How to build trust (and sell more)?

Here is a list of ways you can build trust between you and your customer (or anyone you want to build a relationship with e.g. investors, partners, staff etc).

Value Proposition: A succinct and engaging brand story for any circumstance. Keep it short and sweet explaining the offer, the wow factor and why your customer should care.

Team Page: This should include photos and links to twitter/linkedin to give a little background of the team behind the brand.

Contact Details: Include an address, phone number, email, social links and map to show your company is professional and real!

Social Media: Links and feeds for Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Facebook and any other relevant network to show the community you are part of and to give your audience different ways to connect.

Fact Sheets: Provided downloadable PDFs of key facts so your audience have a ways to review and print the details later.

Mailing List: An easy way for users to stay in touch. Send regular monthly emails to keep your community up to date with news, insights and events they can attend.

Freebies: A good way to build trust is to give away downloadable documents, taster days, breakfasts, tickets to free events, video content etc. Anything that give your customer a taste of your service or product, but not the full core offering.

Guarantee: Possibly allow a 7, 14 or 30 day money back guarantee if you're confident your product will satisfy.

Photography: Photos or your product shot in high definitition are the next best thing to seeing it in real life, so share as much detail as possible.

Chatbox: A chatbox via Intercom.io, drift.com or similar enables quick answers for those who might be interested in making a purchase, but require more information.

Videos: Videos are more popular than ever on the internet, just look at your Facebook feed. Even low quality authentic videos can help build trust and add the human connection.

Statistics: Adding key stats e.g. number of members, growth of business, hours of support, events, sales, impact etc. can help give your audience a quick way to know why they should follow your brand.

Company Logos: From Partners, Suppliers and customers allow your audience to see the kind of network you're in so they can assess if this is the right party for them.

Partnerships: Win win win partnerships with companies that are right for your audience can help you fast track growth. e.g. a branding agency partnering with a web development agency can reach new customers and provide extra support.

Case Studies: Add case studies from happy customers to your brochures and website to show the amazing work you have done. Let your customers sing your praises too!

Awards: Are there any awards, locally or nationally, you can win? Who doesn't love working with or buying from an award winner?

NPS: Has the Net Promoter Score been measured for your organation? If not, check out asknicely.com and start measuring this!

Testimonials: Like case studies, quotes from happy clients and partners can really help show social proof in the great work you do. Everyone likes to see a recommendation from someone they have heard of.

Review Sites: Are their any review sites like Trust Pilot, Google Reviews or TripAdvisor (depending on your industry) that you can collect support on? With many competitors in every sector it's hard to stand out...so reviews and recommendations are one way to help!

Press Coverage: Are there any great stories to come out of Edspace which can be written about and published?

Events: Host seminars, breakfasts, networking drinks, talks and workshops to give your audience a chance to meet you. The world's biggest tech companies do it e.g. Dropbox, Google and Square, so why not you. And if you're struggling for something to say or being the centre of attention is not your thing, then host a social for your sector and you'll get similar results.

Here's an example of how it might all come together on a website landing page.

Thanks for reading this far, hope it was useful.

If you would like to find out more about building trust and selling to customers, come along to my workshops at The British Library...

or visit www.thehouselondon.com