How can you build trust and credibility during a product launch?

Although the article sets the foundations to build a strong value proposition, you also want to build it by following key positioning pillars: 1. It must be relevant to your target audience. There must be a reason why they would want to buy it. Very clear pain points, benefits and use cases (or jobs to be done) that are relevant for your audience and define a problem to solve. 2. It must be differentiated. And this can be from competitive solutions of from the current way things are done (status quo or compensating behavior). 3. It should be credible, not only the value prop or your promise, but you as a provider (why are you someone I should trust to put money). This is a must in mature markets, just desirable in early market products.

Do what you say you will do. Be a person of your word. Integrity matters. When building trust with your audience, you have to deliver what you say you will. Stay within your reality. Do not promise the moon if you do not have the moon to give.

Moderated usability tests are also a great way to validate products AND gain some trust and credibility. I've seen this first-hand with communities of B2B, hard-to-reach buyers. The nice thing about these tests is that you don't need a massive population for statistical significance. You can start with 5 test subjects and get the majority of what you need to optimize your product. The value for product owners AND those test subjects (potential buyers) - this feedback session is more intimate, which makes your participants feel like they contributed to your success. That feedback session leads to relationships which leads to potential business.

What I consider the biggest "low hanging fruit" when it comes to building trust and credibility during a product launch are beta programs or early access programs. You can encourage participants to provide detailed feedback about their experiences with your product during the beta or early access phase. Request permission to use this feedback as testimonials on your website and marketing materials. Authentic, positive testimonials from real users can be powerful. Not to mention showing how you respond to beta feedback and improve the product based on user suggestions plus "building in public" by being transparent about any challenges or issues can build major credibility.

Testimonials, reviews, and ratings from real customers demonstrate the value and quality of your product. Case studies and user-generated content add credibility. Early adopters, beta testers, and influencers can share honest opinions. Surveys and interviews gather feedback, helping address objections and questions.

Depending on how complex your product is, you might want to try different ways. There's no space here for all the types of tests, but they roughly fall into these: - High-ticket: test by pitching to prospective customers or industry experts you know or outreach through your market ecosystem or network. Try to close projects or pilots in highly regulated markets like healthcare or FS. - Low-ticket or Product LedGrowth: test with a landing page or an MVP. I also recommend performing messaging testing using wynter.com to get feedback on your story. All this will help test some hypotheses before you even build a product. If you're in an early market, the best way to go instead of failing fast is to co-build your product with early adopters.

There might be no better way to validate what you say than with a customer's testimonies. Did you produce what you said you would? How has this affected them? Is this result also reproducible? Validate your integrity with customer testimonies.

There are a lot of ways to demonstrate your expertise and authority on our owned channels, like Social Media, blogposts etc. And those are all great and you should look into that. But what demonstrates expertise even more and builds also even more trust, is proofing your expertise at respected places where placements can't be owned or bought: the media. Use Public Relations best practices to get into the media outlets your target groups consume and proof your expertise there. You could offer interviews but also write bylines or guest articles that highlight the key topic(s). You could also give quotes or opinions on current and related topics.

This must be your top 1 marketing task: make your first customers happy and get powerful reviews. The best scenario is to get your customer talking about you and specifically talk about the pains removed and the economic gains or benefits. Also, use this information to build a case study to share across your digital distribution channels. As you move through your ecosystem launching your product, use endorsements and references from other players to drive credibility: - Endorsements by clients to close partners. - Partner endorsements to get on a podcast or on a talk by a consultant or thought leader in your space. - Use all the previous and the customer case for your press release (the last content to launch).

When you engage with your audience, you are growing the relationship. It is this relationship that really matters. If it is all about your sales then your success will be short-lived. Caring about others and producing in service to them is the relationship.