When people first encounter your brand, there’s often an unconscious question at the top of their minds, “Can I trust you?” Of course, they won’t ask that out loud, but they’ll comb through your content with a skeptical eye to see if they can trust your message. How to grow your customer base is all about trust – especially for your top-of-the-funnel segment.
Thanks to the honest, empathetic content they provided during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, businesses edged out non-governmental organizations, governments, and the media in earning consumers’ trust, as the 2021 Edelman Trust Report showed.
Infographic via the Edelman Trust Index Report
It’s up to you to leverage that trust to grow your company, as Forbes’ Aaron Agius points out. Whether it’s opening a new branch in a new overseas market or finding new market segments, you’re never too big to grow.
If you don’t, you’ll find your company falling behind. Here are five ways to take that consumer confidence and turn it into more customers.
1. Start with Relevance
Get to know your customers if you want to create content relevant to their needs. Of course, you can’t go out and meet all of them, especially if your company is on the large side.
However, you can create buyer personas – personalized portraits of each of your customer segments – that serve as the next best thing. Look at your social media and content analytics to see what the data tells you about your current customers.
Then, put your most creative content teams to work to combine all the demographics, pain points, and interests of each segment to come up with a distinct personality for each persona. Putting a human face on each segment will allow even outsourced content teams to come up with content that your prospects can relate to on both rational and emotional levels.
2. Tailor Your Content to Your Prospects’ Search Intent
People at various stages along their buyer’s journeys have different goals when they search for something online. They might want an answer to a question, compare products, find a particular website, or buy something.
Searching for Information
Unless they’re just curious, their search intent depends on their place along the sales funnel. For example, your top-of-the-funnel segment might search for information on a problem they experience.
They’ll likely ask questions at this point. “What should I do about ‘X’” is a common query at this point. Or, they might just enter “accounting software” into the search box if they’re not satisfied with their current provider.
Content that provides specific, documented information can build trust at this “testing the waters” part of their journey. So, be sure to give them what they need at this stage.
Comparing Products
People at this stage of their search have already determined that they need a particular product or service. They just want to choose the best fit for their needs.
Using side-by-side comparisons are a good choice for these prospects, as are customer testimonies, case studies, and videos that show how your product or service solved problems like the ones they have.
Finding a Webpage
Usually, people looking for a particular site won’t stay on your site very long. However, if your page catches their attention and promises a solution to their problem, they might stay on a while to see if you’re a trustable alternative.
Most likely, what they’re looking for is either a homepage or a particular blog post. These searchers arrive on your page because of a similarity in your company name or the post’s title.
For that reason, it’s a good idea to spruce up your homepage to make sure it conveys what you can do for your prospects. Along those same lines, use a catchy blog title that contains keywords that describe both your topic and what problems you’ll solve. That way, you’ll have the best shot at attracting these accidental visitors.
Getting Ready to Buy
People at the bottom of the sales funnel are ready to pull the trigger on the sale. Including keywords like “buy,” “for sale,” and detailed specifics about the product or service helps your content land at the top of their searches.
Of course, for high-ticket items, you’ll want to clinch the sale with detailed information that demonstrates your company’s mastery of your field. Detailed white papers and how-to videos that demonstrate how easy it will be to use your product often will be all the nudge they need to buy.
3. Use Empathy to Build an Emotional Bond and Grow Your Customer Base
As several studies show, the ability to listen to and show empathy is the fast lane to building trust in others. Additionally, that kind of emotional bond bears fruit in the business realm as well, says a Motista study.
According to their research, customers who have an emotional connection to your brand will, on average:
- Spend 2 times more money
- Have more than 3 times the lifetime value
- Stay with your brand almost two years longer
And, they’ll be 23% more likely to recommend your brand to their friends and colleagues, enlarging your customer base even more. Remember these statistics – and then create content that builds that emotional connection through empathy.
4. Partner with Support Teams for Service-Related Content
Today’s successful content teams don’t stop marketing at the point of sale. Instead, they engage in content collaboration with their customer support teams to provide content that helps your customers get the most use out of your products and services.
Don’t stop with user manuals and assembly instructions. Write blog posts that teach your customers new ways to use your product to build value, how-to videos, and troubleshooting guides. Listen to their feedback on social media and respond to their comments with helpful advice.
5. Incorporate Customer Testimonials and Reviews in Your Content
Research shows that 91% of consumers trust reviews they find online every bit as much as they do recommendations from friends and colleagues. Leverage those reviews in your content to build your customer base and encourage others to contribute to the conversation.
But what if those reviews contain glaring spelling or grammatical errors? Our advice: Keep the original reviews on file but edit them to the extent that they won’t cause the customers who wrote them to feel embarrassed when they see their words in print. Again – use the power of empathy to build customer goodwill.
To implement these five tips, though, you need a content marketing platform that can accommodate remote real-time collaboration, content creation and editing, publication, and analyzing the reach of each piece of content. DivvyHQ can do all that and more.
And, you can try it free with no obligation for 14 days. Start your 14-day free trial today!