Building Trust

For all its benefits, the internet poses a particular challenge when it comes to selling. Because your customers can’t walk into your store or office and see you face to face, it’s much more difficult to build a sense of trust. People need to feel comfortable (and emotionally connected!) with your product, and simply put, computers are impersonal.

So, how do you build trust with someone you’ve never met? Credibility. Establishing credibility in your sales message is critical to putting buyers at ease. And this is not about proving you’re legitimate or not some internet scam artist – it’s showing prospects that you can deliver what you promise. Credibility comes in many forms, and you simply cannot add enough examples of it into your sales message. The more the better.

Where does credibility come from? First, it comes from other people. More importantly, real credibility comes from people with whom your prospect can easily relate. Use success stories and testimonials liberally in your sales copy. Tell the stories of all the people that have benefited from your product and how happy they are they came to your website and how much they value your product. You can use blocks of testimonials throughout your copy to break up the message, or run them along the side of the page, or place a series of them at the end. But if you have them (real ones!), use them. With success stories, you might be able to weave a particularly good story about one of your former customers directly into the sales message. If that story strongly represents either the typical profile of your prospects or the big idea of your sales message, 3rd person success stories can be a powerful and effective method of “telling the story” of your product.

Secondly, credibility comes from the media. That is, if you know of newspaper/magazine articles, TV shows, academic or scientific reports, or any other factoids or public media references that support your claims, use them to provide specific support in your sales copy. Quotes from industry experts, graphs and charts, and statistics are effective ways of building credibility. And these references do not have to be directly related to your product – rather, these references might be used to make a certain figure more definite (“plenty of folks” versus “67% of respondents to a CNN poll” – which is more credible?), even if that figure or fact is only a small part of your overall sales message.

Lastly, credibility can come from your track record. Remember, the internet and its users are hyper-sensitive to credibility (for good reason). Take every chance to prove your reputation. It’s enough to say that you’ve been in business for years, or that you were in this business offline before bringing it to the internet. If you’re selling information, talk about how many people use and benefit from it already. Think for a moment about investment newsletters – what’s the first thing people want to know about those? That’s right. What’s your track record? It’s important, and not just for stock market tips. If you belong to your local chamber of commerce or a professional association, make sure that’s indicated somewhere on your website. Any way you can, show your track record -- not just of success, but your track record of taking care of your customers.

Credibility equals trust. Use testimonials, specific examples, 3rd person success stories, media references, and track record to establish solid, lasting credibility for a complete sales message.



Patrick Malcor is a freelance copywriter specializing in direct response marketing. “Trust” is part of his unique B-E-S-T system for developing effective copy. To view the full report on B-E-S-T see:
http://www.free-web-copy.com