4 Ways Content Marketing Helps to Build Trust With Your Audience

There’s a lot to be said for the power of our emotions and gut instinct. It’s why in business, face-to-face meetings are powerful––allowing us to scope each other out and form opinions on whether we trust each other or not.

Content marketing gives your business that chance to connect with clients on an emotional level––but in digital form. Here’s how to build trust with your audience. Because trust will boost your sales, increase revenue and drive customer loyalty.

What Is Content Marketing?

Put simply, content marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on creating valuable online content and sharing it with your customers.

Written or in video or infographic form, you aim to strategically attract and retain customers by consistently delivering valuable content to them. Effective content marketing offers solutions to pain points, carves you out as experts in your field, and helps your audience see you as a trusted brand with whom they feel an affinity.

Content marketing feeds your social media calendar, offers valuable SEO opportunities, and increases brand trust.

Why Is Brand Trust Important?

Have you ever stopped before signing on the dotted line because a little voice inside is telling you to be wary? You’re not the only one. No product in the world will succeed without customer trust, and trust is earned, not given.

Trust increases sales, closes deals, and boosts customer retention. 

Making an effort to build relationships doesn’t only boost your bottom line––it helps you stand out from the crowd.

Here are some of the most effective ways to become a trusted brand using content marketing:

1. Offer Value To Your Customers

Letting your customers know they are more than dollar signs will underpin your efforts to build a culture of trust. So steer away from only sending out sales pitches and create useful content with solutions to customer needs. Help your customers feel valued, and they will value you. Some content ideas include:

• How-to guides or instructional materials
• Industry resources, white papers, and thought leadership pieces
• Responses to frequently-asked customer questions
• Comments on industry trends and relevant news stories
• Product reviews
• Interviews with brand ambassadors

2. Make Your Content Accessible

Don’t hide your hard work away. Make sure your customers know you are ready and available to help them by making your content easily accessible on your website, through social media channels, and in your email communications. You want customers to be able to find the answers to their questions and gain an affinity for your brand––even outside office hours––so share links to relevant content at all stages of the customer journey.

3. Be Up To Date

Know the latest industry trends and have your finger on the pulse. Keeping your content fresh, relevant, and up-to-date is useful to your customers and helps portray you as the go-to experts in your field.

Outdated resources aren’t helpful for your audience and can even damage the trust you’ve worked hard to build through your content marketing strategy. If you have blog posts that don’t need an update, marking them with a review date can help your customers know the resources are still relevant.

Content marketing helps you show rather than tell customers they can trust you.

4. Be Authentic In Your Target Audience Marketing

In real life, we inherently trust people who are being their authentic selves over somebody who we think might be hiding something. The same applies to your brand. So, share your values and personality when you communicate with your target audience. Here’s how:

• Develop your brand voice––decide which attributes define your brand, and ensure all content in your target audience marketing strategy aligns with it. If in doubt, leave it out.
• Don’t be afraid to speak out on issues your brand cares about. But consider your audience and where their passions and interests lie too.
• Be responsive and engage with your audience. This is particularly relevant on social media.

Using content marketing to build brand trust will ultimately boost your business’s bottom line. But only if your content offers value to your audience and is accessible, relevant, and authentically you.

Do you need help becoming a trusted brand? Contact us!