You want your audiences to have confidence in your brand – that much is essential to having them feel comfortable in selecting you over your competitors. However, how can you cultivate this? After all, it’s going to be something that everyone in your field is working towards in some form or another.
Understanding exactly what it is that leads to customers having confidence in a brand is a good start. That being said, it’s important that you don’t feel as though you’re just ticking boxes – instead, it’s much more important that you’re able to consistently put your own recognizable spin on it.
High-Quality Offerings
There is always a risk of overthinking this topic. You naturally want to get ahead of your competitors, but you might also put yourself in the shoes of a hypothetical customer. What would you want out of a business? You would want positive, helpful communications and a high-quality result that is worth the money that you paid for it. That might be all that it takes, alongside a robust marketing campaign that allows you to become visible to them in the first place. If you’re willing to put a lot of money into your product or service, you might find that customers have little reason to go to your competitors (unless their pricing is something that you can’t compete with).
What goes into making a result of this quality, however? It will likely be a mix between the tools that you use, the way that you structure your workplace and your operations, as well as how you train your staff. Understanding the way that your internal dynamic might impact the overall result that you’re looking for can be paramount to getting the brand perception you’re hoping for.
Testimonials and User Reviews
Why would an audience choose you to begin with, though? You might think that it has something to do with your marketing, and that could be the case. However, many people might not feel inclined to naturally trust your own endorsement. After all, there are so many businesses doing the exact same thing all around them that your marketing might just blur into the background. However, if they’re looking for a business to go to in your particular field, it could be the user reviews of past customers that ultimately sway them.
Knowing how important these reviews are can help you to promote them – asking customers and audiences to leave them on various platforms after their time with you. Even if you feel as though you’d like to keep all of your reviews positive, those with negative elements can ultimately function as another form of feedback – giving you an opportunity to iron out the rough edges for the next customer.
What to Avoid
There will be certain red flags around a business that might have certain customers running for the hills. That’s always worth considering, as it can remind you that while you have room to experiment, large-scale failures might leave a mark in the public eye. One example of this might be a PR disaster, where you come out looking bad or on the wrong side of an issue. In this case, it’s paramount that you think carefully about how to respond – being too hasty to get out there and rectify the problem could lead to a rushed response that does more damage.
Another situation that could harm your brand reputation could be if you suffer a cyberattack or something similar. This might not feel fair, but in an age of customer data, audiences are going to want to choose a brand that they feel is capable of keeping their details safe. Turning your attention to security methods like managed detection and response solutions might help you feel more secure in avoiding this outcome.
Audiences as Brands See Them
Something that can quite easily get lost in this whole discussion is the fact of how audiences might think compared to how businesses can coldly perceive them over time.
As mentioned previously, audiences have so many different businesses vying for their attention all the time, what makes yours so special? Furthermore, why should they listen to what you have to say any more than one of your competitors? You might claim that you have something unique, and maybe that’s true, but without an understanding of the business landscape from the other side, your marketing might come across as hollow and out of touch.
That being said, there is also a risk of being too self-aware – too keen to position yourself as an ally of the people. Let’s not forget that you’re still trying to sell to them, after all. Riding the line here might mean acknowledging the situation but being upfront in why what you have to offer is genuinely worth their time.
