effective. With video, potential clients get to see real people talking directly to them about their experiences with you and your business.
- Next you can gather up social proof from your social media platforms and from having what is known as authority proof. Your social media proof are your likes and your positive comments as well as the amount of traffic your social media platforms are driving to your site. Your authority proof comes from those organizations and businesses that are well known and have plenty of established clout. When they endorse you, it is an immediate sign of legitimacy and trust.
- Finally, nothing really works better than a well researched and constructed case history. A case history can immediately demonstrate to potential clients and customers that you have helped others in similar situations with specific remedies that demonstrated measurable results over time.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer